Council Tax 13/14

Really? I work for a FTSE 100 company and we're scrutinised down to pennies in some cases. A lot of my work is with councils and the waste that is identified in the consultations we do is eye-watering and without a doubt a lot worse in the public sector than the private. I think some councils are still a million miles from being run as prudently as a lot of the private businesses I am familiar with.

 

Definitely this. Years of extravagant and unnecessary spending without accountability is why some councils are finding it so difficult to adjust.

 

3 bed terrace! even in the sunny south we still keep it real....

 

Well I work in local government and work with a couple of multinationals and they are just as bureaucratic as we are, waste far more, and spend tons of money on cars, hotels, lunches etc. We can't even buy a pencil without it being signed off by ADs, run our service on a skeleton staff, and have to relate everything to vfm. The difference is they hide all their waste in the fees they charge, paid for by public money. Oh, and don't forget their huge profits. But that's the joy of outsourcing everything to the 'efficient' private sector.

 

Some of the money wasted at the council is unbelievable - even the smallest insignificant thing seems to have a hugely inflated cost against it.

One thing I've never understood are the purchase orders between council departments though - I think this is counted as 'spending' even though it's only going from one pocket to another.

Then you've got the purchasing of all stationary from YPO who charge £3 for a paperclip.

Outsourcing of the IT dept and, again, massively inflated costs when buying IT equipment compared to a regular retailer.

A chief-exec with something about them could change a lot of things and save tons of cash without having to lose a single member of staff - it has to be said though that there are some people pinching a living doing jobs that could easily be absorbed into other people's roles. You can't really blame the people in these positions though, I'm sure they'd much rather have much more to do but they aren't going to stick their hands up and admit that they are essentially excess fat.

 

Take a look at some of likes of BT and the energy companies. They don't know their cares from their elbows most of the time.

 

This

 

Most of what you say is nuts but all comes from like you mention outsourcing to the private sector

 

Is there a mass exodus from public to private though ?

You seem to imply that there is a better life to be had.

I've always worked in the private sector and have been an employer there for the last 20 years. Believe me in the small businesses I've been involved with personally there's little waste, there's no margin for it and the ones that do go bust.

I think it is in large organisations where waste occurs public or private. The people there are always spending someone else's money. This comes from the top with the government and quantitative easing (what the **** is that by the way? is it like a bookie buying a bad book from a failed bookie ?)

I know that the public sector has had to get its house in order over the last 30 years but there are some very cosseted employees who I know personally whose feet wouldn't touch in a small firm environment. I've no doubt that there are just as many in the large private sector that wouldn't either.

I do think that the difference may be small v large.

 

Utility companies are in a league of their own but I am reluctant to measure these against a standard private company.

 

Utility companies are in a league of their own but I am reluctant to measure these against a standard private company.

 

But privatisation was supposed to turn them into wonder organisations. In the main it hasn't its made them worse for a lot more money

 

Tha not a war veteran are you?

 

Utilities should never have been privatised in my opinion and I'm not a socialist.

 

I think there is a lot of truth in what you say. Councils also have a burden that private companies do not and that is related to accountability. Everybody and his aunty fanny wants to know how the public purse is spent and this means putting additional systems in place to show this. Trouble is, it is at the cost of the services they are trying to provide. Value for money - could be if they didn't have to spend so much on proving VFM.

 

Again, Daily Mail claptrap. I work for one of the big 6 and although I can only speak for us, we take our spending incredibly seriously. I've never worked for a company as dilligent in driving down operating costs whilst improving our service to our customer base, which has made us the best in the sector, even though we are making government style cuts to most departments.

But I suppose it's the done thing to kick the energy companies.

 

Best in the sector - big comment and also untrue regarding customers

It makes me laugh the people chose to smoke/gamble/subscribe to sky and yet the only thing that annoys them is the price of energy

The governments lack of policy and direction is the problem , they sacked the energy minister yesterday which speaks volumes

I attended a board mtg yesterday - one of the big 6
Top topic ? Prepare for huge government knee jerk when the lights look like going out , ranging from nationlisation at one end the scale to them throwing money blindly at the problem (at the other end) together with increased prices
Strong rumour that at least one if not two of the UK majors are preparing to pull out of the UK in the next year
25% of the countries power generated by a French nationalised company !

Get prepared for further bad news on prices this year and further closures of plants too, the idiots running this country will blame the big 6 , sadly that is not the truth

The profitable coal plants are closing under LCPD which will force more costly gas plants with huge spark price differentials on to the grid , end result - price increases

The margin that the generators make on residential customers is very small @ 3-5% of a £1500 bill
I can assure you despite some of the misleading comments posted on here that they like any other prudent company do look to get added value in anything they do

To the ones on here - keep barking up the wrong tree , you are being sucked in by the tory press and the tory spin doctors

 

I work for another one of the big 6 and I would100% agree with Terry

 

As for cost at privatisation electricity cost 7.35ppu now is just over 9 it's hardly gone through the roof

 

I wonder how much sky/ beer / petrol / cigs have gone up in the same period