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 Michael Anderson on
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Sorry, meant to say "Councils in central London spend around 1 billion pounds a year each". Not in total.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Here's an interesting local council cost trim which might save a few quid. The Local Government Chronicle reported on 4 March that:
"One in 12 local authority chief executives is considering taking a pay cut as an example of restraint in the face of pressure on public sector finances".
The story also discloses that other CEOs are threatening to leave even if a cap was imposed on their pay ─ never mind an actual cut. I wonder if they'll be off to Switzerland with the bankers who've lost their bonuses. Or will the knock of poverty force them to take sweated labour jobs as "interims"?
[Labour councillor and prospective candidate for Tottenham Hale ward.]
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Permalink Reply by james walsh on
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John lewis started as an experiment in utopian socialist idealism.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Everyone loves the John Lewis shopping 'experience'. Not so sure the same can be said for the likes of the Ryanair/Easyjet approach. But then one has to pay more upfront for JL and put up with less with the other approach. Which in council terms probably means higher council taxes (?) vs pay for what you use, or maybe it's not that simple.
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John Lewis partnership.
Alan Wylie. The last paragraph may interest you. i would be very interested in your response to this post.
Every employee is a partner in the John Lewis Partnership, and has a possibility to influence the business through branch forums, which discuss local issues at every store, and the divisional John Lewis and Waitrose Councils. Above all these is the Partnership Council, to which the partners elect at least 80% of the 82 representatives, while the chairman appoints the remaining. The councils have the power to discuss ‘any matter whatsoever’, and are responsible for the non-commercial aspects of the business – the development of the social activities within the partnership and its charitable actions.
The Partnership Council also elects five of the directors on the partnership board (which is responsible for the commercial activities), while the chairman appoints another five. The two remaining board members are the chairman and the deputy chairman. These routes ensure that every non-management partner has an open channel for expressing his/her views to management and the chairman. As well as this, the John Lewis Partnership publishes a weekly in-house magazine, called 'the Gazette'. It is the oldest in-house magazine currently still being published in the UK. Each John Lewis branch also has its own weekly magazine, called 'the Chronicle'.
The John Lewis Partnership has a very extensive programme of social activities for its partners, including two large country estates with parklands, playing fields and tennis courts; a golf club; a sailing club with five cruising yachts and two country hotels offering holiday accommodation for the partners. Partners are also enrolled in a very favourable pension scheme, receive a death in service insurance, and are given very generous holidays. In addition to this, upon completing 25 years of service for the company, partners are given a paid 6 month break.
Finally, every partner receives an Annual Bonus, which is a share of the profit. It is calculated as a percentage of the salary, with the same percentage for everyone, from top management down to the shop floor and the storage rooms. The bonus is dependent on the profitability of the partnership each year, varying between 9% and 20% of the partners' annual salaries since 2000.
The Annual Partnership Bonus for 2008 was 20% of a partner's gross earnings for the 2007/2008 financial year. The Annual Partnership Bonus for 2009 was 13% of a partner's gross earnings for the 2008/2009 financial year.
In 1999, in response to a fall in profits, there were calls from some Partners for the business to be demutualised and floated on the stock market. If this had gone through, each Partner would have been guaranteed a windfall of up to £100,000 each, in order to compensate them for their share of the business. In the end, no one on the Partnership Council agreed with the idea and only one member spoke in favour of a referendum on the issue.
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... they are doing it because they are facing 20% budget cuts.
Exactly, which is why it's electioneering and nobody's paying any real attention (except a few policy wonks, academics & politicians).
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Nobody paid much attention to the changes the Conservative Party were talking about in 1978. They realised in 1979 and beyond what a mistake that was.
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Sure, get your point but as Alan says, it's motivated by budget cutting rather than community involvement/empowerment. This is where our concern should lie which is maybe what your comment above implies.
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Yes, Matt, that's the point I made right at he tp of this discussion. It's about budget cutting which, to be fair to the current government, fits very well with a huge amount of work they've been doing on community involvement/empowerment over the past few years.
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Alan Wylie and Matt, You may be spot-on in your assessment of the motivation for such schemes. And if you are accurate, your scepticism would be justified.
But it doesn't follow that the ideas put forward should therefore be dismissed, and given no thought or consideration.
This is an ad hominem fallacy.
And if "nobody's paying any real attention" on the basis that it'll all go away after the General Election, then more fool them. As Hugh pointed out about Thatcher's ideas in 1979.
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I don't want to sound cheezey but i'll have to dispel the elephant in the room. What they said in 1937: ''Ignore him, He'll soon go away'' (Hitler).
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