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33 Million of Cost/Savings Per Annum


icepick239
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I've just remembered that a single status review won;t have anything to d with the higher paid jobs, as they were not included last time, so probably won't be this time either.

 

In more general terms regarding cuts, there has been a lot of talk regarding volintary groups taking things over, suporting of the elderly by the community, having the bairns stay in lodgings instead of the Hostels etc.

 

Yes, all were the norm a few years ago but I bet if you tried to open a local hall and gather up a few elderly neighbours to come for a home made feed these days, Health and Safety would be all over you warning what would happen if someone choked, tripped, slipped or whatever.

 

Sad, but true.

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SO... our chief exec gets over £136,000 a year (and a free house) to approve cuts to 'meals on wheels' for the elderly, end free music tuition, turn off street lights and cancel the annual Christmas trees in town and introduce charged parking.

 

At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

 

When the Chief Exec said in The Shetland Times a couple of weeks ago that there was a general public feeling that SIC staff's terms and conditions were generous, maybe the public were referring to his terms and conditions :wink:

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This entire money saving excercise by the council is a farce.

 

They've simply reshuffled the top ranks and put pretty much the same people in the same jobs under different titles, who also took/are in the process of taking the same managers in underneath them. (Why were these jobs not open to anyone to apply for? Closed shop I doot!)

 

They have also been forced into new contracts (which were unwritten at the time, which appeared to include a cut in holidays, working week etc, to justify thier new *cough* lower *cough* salaries). This is why they want to look at single status again; as they cant have the junior staff + manual workers underneath them having more perks (holidays/overtime rates/etc) than themselves.

 

It took them 10 years to get Single-Status written, agreed and signed off on, and now they want to revisit it, rip it up and start again. Way to spend yet more money.

 

I wholly agree with cutting the top earners wages by 5-10k. I also don't understand why the councillors themselves get such a high rate + expenses ontop; Everyone else has to pay to get to work whether it be by foot/car/bus/etc but they get an expenses account to cover it and if they have to go south the council should be providing adequeate travel for them.

 

They're on about hitting the very services they insisted must be protected at the beginning of these cost cutting measures, yet they give out £1 million in development grants to 2 unproven companies the week earlier, granted they may in the future be beneficial to the local economy, but in times where we're being forced into such austerity they still seem to want to throw money away.

 

They splashed the cash on a non-starter bridge idea to Bressay (the amount of compensation LPA are after would have damn near paid for a bridge) and now they're harping on about building tunnels (est. £200mil+ cost) to the Isles as ferries are now "too expensive", and yet in 10+ years they havent managed to build a new high school (just think of the European grant money Shetland has missed out on in the past decade due to indecision) because they've been far too interested in solidifying themselves to investing Council/Trust/Public money into thier own extravagant ventures.

 

/rant

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onybody know if ony o wir elected elite councilors are on an all expenses paid trip to da BAFTA's tonight?..while watchin da stars an divas walkin da red carpet i towt i spotted Cluness an Budge arm in arm walkin past Clooney...

 

I expect a delegation fae wir mighty toon has alraedy been picked fur an all exspenses paid trip to Whitney's funeral as well!!

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This entire money saving excercise by the council is a farce.

 

They've simply reshuffled the top ranks and put pretty much the same people in the same jobs under different titles, who also took/are in the process of taking the same managers in underneath them. (Why were these jobs not open to anyone to apply for? Closed shop I doot!)

 

 

The reorganisation is not part of the money saving excerise, it is completely separate. It is causing a lot of stress among those who are being reorganised already wiithout bringing in external candidates.

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Less a less - some fairly muddled thinking going on here.

 

We want to cut the 'bloated' SIC - but not at the expense of services to the young or elderly or to the lower paid workers who actually make up the bulk of the workforce.

 

Councillor's shouldn't get expenses, they should make their own way to work like any other working body -although they're not actually paid a working wage.

 

Cut the wages of the high paid employees - neglecting the fact that they're a fraction of the workforce and you'd only sweep up a few grand in the process.

 

So what's to be done? replace proper elderly care with the antrin bowl of soup in a draughty hall? Board school bairns from the isles in the understair cupboards of generous Lerwick matrons?

 

Or better to take the view that any cut we can live with, is a cut not worth the (financial) trouble of making?

 

Let's face it, we're talking about nickel and dime stuff here. The odd country school, free music tuition (here in the real world, we pay for it) a handful of salary freezes and minor job losses.

