Pickles tells North-East council leaders of "talking tosh" over spending cuts (From The Northern Echo)

'And some have chosen to use the poor as a battering ram '
Yep, that's our Northern Labour Councils ..
The cheek, York Council is putting up CT whilst increasing Councillors expenses.
We still have £200k pa Chief Execs, get rid of them, no one will miss them.

Discretionary overtime, temporary workers, high salaries, gold plated pensions,
Loads of people with Climate Change, Political, compliance, european & Diversity in their job title. Non of which do anything for the taxpayer.

Come on Labour Councils, do something for your taxpayers instead of playing politics

Not a great fan of Pickles but there are large amounts of waste in local councils. Trouble is they cut in areas that suite their political agenda not in those that have a minimal effect on the ratepayer

He is a right pickle isn't he? Out of touch with the real world

spragger wrote:
'And some have chosen to use the poor as a battering ram '
Yep, that's our Northern Labour Councils ..
The cheek, York Council is putting up CT whilst increasing Councillors expenses.
We still have £200k pa Chief Execs, get rid of them, no one will miss them.

Discretionary overtime, temporary workers, high salaries, gold plated pensions,
Loads of people with Climate Change, Political, compliance, european & Diversity in their job title. Non of which do anything for the taxpayer.

Come on Labour Councils, do something for your taxpayers instead of playing politics

"High Salaries", discretionary overtime and "Gold Plated Pensions" epitomise some of the Daily Mail influenced views being propagated. The salaries of many Council employees aren't much higher than the minimum wage and the proposed Career average scheme you may view as Gold Plated is in fact inferior to the Tesco Pension scheme. Do some research before touting this misinformed tosh.

Chief Executives Salary in the North-East :-

Roger Kelly - Gateshead - £252,957

George Garlick – Durham - £242,485

Dave Smith – Sunderland - £238,967

John Marsden – North Tyneside - £199,418

Barry Rowland - Newcastle upon Tyne - £199,101

Paul Walker – Hartlepool - £196,934

Ada Burns – Darlington - £187,573

Steve Stewart - Northumberland - £172,498

Ian Parker - Middlesbrough - £167,471

Amanda Skelton - Redcar and Cleveland - £167,329

Kersten England – York - £156,318

Richard Flinton - North Yorkshire - £138,968

Chief Executives Salary Total : £2,320,019

This does not include expenses, bonuses or pensions. Value for Money or has Mr. Pickles got a point?

Last year Darlington Council Tax payers had to pay an increase of over 5% despite the fact that if our profligate council had taken government money there would have been no increase to tax payers and there would have been a 2% monetary increase courtesy of the government..
Even with this massive increase this Darlington council in 2011/12 still cut services,staff and subsidies and increased across the board their income streams including car parking charges,domestic rubbish disposal etc..
I have no doubt that the 2% once again on offer from the government this year will not be accepted by our incompetent/useless/
inefficient Council - this will for another year give the residents once again an inflation busting tax increase together with service cuts and higher ammenity charges.
Believe it or not I am not political..Its just that year on year I see the mess this council leaves this town in with money spent on ill thought out/unwanted projects and then blames central goverment and lack of funds to justify anwarranted Council tax increases.
Next year its wheely bins...God help us when this shower try to implement another costly unwanted (by most) project

Stigma of the North East once again and Mr Pickles is spot on in my view … Every time there’s an attempt to excuse or hide things or blame the government, it creates the impression that there’s something much more fraudulent and maybe corrupt going on … especially in the Public Sector institutions …

Darloresident says"believe it or not,I am not political"
You are right.I don't believe it.Just like I don't believe"Fat Cat"Pickles.How that Bully Boy has the nerve to accuse LABOUR council leaders of playing politics beggars belief.The North East councils are faced with making MASSIVE cuts.Not their choice to do so.It is political ideology that is driving the cuts...right wing ideology!
JUST WHO IS PLAYING POLITICS,MR.PICKLES?

My Christmas Wish.....

Could Mr. Pickles please send an audit team to investigate and advise DBC how to make savings without cutting vital services, because DBC are inept at management.

