Council budget cuts

[Skunnered]

^^

[MuckleJoannie]

How low could we push council wages until they make a dash to the private sector? probably very low, we should use a bit of free market thinking, I'm talking about council workers who earn above £20,000 per year, not those who do most of the physical work who are on less than £20,000 per year.

 

 

I would think that you would find that it is people under £20,000 who earn more in the public sector than in the private sector, thanks to unions fighting low pay, sex equality, etc. The higher up the pay scale you go the better the private sector pays.

[JustMe]

A councillor in Devon has proposed a 15p charge for people, other than those on benefits and of course children, per book borrowed. While I am not totally convinced about this I do wonder about a charge to borrow CDs or DVDs or perhaps even ceasing to provide them. Wonder what sort of saving this would bring or would any money saved just go towards providing more books. Also wondering about the cost of providing magazines and newspapers.

 

Now I am sure some of you will be totally against any cuts to the library service but if SIC really is heading for a funding crisis then it is surely right to look at all council spending when finding ways to reduce the total.

[Carlos]

So here is what I think.

Our oil revenue should be ring fenced for two areas of financial support - Education , Care of the Elderly & members of the community with special needs .

That would be quite a change from present.

If you have a look on the Council minutes at the capital programme, all of those projects are funded from interest on the Council's invested oil income, so ring fencing for those areas means no new work on ferries or terminals, roads, care homes, graveyards, public toilets and so on - only maintenance of what is there, no improvements of any size.

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/capitalprogramme/documents/capitalprogramme2008-09asat180209.pdf

[vespaneil]

Shetland is Shetland because we look after our heritage and way of life. Why are these services being attacked? Beggars belief.

 

Surely the council could save money by not forking out for such a big new High school. Oh I forgot ......that would take joined up thinking.

[Ghostrider]

^^ 90+% of services provided in the here and now by the council outside of the Lerwick/Scalloway area didn't exist 35 years ago. I'm not saying that the current service level is a bad thing, far from it, just that the rural heritage and way of life survived quite healthily long before the council paid much attention to it.

[Carlos]

New school is a capital spend, running costs are revenue spend - the 2 are not entirely unrelated, but not necessarily with the same kinds of limits either.

I'd agree that a "big picture" approach is needed though.

[stephen]

Shetland is Shetland because we look after our heritage and way of life. Why are these services being attacked? Beggars belief.

 

Surely the council could save money by not forking out for such a big new High school. Oh I forgot ......that would take joined up thinking.

 

Whilst I do 100% agree with you regarding the heritage of Shetland I disagree with you regarding the need for a new high school. Anderson is not really fit for purpose, and does need to be replaced.

 

In terms of ring-fencing oil revenue, whilst a noble idea I don't think it would be a good idea. The way budget cuts are going I can see SIC getting less from Edinburgh following the election. As SIC has been receiving more £ per person than most of Scotland I would expect a much higher cut in %age terms. I think that SIC need to have a complete evaluation of everything, make every saving possible (accounting for worst case scenarios) and invest the remaining in current infrastructure for the time being. We have to face the fact that Shetland has had it very good for a long time, and there is a chance that the financially good times might come to an end sooner rather than later.

[MuckleJoannie]

I was looking around for informantion on the SIC's budgets and I found this, which I think came with your Council Tax bill

 

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/counciltax/documents/CouncilTaxInformationSheet2010.pdf

 

 

Per Band D Dwelling

Expenditure used by Scottish Executive Govt Support Calculations £10,782

Proposed expenditure by SIC on comparable basis £13,224

 

 

ie the SIC spends 25% more than the Scottish Government thinks appropriate.

[Guest Anonymous]

I was looking around for informantion on the SIC's budgets and I found this, which I think came with your Council Tax bill

 

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/counciltax/documents/CouncilTaxInformationSheet2010.pdf

 

 

Per Band D Dwelling

Expenditure used by Scottish Executive Govt Support Calculations £10,782

Proposed expenditure by SIC on comparable basis £13,224

 

 

 

long live the scotch govt

 

ie the SIC spends 25% more than the Scottish Government thinks appropriate.

[Guest Anonymous]

i have a suggestion, if, in fact, the needs of the many truly do outweigh the needs of the few, as we are so often fed.

 

i suggest we sack Willie Shannon and redistribute his size-able salary.

 

this is by no means a personal attack on the fellow, but he was absent from his post for 4 months recently and the sky didn't cave in so he obviously isn't the glue that holds it all together if your picking up what I'm putting down...

 

if it works we could try sacking a few more, kind of like corporate jenga,

if it goes as well as i suspect it would and we clear the decks of perhaps 60% of them we could all knit and play music all day long.

 

ive said it before and 5 weeks on it still makes sense to me.

 

well said that man , maybe even still chop the frilly lessons

[tlady]

^^^

 

We could say the same about the Chief executive, he was mostly "on leave" and the cogs kept turning.

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

Have there not been several years when the council has dipped into reserves to cover their yearly revenue spend?

When I said ring fencing financial reserves for education and care that includes building and maintaining buildings and providing transport.

Public toilets, yes I am sure their is the yearly cleaning and repair expense but surely when only building new ones every 50 years or more so a fund built from council tax payments and the same should apply with maintaining graveyards and we dont need to build them as often.

Ferries and roads should be funded by national governments, surely we pay enough in road tax and all of the other taxes, if shetland is not getting enough back surely we must wonder why we pay them in the first place.

[JustMe]

Shetland is Shetland because we look after our heritage and way of life. Why are these services being attacked? Beggars belief.

 

Surely the council could save money by not forking out for such a big new High school. Oh I forgot ......that would take joined up thinking.

Well there was a plan to build a brand new school on the Knab site, then a plan to build it on the Clickimin/Staney Hill site instead. But, I wonder, has there been any sort of recent plan to replace the bad bits of the AHS while leaving the rest in place?.

[paulb]

that's a very fair point. and if they were to build it at the same speed as the tesco extension then it would be less disturbance.