 

Sooner or later, we have to accept that those kind of cuts aren't going to return the required millions. Any cut of that magnitude and you might as well board up the croft and take ship to Amerikay.

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People need to wake up and realise that those they have elected to represent the best interests of the people will never do that before political agenda/s AND/OR the fethering of their own nests.

 

Can you really see either Tavish,Carmichael or the other greedy nose in the trough councilors being effected by cuts.....?

 

Of course not.

 

Austerity measures (political wording for stealing from the people) do not apply to those that either make or oversee these corrupt agendas, which is why there are no greek MPs shoulder to shoulder with the common man and women on the streets of Athens - why should they? it just does not effect them - they like our scum are on the gravy train.

 

The real agenda behind the banking crash is not to be found on mainstream news or the Shetland Times and is like CHEMTRAILS being surpressed, however, the papertrail is out there if people choose to do their own research and switch off the idiot box.

 

Additionally, and perhaps easier for some, just observe those making the decisions go about their daily comings and goings and see how uneffected they are financialy and otherwise.

 

Austerity measures?

 

We have seen nothing yet!

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The real agenda behind the banking crash is not to be found on mainstream news or the Shetland Times and is like CHEMTRAILS being surpressed, however, the papertrail is out there if people choose to do their own research and switch off the idiot box.

 

 

Care to deciphere this for us mere mortals :?:

 

Shetlands situation

 

1960's - economy shrinking, depopulation

1970's - oil discovered, lets build lots of stuff

1980's - blimey, where did all this money come from, partytime

1990's - better start to invest some of this money, anyone got any daft ideas, Sturgeon farm anyone?

2000's - Oops, how did the council get that big, if we keep it quiet no-one will notice...

2010's - the brown smelly stuff has hit the rotating windy thing - who can we blame?

the future - see 1960's

 

I personally think one of the council main priorities over the last 30 years has been to maintain a healthy population size - to the extent that the local economy has been largely subsidised by the oil money by having a council workforce that is 33% of the total local workforce, plus all the other council money that's been pumped into islands from the charitable trust.

 

I think they gambled that by maintaining population of 22,000+, the local economy would have been bouyant enough to spawn much new local private industry and the economy would become self sustaining.

 

I'm not saying this policy was wrong - it was a gamble that didn't quite pay off.

 

But unfortunately the gravy train is quickly running out of steam, and the windfarm dream to keep fuelling the gravy train seems to be little more than another expensive non starter - school, bridge, etc.

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One of the things I keep hearing from councillors is "no compulsory redundancies". While I do believe that it is good to avoid compulsory redundancies whenever possible I think this is one of the council "mantras" that needs to be killed off if we are ever to see the SIC balance their books. If your job has been lost as part of some cost cuts and there is nothing else that your employer can offer you then you are redundant. The SIC needs to look at job cuts (from top to bottom) and to accept that some people will be left without a job. Based on jobs that are no longer needed rather than which workers have a relative on the council or have been "part of the union" for many years.

 

Of course the other thing the SIC has to accept is that it is not some sort of wealth creation scheme for Shetland. They are there to provide such services as a council must provide and such services as a council may provide if they can afford to. And of course any extra services that are limited to Shetland.

 

But one thing the SIC can do is to take a "long, hard, urgent and searching view" (that phrase rings a bell) of all the money they spend that goes straight off the islands and see what they can do to keep some of that money within Shetland.

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Hmm. Possibly, but they're probably not doing too bad at that already (cue parahandy roaring about soothmoother consultants :wink: )

 

By and large the money that goes sooth (or east these days) is for plant and equipment that can't be sourced here such as ferries or IT systems. Can't se a shipyard being built in Sella Ness anytime soon.

 

Staff costs? that's effectively 100% local spend. Services? probably 80/90% (I'm sure there's some specialised maintenance of rarified equipment that requires a FIFO from Aberdeen) Goods? Most things form office supplies to road metal are locally sourced so probably not much room for slippage there.

 

It raises an interesting point though. what do you think the impact on local businesses will be if the SIC begins to cut services?

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It is interesting to note that Schools and Social Care appears to take 60% of the spend as far as services go, that does include wages and S.I.C. spends 58% on employee costs. So it does support the economy. The trouble is, if you remove employment opportunities, folk will leave, the 8% contribution via Council Tax may be maintained by an increase.

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