Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Big savings needed in Haringey. Where should the savings come from?
Now the party's truly over. I've been talking for a while now about the need for local authorities to save something like 20-25% from their budgets. This evening Panorama took up the theme. It's now out there. For Haringey that'll mean savings of something like £80-100m in savings. That's huge! We're facing the biggest cuts since the 1970s. Handled badly, it will be an emergency.
So what do we think? What would we choose? We can sit back and let the Council take decisions or we can share the responsibility and contribute our views. Probably about as exciting as doing your expenses, but something we should probably be doing.
Here's how Haringey's spending is split right now:
So discuss. For more details on Haringey's finances, see this area on their website.
Some rules. Only constructive discussion allowed. If you want to party-politic or bash the Council, please go to another discussion. I'm opening this discussion for constructive discussion only. Break those rules and ya get nuked!
So what do we think? What would we choose? We can sit back and let the Council take decisions or we can share the responsibility and contribute our views. Probably about as exciting as doing your expenses, but something we should probably be doing.
Here's how Haringey's spending is split right now:
So discuss. For more details on Haringey's finances, see this area on their website.
Some rules. Only constructive discussion allowed. If you want to party-politic or bash the Council, please go to another discussion. I'm opening this discussion for constructive discussion only. Break those rules and ya get nuked!
Tags for Forum Posts: cuts, public spending cuts
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Maddy, just for information, you can take paint to the dump at Tottenham Hale.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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For people who haven't been there, the entrance is in Park View Road N17.
● Map and opening times.
● Photo here.
Although the sign outside doesn't list paint, it is listed on the website.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Here's an update from London Councils highlighting some recent successes and the potential savings to be made from shared projects.
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Permalink Reply by Rachel Fisher on
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Under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, and also a call from our new Government when they were in opposition, for further transparency in local spending a lot more data is now being released.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has put together this website which helps interrogate the data http://www.localspending.communities.gov.uk/
However, one word of caution is that the spending data is a bit old so doesn't necessarily represent current spending.
The Government has also made a number of public statements regarding neighbourhood budgets - I'd suggest a review of their Quality of Life Agenda http://media.conservatives.s3.amazonaws.com/manifesto/cpmanifesto20...
The new Communities and Local Government Minister, Rt Hon. Eric Pickles, is the former leader of Bradford Council and is incredibly keen on making sure that Local Authorities get far more control over how their money is spent.
So if you take all this together - I think that there is a real opportunity to work with Haringey to discuss how money gets spent locally. One of the issues I've been thinking a lot about is how we spend money on things that provide multiple benefits, for example improvements to local green spaces etc.
There was a suggestion that London become a unified waste authority and that was pretty much shot down, but I suspect that it will be raised again given that the Government is going to be giving further powers to the London Mayor as part of their manifesto committments.
I reckon that the benefits of a unified waste authority (including the possiblity that we could use the waste for energy generation, and better/ more consistent recycling facilities) outweigh the costs of doing so. Is waste collection really such a locally specific issue?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Waste companies have been able to lobby local authorities. I will say no more lest my comment is nuked.
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Just thinking about the conversation thread though - and lest we forget some of Michael's thoughts on libraries etc - it's not just the big services that are up for review - the first point of call will be non-statutory services... so every little helps.
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The reasons for waste generation are often quite locally specific, Rachel. As are patterns of who does and doesn't recycle. Liz suggested we need an ethnography of dumping and littering. (I've suggested it's a new field of Ixerology.)
A London-wide organisation may have its appeal - especially if it had the public style and flair of Steve's Berlin Binmen. But a pan-London agency could easily be a lot more plodding and just as expensive. Would it be more accountable? Judging by my experience of trying to get prompt, effective responses from Transport for London, I have my doubts.
Privatisation of waste collection? Some has already happened. Haringey Enterprise is a private company. Consortia of local authorities? North London Waste is a consortium which handles the waste of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest. In 1994 it formed a joint venture company called LondonWaste Ltd, with the private company SITA.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Thanks for this Alan. Really good insight into an area, that is a bit beyond my experience.
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Permalink Reply by rahman on
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I worked in the private and voluntary sectors before taking up employment with the local authority (not Haringey) a couple of years ago. It is my view that the working culture and staff competency (or lack of it!) is what drives inefficiency and excessive spending in local government.
In short, most employees are disillusioned, take their jobs for granted, and do not put in the level of effort that you expect to see as a minimum in private sector environments. The level of training they receive is also pretty abysmal, so they cant entirely be blamed for lack of knowledge and motivation. I know this sounds terrible, and I may be tarring all employees with the same brush, but this is my honest observation as a person who works in local government.
In my opinion, paying higher rates of compensation would attract better staff and we would need fewer of them. We would also see vastly improved performance & efficiency which, by extension, would mean vastly improved cost savings. Investing in training of staff would also help.
Pipe dreams I know, as what I am suggesting is an overhaul of the workforce!
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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I suspect this has some merit. I too have worked in the public sector and had the feeling a significant body of the people working there were simply treading water. These are personal observation, and are skewed by my only personal feelings on work ethic, but I felt a lot of people there were not actually suitable for the position they occupied, nor was there any way to make them so. I would add that the management did not seem to do much to try to affect this- partly because they felt unable to in the large bureaucracy they were stuck in, or that they felt it difficult drive/ support employees towards a more efficient outcome.
If you look at the numbers Hugh puts up front there is no break out of how much of the cost of running this borough is a direct, or indirect personnel cost. I think making direct cuts to programmes is going to be painful, so the key is to get more from the people delivering them.
So, some thoughts:
- A real assessment of how a bureaucracy can work better: Work out how to get a better performance from the people who work in the council, including paying them properly to attract the best.
- Take a long hard look at the hidden costs of things like final salary pension liabilities
- On a different tack, a local tax to raise revenue (as in the US). For example on sweets, crap fried chicken and burgers etc, etc to cover the cost of picking the detritus up after the half wit getting a sugar high has done with it...
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