Newbury Community Forum

General Boards => Got something to say? => Topic started by: Number 6 on September 16, 2016, 07:51:21 pm

Title: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on September 16, 2016, 07:51:21 pm
This article makes it crystal clear that our local council is now well beyond it's sell by date with both elected and unelected officials completely out of touch with the responsibilities they are tasked with. In office for far too long they are now completely self serving instead of meeting the needs of the population of West Berkshire. Time to shut down the council and merge it's functions with another. The money saved on infrastructure will be more than enough to maintain services.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19279/council-votes-to-slash-funding-for-short-breaks-for-disabled-children-again.html

Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on September 19, 2016, 10:28:00 pm
I think you are quite right. It matters not what party is in power, it's the machine that's broke. Merging might help, but if we are to keep local government at all, the whole thing needs to be replaced.  Then we might get away from the present insanity of a large number of Councillors presiding over an ever decreasing responsibility.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on September 20, 2016, 01:03:51 pm
Glad we agree Old Goat. I wonder how many more are of the same opinion ? The article linked below perhaps suggests that at least one more does ? Interesting to see that the comment of West Berkshire being 'dodgy' is seen as the problem. To my way of thinking it is the fact that we probably are 'dodgy' that is the real issue.
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19320/row-over-senior-bayer-officer-s-dodgy-newbury-remark.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on September 23, 2016, 02:03:56 pm
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/19356/council-waste-permit-scheme-to-start-on-monday-without-the-permits.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on September 23, 2016, 07:17:39 pm
This is just crass stupidity.  What makes it even worse are that these Councils, along with the Government itself are Conservative controlled - the very people who have been shedding tears and wringing hands because of savage cuts to essential services.  We are now going to spend a substantial substantial sum of money to protect ourselves from a very few Hampshire householders who want to use the dump, simply because local officialdom can't sort out an admin. problem that a couple of old lags could sort in 10 minutes after a couple of pints in the local pub. 
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on September 26, 2016, 12:53:18 pm
And still the gross incompetence goes on. The leadership really does need a complete change. The have been in post too long !

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19362/vital-sandleford-access-roads-will-cost-11m.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on September 26, 2016, 01:23:59 pm
This is now getting beyond a joke. £35K for equipment? Is it gold plated ? At this price it must be top of the range everything and sod the expense. Where is the scrutiny? Our politicos should be ashamed at the abuse under their watch.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19369/west-berkshire-council-considering-80-000-cost-to-webcast-meeting.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on October 10, 2016, 03:00:32 pm
Hot on the heels of all their other attacks on the wellbeing of their public it would seem WBC are determined to find ways to impose more pain on the most vulnerable.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19492/district-s-most-vulnerable-people-could-see-council-tax-support-cut.html

Even those poor aged pensioners who have managed to save just over £6,000 for their funeral costs are now to be penalised for their prudence and aforethought. The solution to WBC's problems are simple and involve taking an axe to the extended layers of management and other unnecessary staff that bloat their expensive properties. The population of West Berkshire deserve better than these self interested and venal clowns.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on October 20, 2016, 12:06:54 pm
Since when have our local council had a remit to be property speculators gambling with our money ?

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19586/council-set-to-invest-millions-in-commercial-property.html

It is now urgent that this bunch of clowns are replaced by something that is fit for purpose.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on October 20, 2016, 02:34:55 pm
I agree, it's a worrying development.  The Council doesn't seem to be too good at managing the day to day work in these contracts no matter how good they seem at the start.  The same thing that's wrong with the Libraries so sags the report consultants recently did. It looks as if the Chief Executives are too busy with other things than basic supervision.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on October 21, 2016, 08:14:55 pm
It looks very much like the council are again responding to central government grant cuts by planning to cut frontline services, whilst generally leaving their establishment costs at much the same level. In case it has escaped their attention this will only leave the bang for bucks ratio even more tilted to bucks  than it already is.  In a nutshell pay more get less. This is totally unacceptable and shows how out of touch with reality they are. We need people with proper business experience of running a large organisation in charge, not small shopkeepers and their acolytes bureaucrats. Change is now vitally urgent if we are not to be fleeced as well as burdened with long term risk.
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19601/council-needs-to-find-a-further-22-4m-in-savings-by-2020.html

Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on October 24, 2016, 09:45:38 pm
Our local councils hit the buffers a few years back.  It really doesn't matter which party is elected, LibDem or Conservative, nothing changes.  So, it's really our fault for voting for the same old faces every time.  Having said that, even if say Labour upped its game, or we had a few real independents, it is difficult to see what they could achieve.  Services are either contracted out or controlled by the government, so I suppose there isn't really anything anyone can do! 
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on October 31, 2016, 02:57:48 pm
And still they believe that charging more and delivering less as part of stealth inflation is acceptable ! This administration is way past it's sell by date with too many long serving managers only in it for their pensions and other perks. Time for a good clear out which means that the politicians have to earn their electorates votes and do the necessary. Start with the chief exec and work down at least three layers. Merge with other authorities and be radical in commissioning services.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19694/council-tax-and-parking-charges-set-to-rise-again.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on November 08, 2016, 11:48:11 am
Not content with blatantly overspending on itself rather than cutting overhead costs the council is now making a determined effort to milk the grants system dry, that many charities rely on, to fund it's profligacy. The park café and the Nature Discovery Centre are two of the latest examples which when combined with excessive parking rate hikes shows that hitting the young ,old and disabled is by no means the full extent of the outrageous practices of the council leadership. It really is time WBC was abolished.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/all-districts/19768/outrage-over-car-parking-charges-hike.html


http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/all-districts/19768/outrage-over-car-parking-charges-hike.


http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/thatcham/19770/thatcham-s-nature-discovery-centre-needs-your-vote.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on November 18, 2016, 07:27:18 pm
So it looks like wide spread profligacy is taking it's toll on every service that we rely on. It really is essential that someone gets a grip on the bloated infrastructures that cause the overspends before we lose all the services that we pay for and are left with just the bloat. It is no use leaving it to those in charge of the services - like Turkeys they will never vote for Christmas. Are you listening Mrs May ?

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19864/nhs-cost-cutting-plans-for-berkshire-west-are-leaked.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on November 20, 2016, 11:58:43 am
Does not go far enough. The only way to clear the rot is to scrap the district council altogether and merge it's functions with a larger one. These proposals will change nothing and are just tinkering at the edges of the problems.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/19877/west-berkshire-council-set-for-major-shake-up.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 07, 2016, 07:17:35 pm
Is this what happens when you spend all of the money you get on yourself rather than the public who need help and intervention? At almost every level WBC is failing in it's delivery of services. How long have the people in charge been allowed to stay in post presiding over this disaster and how much longer do we have to suffer their incompetence ?

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20049/children-at-risk-of-harm-in-west-berkshire-higher-than-average.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 15, 2016, 05:47:24 pm
Needs no further comment from me

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20130/hundreds-to-be-affected-by-changes-to-council-tax-support.html

Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on January 03, 2017, 11:38:04 am
So it has not taken long into the New Year for the council to prove yet again just how grossly incompetent and out of touch with reality it is.  You really have to start wondering what is going on in WBC for such an obviously flawed policy to be pursued ? The leadership have been in place far to long and have obviously run out of talent -or perhaps it's never been there in the first place?

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20237/council-could-give-away-land-to-solve-affordable-homes-issue.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on January 09, 2017, 06:10:42 pm
Do we believe this?. I seem to remember that the Education dept. had a much bigger overspend last year ? Yet here we have a department forecast  £183,000 overspend against a net revenue budget of £9.3m. What has changed - anyone know? Certainly not the leadership.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20270/council-predicting-698-000-overspend.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on January 11, 2017, 12:29:39 pm
More evidence of total incompetence - not that any more is needed !

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20304/developers-appeal-over-delay-to-theale-scheme.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on January 21, 2017, 10:49:47 pm
I wouldn't worry too much.  Local government is dead and the easiest way to demonstrate that, so the last rites can be said is to whip up a perfect storm.  Local Government today has degenerated into a very expensive way to deliver 'services'.  Our present political consensus sees delivery is best and very much cheaper via specalist standalone agencies.  Thus then achieves to aims of HMG; central control of all services and an easy route to eliminate the Barnett formula.  This would leave 'councils' of elected representatives, who would do no more than arbitrate in individual complaints and provide collated comment on local planning proposals. In reality, no more than Joe Average Councillor does today, but without the army of clerks.  As far as we, the paying public are concerned, delivery of service wouldn't change, save being the same nationwide, but it should become cheaper.  Centralised services would provide the demonstrable justification for abolishing the troublesome local community charges and absorbing them into the easier to collect and administer general taxation. 

Newbury isn't the only modern 'rotten borough' there is hardly a good one!  Look at some of the neighbours, Surrey pushing for 15% increase.  Oxfordshire  pushing for Unitary status (!) because it's so much better and less confusing. Unitary WBC pushing to unload to Parish Councils and to consolidate with other Unitaries, because Unitary isn't working properly. 