Idontknowaboutyoubut wrote:
Darloresident says"believe it or not,I am not political"
You are right.I don't believe it.Just like I don't believe"Fat Cat"Pickles.How that Bully Boy has the nerve to accuse LABOUR council leaders of playing politics beggars belief.The North East councils are faced with making MASSIVE cuts.Not their choice to do so.It is political ideology that is driving the cuts...right wing ideology!
JUST WHO IS PLAYING POLITICS,MR.PICKLES?

I am not actively involved in politics.I do however expect good value for tax payers hard earned money.You on the other hand seem to think the answer to any request to spend available money more efficiently is to ignore the reality of our current economic climate.You profess that poitical ideology and not economic circumstances are the motivators behind Eric Pickles broadside.
I suspect the public purse would soon be empty with views held by people like yourself...i

Funny how Mr Pickles has a lot to say about "labour run" councils cutting services while accidentally "forgetting" about all the Tory run councils that are also slashing and burning their libraries, arts facilities, bus services, waste recycling centres, sure start centres etc etc. How come they can't find their savings by sharing services, better procurement etc?
.
And as usual, the chief exec pay thing is trotted out. Add up the pay and expenses of ALL chief execs for ALL north east councils and then sack them all. I bet you still wouldn't even come close to saving what just ONE council has to save.

bingbong wrote:
Funny how Mr Pickles has a lot to say about "labour run" councils cutting services while accidentally "forgetting" about all the Tory run councils that are also slashing and burning their libraries, arts facilities, bus services, waste recycling centres, sure start centres etc etc. How come they can't find their savings by sharing services, better procurement etc? . And as usual, the chief exec pay thing is trotted out. Add up the pay and expenses of ALL chief execs for ALL north east councils and then sack them all. I bet you still wouldn't even come close to saving what just ONE council has to save.

Council Chief Executives value for money?

One cut I haven't seen is in the number of useless MP's we have. Why do we need 650 of these worthless overpaid, over expensed parasites? If we must have any it should be limited to only one for each county, and blow the rest out. The country, i.e. us, would save an absolute fortune.

Pickles is a dam liar, if we burned his fat carcase,you could keep a power station going for a week!!!

D.c.c. are a total waste of space...they appear to have jobs for the boys for life...
wasting money left, right and centre..
they let their workers take vehicles home and you see their workers riding around in them out of council hours...In Crook there are at least 15 vehicles there...So times that by all areas and that is a hell of a lot of money wasted allowing them to use the vehicles to go to and from work....
Which other company do you know that allows the use of vehicles in this way?
Stop the overtime and chauffeur driven cars, free food and drinks and the the gadgets given to councilors.
plus the £25,000 each councilor gets to give away to good causes or charities. This is usually the local football or cricket club....
ALL COUNCILS WASTE CASH AND IT WILL KEEP GOING ON FOREVER AS THEY LOVE THE " GRAVY TRAIN " THEY ARE RIDING

big yin, The whole point is the gravy train is ending for everyone eventually,if you think council officials are doing well for themselves the people enforcing the cutbacks to the councils are doing ten times better.

the-big-yin wrote:
D.c.c. are a total waste of space...they appear to have jobs for the boys for life...
wasting money left, right and centre..
they let their workers take vehicles home and you see their workers riding around in them out of council hours...In Crook there are at least 15 vehicles there...So times that by all areas and that is a hell of a lot of money wasted allowing them to use the vehicles to go to and from work....
Which other company do you know that allows the use of vehicles in this way?
Stop the overtime and chauffeur driven cars, free food and drinks and the the gadgets given to councilors.
plus the £25,000 each councilor gets to give away to good causes or charities. This is usually the local football or cricket club....
ALL COUNCILS WASTE CASH AND IT WILL KEEP GOING ON FOREVER AS THEY LOVE THE " GRAVY TRAIN " THEY ARE RIDING

big-yin

The £25k you refer to isn't all spent on football teams. To give an example in my area we have used money to build new play areas, towards regenerating Pity Me Front St which had seen no investment for decades, to put new equipment into the local leisure centre, to resurface roads and footpaths, to put solar panels on a parish pavillion which is saving money and will bring in thousands in income over the next 20 years, to install speed visors to promote slower driving and improve road safety............th
ere is a smaller grant fund which can be used to help local sports teams, but I see no reason why we shouldn't promote sport.

