Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
John Lewis Council v EasyJet council
On one side, we have Barnet which offers a choice of services but for additional payment. On the other, Lambeth that asks citizens for a mutual approach to service delivery in exchange for possible council tax rebates.
On the LGiU blog Laura Wilkes offers some thoughts on the drawbacks of both models
Do either models appeal?
On the LGiU blog Laura Wilkes offers some thoughts on the drawbacks of both models
Do either models appeal?
Tags for Forum Posts: mutalism
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by james walsh on
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Question:
Of interest to HOL, the 'easycouncil' model would incorporate the facility of 'paying to jump the queue' with regard building planning applications being processed. With so many of the posts on HOL related to planning permission issues what do folk here think.
is it :
A. good.
B. bad.
That you would be able to pay to 'fast track' your planning application process ?
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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It's electioneering. Just like this other topic on co-operatives. People don't seem to be giving it much notice.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I'd disagree that it's electioneering Matt. There's been a huge amount of thought about co-production / co-delivery by policy wonks, academics and politicians over much of the anglo world. What's driving it is lack of money. We're in the very real situation where councils are going to have their central govt contributions cut. Their choices are to raise local taxes or cut services. Getting locals involved in delivering the services (Co-delivery) is a third option. Both residents and service providers should be giving this option real consideration.
I haven't looked at Lambeth's proposals, but in principle I have no issue with what they're doing.
Actually we've almost got a good example on our doorstep - clearing the passage. This sort of thing may be our choice in future - pay more, get less or muck in.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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councils are going to have their central govt contributions cut.
Is this just, or mainly, in London, Hugh?
If so, I think the 2012 Olympics may be the culprit. For just two or three weeks of excitement (and nightmare for the security services) the costs will be huge. We are paying for them now and probably will be for years subsequently. Are the games worth it?
If Haringey is to receive less money from central government, one suggestion would be to cut out waste and misspending. Just a thought.
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The Games aren't the culprit Clive. The biggest financial turmoil in more than a century is the grit in the eye.
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I'm sure the financial turmoil of 2008-9 is having a great impact on all public spending.
But at some point after July 2005 (when the London 'won' the games) but before the acute financial crisis of October 2008, one Haringey Councillor said that all London councils faced cuts in capital spending – thanks to the games. That was given as the reason why the council would have to flog off the Crouch End car park to property developers, rather than retain it as part of the Grade II* Town Hall curtilage, perhaps to use as a green park, a purpose for which it is ideally sited.
The cost of the Olympic games, which cannot be cut-back or postponed, has to come from somewhere and I suspect that ordinary Londoners have already felt the effects of this gigantic extravagance and will continue to feel it for years after the competitors have gone.
I endorse the idea of the Olympic games, but in the last 20 years or so, its an institution that has become extremely vastly over-bloated. Paris, the 'loser' in the competition to get the games, do not understand how lucky they were ...
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Possibly Clive, possibly. But I'd be wary of putting too much weight on one Haringey councillor's opinion. My understanding is that the real issue is the fallout of the credit crunch.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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If you haven't seen it, I recommend the film "A New Leaf" with Elaine May and Walter Matthau. Matthau is a playboy who's frittered all his money and must find a wife so he can inherit his rich uncle's money. "All I am—or was—is rich," he says. "It's all I wanted to be." His butler explains: "You'll be poor in the only real sense—in that you'll have no money."
Whoever wins the General Election it's now clear that U.K. local authorities will have far less money. We can all agree with Clive Carter that cutting out waste is a good idea. But saving thousands (easy) or even tens of thousands (a bit harder but do-able) isn't going to solve the problem. In any case, we all have different lists of wasteful expenditure.
The rich uncle strategy? We tried and failed with that at the Ally Pally, when Charles Adje thought it was a good idea to agree a licence which meant the Trust paid for all the staff while Firoka took all the profits.
So some local councils are proposing massive change to deliver services on the cheap. I haven't seen the details of these specific schemes. But I do wish the proponents of these ideas - usually in highly paid wonk-tanks - had some historical perspective.
In the 1980's Professor Roger Hadley - by all accounts a very nice man - was highly influential in a number of Social Services initiatives. Hadley had a background in workers' cooperatives, and a genuine belief that local people and people at the bottom of large organisations should have more say and more power. His and similar research led to widespread experiments in localism and decentralisation.
The stated aims included community empowerment and mutual aid. Unfortunately, it didn't always work that way. A basic flaw was that cost-cutting could only be achieved if low paid jobs were lower still. Or turned into no-pay jobs; in other words, taken over by volunteers.
I'll keep an open mind on the Barnet and Lambeth schemes. Though I'll be less sceptical when I hear they plan to cut the pay of top staff; and slash expenditure on "interims", consultants, and head-hunting firms which supply them. (Ah, you've had a peek at my list.)
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WASTE in the council runs at more than merely thousands and even more than tens of thousands of pounds.
In the example cited above (Alexandra Palace) the Licence to Firoka was independently and conservatively estimated by an external investigator to have cost £1.5m, but the true figure attributable to that Licence was probably more than £3m. This is only the most identifiable cost waste. The sale process as a whole squandered millions more.
Then there was Tech Refresh. That was thought to have wasted at least £10m but I saw one estimate putting the waste at £15m. I wonder which councillor was responsible for that hiccup?