The unexpected Brexit vote means there is something else to concentrate on just now, but 18 months or so isn't such long time.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on November 27, 2017, 06:40:30 pm
Continuing failure is something that is a given when the same people stay in control year after year. A commercial organisation would have had to refresh it's leadership in such a situation.

https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/22961/west-berkshire-council-needs-to-save-10m-next-year.html
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on December 06, 2017, 06:39:02 pm

This is what the people in West Berkshire voted for and it's exactly what they've got. No one is really complaining and experience says they'll vote the same way next time they get the opportunity.

A few crocodile tears here and there, but that's all.  As for the opposition, it's them behind the vanity projects. 

Why worry; nothing is going to change?
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 06, 2017, 11:31:22 pm
You sound like you have accepted that a decline in everything is inevitable Old Goat ? The fly in the ointment is of course the younger generation who are much more ambitious for themselves and the locality. It really is time for the tired old men and women to move aside as their only interest is the size of their pension pot rather than the wellbeing of the community. The social mobility report condemning West Berkshire illustrates how self serving to a very narrow slice of  the population it has become.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on December 07, 2017, 09:20:34 am
Yes, Newbury's future is out of its hands; it will become simply a commuter dormitory / retirement suburb for Thames Valley.  Nothing wrong with that and it could be quite pleasant. 

In some respects, the collapse (for such as it is) of WBC is an unintended but good consequence of its creation.  Too small a management unit to be economically effective or to attract top flight staff it was necessarily obliged to contract out all of its services. This should make absorbtion into a bigger better 'authority' like Reading so much cheaper and easier. It's almost as if that is deliberate policy!

This would leave the District with its parish level councils.  In reality, these are no more than up market residents associations.  Again, their present bizzare antics mean that leaving them with jobs too small for a properly effective authority to do; swabbing down the WCs, mowing the village green etc.  will have been done - without any imposed external change.

Will it come to that?  Well, it's implicit even in our MPs thinking.  Newbury soon won't even feature as a Magistrates Court. This, one of the bedrock foundations of local governance will be centred on Reading. It was sold as a cost and efficiency change?    In reality, the cost of a physical presence is minimal.  In spite of his huffing and puffing - it's still going!

All we need do, is simply sit back and wait.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 07, 2017, 12:36:30 pm
I rather suspect the net result of such a drift would be that the young will seek their opportunities elsewhere leaving a community of the aged with no-one to look after and sustain them. That's the thing about being young - they vote with their feet.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on December 08, 2017, 06:14:13 pm
Ironic that, because it's actually happening now.  The last demographics I saw, showed that Newbury's age profile dips for age around 20 plus, then grows again about 30 plus before the inevitable drop beyond. I suppose it's obvious, because we've no University level establishment in the vicinity, so Newbury youth inevitably moves away for their degrees.  As we now have few firms in the area offering graduate entry career opportunities, they stay away.  Even Vodafone HO us back in London. A few come back, once they are in established profession and want a family home. Invetiably commuters, or working elsewhere.  Thus fitting the implication of the Vision - commuter dormatory / retirement suburb.  So, do we really need WBC which essentially does little more than manage outsourced service contracts?  It would be much more efficient and so economic to run it all from Reading. 
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 08, 2017, 10:12:12 pm
What we have now is certainly not up to scratch. Swindon, Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke and Winchester all have thriving commercial economies yet West Berkshire seems destined to never reach any such heights. This can only be laid at the door of the council who seem to want, as you say, a territory made in their own image. Time for change for sure, but Reading ? Must be better choices available?
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Old Goat on December 12, 2017, 09:11:00 am
Yes, there are more choices than Reading - that any other option would be better is indictment enough on what we have locally.

I also know there are serious whinges about local government in almost all areas of the UK which suggests the whole thing is ripe for radical reform.  The system that has served us since 1880 is now totally out of line and time expired. 

With today's expectations, you can't combine the operational management of schools, refuse collection, planning, etc. under one head, simply because they service people living in the same geographic location.

Similarly, with modern communications and needs, organising the whole as a big  number of self managed authorities makes little sense.  What other industry is organised in that way?  In service delivery terms at least, the population wants equality; wherever the service is provided. Thus, it's not just 'Men of Kent' wanting Grammar Schools. 

As service delivery in a good many authorities has been devolved to contractors, would it not be far more effective and efficient to do that at a national level, by 'service' stream?  No more arguing about people from Burghfield using Reading's tip. 

Set up properly, this could leave a small local 'council' simply to act as a channel of communication for complaints and guidance and with no other powers or revenue raising authority.  All the money needed would then need to come from national taxation, eliminating at a stroke, the problems associated with 'the rates'.
Title: Re: Time for a radical change in local leadership
Post by: Number 6 on December 12, 2017, 12:52:53 pm
Good to see there is a radical reformist in you Old Goat - I was starting to worry that we had all been sedated by the 'Newbury Vision ' .