I would also point out that I got the £12k spent on councillor buffets scrapped over a year ago. Although you may be interested to know that the position Chairman of Durham County Council gets a £12800 clothing allowance over 2 years, which the council haven't even been publishing, on top of £6650 for being chair and £13300 for being a councillor. Opposition councillors called for a cut in councillor costs but Labour voted it down - I wonder why?

Some councillors do work hard to cut the waste and stop excessive expenses.

Talk about stating the bleedin obvious! Mr Pickles.

Here's an idea for you, instead of just stating the bleeding obvious, why don't you and the fat pigs down there in Westminster do something about it?

Darloresident wrote:
Last year Darlington Council Tax payers had to pay an increase of over 5% despite the fact that if our profligate council had taken government money there would have been no increase to tax payers and there would have been a 2% monetary increase courtesy of the government.. Even with this massive increase this Darlington council in 2011/12 still cut services,staff and subsidies and increased across the board their income streams including car parking charges,domestic rubbish disposal etc.. I have no doubt that the 2% once again on offer from the government this year will not be accepted by our incompetent/useless/ inefficient Council - this will for another year give the residents once again an inflation busting tax increase together with service cuts and higher ammenity charges. Believe it or not I am not political..Its just that year on year I see the mess this council leaves this town in with money spent on ill thought out/unwanted projects and then blames central goverment and lack of funds to justify anwarranted Council tax increases. Next year its wheely bins...God help us when this shower try to implement another costly unwanted (by most) project

Exactly, why do Darlo Council blow money on things that the public don.t want and then blame the gov. for having to increase CTax. We don't wheelie bins and there is no case whatsoever to have them and why do they still force the Darlington Together propaganda mag. on us costing US thousands of pounds each year. They are not looking after public interest only playing at politics using our money after we voted them in. We need a good clean out in the town hall from top downwards . Give us some sensible town managers! Would the council hierarchy please read read this, it applies to you

Graeme_r wrote:

spragger wrote:
'And some have chosen to use the poor as a battering ram '
Yep, that's our Northern Labour Councils ..
The cheek, York Council is putting up CT whilst increasing Councillors expenses.
We still have £200k pa Chief Execs, get rid of them, no one will miss them.

Discretionary overtime, temporary workers, high salaries, gold plated pensions,
Loads of people with Climate Change, Political, compliance, european & Diversity in their job title. Non of which do anything for the taxpayer.

Come on Labour Councils, do something for your taxpayers instead of playing politics

"High Salaries", discretionary overtime and "Gold Plated Pensions" epitomise some of the Daily Mail influenced views being propagated. The salaries of many Council employees aren't much higher than the minimum wage and the proposed Career average scheme you may view as Gold Plated is in fact inferior to the Tesco Pension scheme. Do some research before touting this misinformed tosh.

Thats OK Council employee but those that pay Council Tax and Income tax need to see this Council gravy train halted . .

lifetime townie, How much do you propose paying these managers you want to bring in,minimum wage?

WHY dont our councils fetch money out of the reserves to tie them over this bad patch or are they just happy to see us all suffering these cuts were all in it together so you fat cats do your BIT.

WHY dont the fat.cat concils fetch reserves out to tie us over or are they hiding something from us .

loonyleft wrote:
big yin, The whole point is the gravy train is ending for everyone eventually,if you think council officials are doing well for themselves the people enforcing the cutbacks to the councils are doing ten times better.

exactly.....
things need to change....
but they never will, until there is a change at the top....

cllrmarkwilkes wrote:

the-big-yin wrote:
D.c.c. are a total waste of space...they appear to have jobs for the boys for life...
wasting money left, right and centre..
they let their workers take vehicles home and you see their workers riding around in them out of council hours...In Crook there are at least 15 vehicles there...So times that by all areas and that is a hell of a lot of money wasted allowing them to use the vehicles to go to and from work....
Which other company do you know that allows the use of vehicles in this way?
Stop the overtime and chauffeur driven cars, free food and drinks and the the gadgets given to councilors.
plus the £25,000 each councilor gets to give away to good causes or charities. This is usually the local football or cricket club....
ALL COUNCILS WASTE CASH AND IT WILL KEEP GOING ON FOREVER AS THEY LOVE THE " GRAVY TRAIN " THEY ARE RIDING

big-yin

The £25k you refer to isn't all spent on football teams. To give an example in my area we have used money to build new play areas, towards regenerating Pity Me Front St which had seen no investment for decades, to put new equipment into the local leisure centre, to resurface roads and footpaths, to put solar panels on a parish pavillion which is saving money and will bring in thousands in income over the next 20 years, to install speed visors to promote slower driving and improve road safety............th

ere is a smaller grant fund which can be used to help local sports teams, but I see no reason why we shouldn't promote sport.