Haringey People magazine is widely regarded as a propaganda sheet for the majority group and is a misuse of public funds. Does it cost a quarter million a year? It is largely a waste of space. By "largely" I mean more than half, whichever way you cut it: the number of issues, pages, or colours – or photos of councillors. It is an indulgence and would be an easy quick win if it were slashed.
The council's PR budget as a whole (is that about £3m?) needs a hard look at. But there seems to be little appetite by councillors for addressing the problems of chronic waste within the council. Everything is a scared cow. Probably all councillors will know of areas of waste, but to admit it now will reflect on their oversight and judgement in the past.
Those on modest wages are sometimes surprised at the salaries paid to council officers with the most pompous and improbable job titles.
Even the £42,000 spent by the council on bottled water for itself looks to be small beer. Our Borough's logo was changed at great cost (the lightning flash logo was made ugly and squashed by completely unnecessary tinkering).
These are just a few examples selected at random. A million here, a quarter million there, pretty soon it adds up into significant savings.
I do not advocate cutting out waste purely for the sake of it, but the savings could be re-directed into the areas of council activity that have been starved of funds, such as Child Protection.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a local council in possession of the taxpayers' dosh must be in want of a list of efficiency savings.
However there are some problems with your list, Clive.
One is that you can't find 'savings' from money wasted in the past. As Chair of the Alexandra Palace Board and the Trading Company Cllr Adje's poor judgement lost Haringey residents at least £1.5 million, and possibly more. It's a fact. On the public record in two long and weighty reports by Martin Walklate. But it's money gone for good; not a potential cut or saving.
Another big problem about everyone's lists is that spending money is always hugely popular. And I have to confess to being one of those in the queue demanding higher spending. "Give us more street trees in Street X and better lighting down street Y," I say. More enforcement officers to control bad landlords? I agree. And of course it would be outrageous to cut Child Protection services.
It's true that Council tax cuts are also very popular. But not the specifics of which services are going to go. "Elect us and we promise to close your local library", is not a winning slogan.
So we come back to your old standby: Haringey People magazine. You want to close it and save the money. Then what? Close it again and save double? This month, the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) reports a speech by Caroline Spelman, Tory Shadow Cabinet member. She attacked councils which publish "multi-page, fully fledged newspapers". The LGIU wryly points out that she delivered her speech in Hammersmith & Fulham - a model Tory borough whose own newspaper has 75 pages including a TV Guide.
We can of course, try to balance the books by putting up charges. This was always Cllr Brian Haley's favoured solution. Bus Lane - cameras - make money. CPZs - raise charges - make money. Though for some reason he seems to have gone a bit quiet on this topic recently.
But the point you're missing altogether, Clive, is that Lambeth and Barnet, in their different ways, are thinking about something very very different. I'm intrigued. So should you be.
[Labour councillor and prospective candidate for Tottenham Hale ward.]
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Alan, my random list above is a mixture of past waste waste and current waste. You are perceptive about the past waste: it truly is money that's gone for good!
The past waste is referred to only because it is waste that we now know about. Typically, serious council waste is hidden at the time and becomes public only after reports, investigations or Freedom of Information Requests, often long after the fact. For example, in the case of Ally Pally, the two Walklate Reports.
I'd be interested if you have any comment on in connection with Tech Refresh where £10 to £15 million has gone for good.
I'd be astounded if we didn't learn about current waste in the council ... in a year or two's time (regardless which party forms the new majority group).
Although I'll admit Haringey Pravda is a bête noire of mine, it isn't solely my old stand by: its regarded as a joke widely, excepting of course within the Council Bubble. It's just that HP is so visible and such clear, present waste.
But I didn't say close it, I said it was largely a waste of money. The Council needs to communicate basic information, but nowhere near that many pages, in full colour every 30 days. If, for example, the pages were reduced to 25% of the current (by cutting out the padding) and it became a Quarterly, that might reduce the costs, certainly the marginal costs, associated with this vanity publication to about 10% of the current sum. And you could keep all the full-colour photos of the smiling "Executive Cabinet Members", although printing them in monochrome would save more.
If HP were shut down for only a year, that would be 12 months of savings, but if it were slimmed down permanently, that saving would be year after year, indefinitely.
Trimming the fat off HP would both save money and demonstrate in a public way that the council was serious about effecting the kind of economies that many others have to in these straightened times. Every penny of this self-congratulatory publication comes from taxes on people many of whom have had to engage in their own belt tightening.
Regarding Hammersmth and Fulham, that wealthier Borough is perhaps better able to afford similar-style waste, but I hold no brief for them; their residents probably regard their own vanity publication with equal disdain.
As a last point about waste - and touching on your comparison with a notably wealthier Borough: waste and inefficiency in Haringey hardly hurts wealthy council-tax payers. It most affects the poor and those who are the most dependent on council services.
Councils share one feature with the banks: they love using other people's money and not always responsibly.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I agree with you that every council has to trim away the waste but you have to put it into context. Council's in central London spend around 1 billion pounds a year. I don't suppose Haringey is hugely under that figure. Most of their spend is not from council tax but from central government grants which are apportioned according need. I think that this is right as grants comes from tax and tax (although very far from perfectly) is paid according to income.
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