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Council out of city ‘club’
Monday 23rd February 2009, 6:01PM GMT.
Telford & Wrekin Council today announced it is pulling out of the controversial Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country City Region with immediate effect.
Its Tory leaders have always been uneasy about belonging to the Birmingham-based economic “club” – a policy inherited from their Labour predecessors. Now they have decided it is no longer worth it.
Council leader Andrew Eade said: “I’ve always said we would stay in the City Region to try and maximise any benefits to our community. But recent announcements suggesting changing statutory requirements for membership have caused us to reconsider this and look at working together with our existing partners and neighbours without retaining formal membership.”
He said Telford’s Conservative rulers had contributed strongly to the City Region, even though they were wary of regionalisation.
“We have built up very good working relationships with the other West Midlands authorities and want to continue exploring with them where we can work together more efficiently and effectively,” he said.
“This is especially important in the work we have been doing together on employment and skills, which has brought in over £350,000 to the borough.”
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woooo who cares? our council will still rip us off as ever Tory or Labour – nothing changes.
Time of a revolution.
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Over £120k of tax payers money has been spent on this club and Mr Eade made a big song and dance about becoming a Director of it. A complete waste of money. Now there off to set up a more localised version of the same thing. All smoke and mirrors.
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Well, on the face of it, they’ve finally realised that it was a waste of time, money and effort. Good, let’s hope that they concentrate on rather more pressing matters, rather than being involved in grandiose “city state” projects that gobble lots of our money to no obvious positive result. Council-tax freeze next, please, Mr. Eades.
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So they leave just as they are about to get some serious power? What a waste of time and money. I bet they were kicked out really.
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Welcome back to Shropshire.
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hear hear welcome back, now we are a county again
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Is sanity returning to Mr Eade or is an election in the offing??
Being unusually generous I will assume sanity is returning and Mr Eade has woken up to what interests those of us who pay his wages.
Can I suggest the next areas for action:
1) Remove, by redundancy (disciplinary action takes far to long), 90% of the traffic mismanagement mob – they have made you a laughing stock Mr Eade (plastic pipes in the road, millions wasted at trench lock etc) and their latest triumph at Lawley will see traffic backing up to the town centre in the very near future. Even your own councillors admit this mob are a law unto themselves and ignore the queries raised by councillors – make revenge sweet!!
2) Abandon “Transforming Telford” with it’s huge costs and minimal benefits – in the current times we are in “Surviving in Telford” mode so you need to lead by example
3) Ensure schools stay open when it snows and make very sure that all those staff who failed to turn up for work due to snow don’t get paid and are top of the redundancy hit list
4) Use your recently announced redundancy scheme to remove the non jobs, excessive layers of management,those who think claimed sickness is an excuse for extra holiday and of course the political correctness lobby of jobs.
5) Turn off all the traffic lights and save on the electricity costs
6) Get out of your partnership with the “Safety” camera partnership and invest the money in the roads to reduce the accident rate!
The remaining 10% could be tasked with this – it is surprising how motivated and responsive they will be now they are almost alone
7) Open up the staff car park to shoppers and make it pay to park – it will bring in some revenue, put your staff in the same position as those who work in the town centre and encourage the green behaviour you have long preached to us about
You have started well, with the stopping of sandwiches, threat of redundancy etc and if you continue in the way the people want you might even survive the next election – now is not the time to be looking for alternative employment!!
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Can we assume, public sector enemy, that you don’t use any of the public services you have such contempt for?
Or that when you are unfortunate enough to be ill, you don’t expect your employer to pay you sick leave?
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Public Sector Enemy, what’s the ‘political correctness lobby of jobs’?
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well done to the telford tories, down with the city, up with the countryside
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It would appear that there is slightly more to this than meets the eye. According to an article in the Birmingham Post Telford & Wrekin withdrew when civil servants said that the city region bid could not go ahead while Telford was included, due to it being separated from the rest of the region by a large chunk of Staffordshire.
So it’s more a case of “did they jump or were they pushed”.
Hopefully T&W will now come to terms with reality and accept that Telford is a medium-sized town in a mainly rural area, and forge closer links with the rest of Shropshire.
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horay
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Peter – I can only assume you are a public “servant”
Sadly, there are many services I have to pay for even if I don’t use them – there are also many services I am forced to use as there are no options e.g. bins, roads etc.
If I had the option I could choose which services I used and pay accordingly. The best services would then survive and the worst ones would disappear!
On the subject of sick pay – yes employers should pay for reasonable sick leave but ask T&W about the long term “sick”, the stress leave etc and see how that compares to the private sector.
Chris – the politically correct jobs encompass the diversity officer, the walking bus to school schemes, the be greener officer and all their associated hangers on. You only have to look at the jobs advertised at the “Can & Do” council to realise that the politically correct non job is a major part of the headcount.
Enjoy your time in the cushy public sector gentlemen, I fear your days may be numbered.
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Public sector enemy. I am not a public servant. I was, many years ago, but have worked in the private sector since. I can tell you that there is far more waste and bureaucracy in multi-national corporate business, and far more overpaid ‘hangers-on’(in the form of senior execs) than I ever encountered in the public sector.
My recollection of my public sector colleagues is that they were typically highly skilled and educated, and well-motivated by the desire to provide a good level of service to the public. We would often work late into the evening (unpaid I must stress) in order to meet challenging deadlines.
There were no bonuses, no ‘freebies’ no service anniversary gifts, no funded Christmas events etc. There was a final salary pension, but the salaries weren’t all that great, and I don’t recall ever getting a pay rise greater than the prevailing inflation rate. There was really nothing ‘cushy’ about it…
I still have a final salary pension in the private sector, as do many. Sick leave arrangements in the company I work for are very similar to those offered in the public sector.
So you see I am qualified to speak about both private and public sector work. How about yourself? What experience do you have of working in the public sector? Or does your ‘knowledge’ come solely from the tabloid press perhaps?
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“the politically correct jobs encompass the diversity officer, the walking bus to school schemes, the be greener officer and all their associated hangers on.”
You left out the “Marketing & Reassurance Officer” – honestly! I can only imagine that their job is to promote the council by telling us “oh come on, we could be worse, and things will get better, one day…..”.
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this will be a big loss for the towns economy going forwards
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ps i too work in the private sector and have got a final salary pension scheme, i think its the least i deserve for the pay im on
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