I would also point out that I got the £12k spent on councillor buffets scrapped over a year ago. Although you may be interested to know that the position Chairman of Durham County Council gets a £12800 clothing allowance over 2 years, which the council haven't even been publishing, on top of £6650 for being chair and £13300 for being a councillor. Opposition councillors called for a cut in councillor costs but Labour voted it down - I wonder why?

Some councillors do work hard to cut the waste and stop excessive expenses.

Why should you as councilors be given this money?
In Crook where i live it always seems to be given to Crook cricket club, that was when councilor Murphy was welcome there and now it is Crook football club where he has wormed in now....This money is tax payers money.....
Why don-t you publish a list on here of all those hidden expenses, benefits and benefits given to councilors. In the future why not make the councils none political and have people running the council that really do care about their communities....so come on fill these comment pages with all of the above perks....Oh and by the way i think your a decent councilor for doing those things, however all perks should be stopped...

loonyleft wrote:
lifetime townie, How much do you propose paying these managers you want to bring in,minimum wage?

Pay them in proportion to their responsibilies and the number of staff that they supervise. i.e. Between a third and a half of what they get now would be fair. National minimum wage doesn't really apply in this case. And then as there is not much money to spend on services then there wouldn't be the amount of work to do for the present squad of councillors, they could be reduced in quantity aswell

Quote
Chief Executives Salary Total : £2,320,019

This does not include expenses, bonuses or pensions. Value for Money or has Mr. Pickles got a point?”
Yes he has a good point. If we add NICs, health benefits, golden pensions, staff cars and other perks then we could add 40% to the basic figures making about £3,248,026

I've said before and i was told i was wrong ,eventually as well as the rank and file having to do with less pay ,bosses will have to have their pay reduced,and judging by the methods used to get the economy back in line that will continue for years to come.

I can't believe councilors are allocated 25K to spend whether it is needed or not.

If people want to play cricket great but why would you expect the rate payer to pay for it

It sounds very much they are using ratepayers money to make sure they are reelected

They cut back on vital services claiming they have no cash and allocate money to councilors for non essential services

Councils should be replaced by by contractors. This sort of thing is a joke

BMD wrote:
Chief Executives Salary in the North-East :-

Roger Kelly - Gateshead - £252,957

George Garlick – Durham - £242,485

Dave Smith – Sunderland - £238,967

John Marsden – North Tyneside - £199,418

Barry Rowland - Newcastle upon Tyne - £199,101

Paul Walker – Hartlepool - £196,934

Ada Burns – Darlington - £187,573

Steve Stewart - Northumberland - £172,498

Ian Parker - Middlesbrough - £167,471

Amanda Skelton - Redcar and Cleveland - £167,329

Kersten England – York - £156,318

Richard Flinton - North Yorkshire - £138,968

Chief Executives Salary Total : £2,320,019

This does not include expenses, bonuses or pensions. Value for Money or has Mr. Pickles got a point?

It's strange that when the ordinary plebs question high executive wages in the banks etc, the Gov't of which Fat Eric belongs, always say that these high salaries are needed to attract the best people.

Well that didn't happen with the banks did it? Bunch of crooks! And it certainly hasn't happened in the LAs.

David Lacey wrote:
Well that didn't happen with the banks did it? Bunch of crooks! And it certainly hasn't happened in the LAs.

my point exactly, but why is it a reason for bankers and executives of insurance. and charties, but not for LA c es? Just another case of one rule for some and another for others

Nick Forbes playing an obvious Labour card picking the thing to cut to get the highest attention. He couldn't care less about the arts, just looking after himself like all the rest. Don't hear him ever suggesting cuts in salaries of the fat cats at the Civic Centre - always playing politics, and not a very good player at that. Pickles is right - stand up and be counted... if you have the balls that is!

It's amazing how many communists get on this site, so everybody has to have hardly any money to make everyone the same,Stalin and Lenin would be over the moon!!

Hello Dave Smith. Good message. But it's Labour that have the balls. Red Ed. God help them.