Telford council could axe 14 members to save cash
Friday 24th December 2010, 8:38AM GMT.
The number of Telford & Wrekin councillors could be slashed in a bid to save the authority hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. Council bosses are to investigate if they can cut the number of councillors from 54 to 40.
They say the move could save the council about £200,000 a year.
But consultation with the community would have to be carried out and approval given by the Local Government Boundary Committee for England to help create new council wards before any cuts are made.
Any proposal would not effect council elections in May 2011 and would come into effect for local elections in 2015.
Council leader Andrew Eade said: “Local government faces a situation where it must make massive savings.
“This council has planned for cuts in the money it receives from Government of around a third.
“Our radical restructuring, halving senior management and making significant other savings in staff and operating budgets will go a long way to achieve this.
“However, the scale of savings are such that we must do more.
“Nothing is sacred and it is only right that at a time when we are asking the council to reduce staff costs, councillors should also take their share of savings.”
Councillor Keith Austin, leader of the Labour group on the council said the cuts to numbers were a diversionary tactic to take the spotlight away from deep cuts to council services.
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When people need help the council decide to cut the number of Cllrs. Why doesnt Cllr Eade, leader take a cut in his 30k allowance. All other Cllrs take a cut of 5-10% that would save more money than £200,000.
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About time too!
It’s a nonesense that a small borough such as Telford has this many councillors.
If cuts at the top and cuts to none essential services means that more employees at the “sharp end” keep their jobs, then so be it.
Telford will look a much grimmer place if litter pickers and grass cutter lose their jobs, just to keep interfering busy bodies in the manner they’ve become accustomed to.
And yes i’m not a fan of councillors.
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And the “Diversity Champion” councillor who wrote in a few weeks ago to defend her department’s raison d’être still hasn’t replied to all of our comments to explain what the money is spent on or what her role actually does involve.
So that’s both a councillor AND a whole non-statutory department that could be rubbed out to allow real jobs to flourish.
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Hear, hear!
Yes, Councillor Liz Parsons – We’re still waiting for some answers.
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I seem to recall there were a number of answers over the ‘diversity officer’ question.
They explained that diversity officers (and it’s typically one or two officers rather than a whole department) were there to help people to make the most of the council’s services they were paying for when they had individual challenges which might otherwise prevent them from doing so – for example people with physical disabilities or learning difficulties.
The other side of the role is to ensure that the council meets its legal obligations to provide services to all the people in its area – rather than just a select few. It’s difficult to see how any reasonable person could object to such a role.
The majority that do object seem to be living in some sort of conspiracy world where they imagine the sole purpose of such officers is to help those with a different skin colour – what a sad, embittered world they must live in.
Moving on to councillors who haven’t responded to criticism – how about Councillor Dennis Allen who made the entirely ridiculous claim that despite an average public sector salary of c.£28,000 (and bear in mind that figure includes GPs, Judges, Senior teachers and police officers), the average public sector pension is apparently £26,000 pa!
A bit difficult to comprehend that, given that the maximum pension after 40 years service is 50% of salary in the vast majority of cases.
In fact he had regurgitated this inaccurate figure from its source in the ever-inaccurate Daily Mail – but he never had the decency to respond and admit that he was wrong.
I’m glad he’s not my councillor…
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telford and wrekin council as one of the main employers cover up their employees national insurance numbers on their playslips and use the data protection act as their excuse for doing this.
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Sorry Tracey, could you explain what relevance your comment has, please?
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Most employers no longer print National Insurance Numbers on payslips to prevent identity theft, I know my ex-employer stopped printing them 3 years ago. No idea what relevence your comment has on this item.
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good on them, best idea for savings ive heard in a long time, less cuts to services more cuts to fat cats please!
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Good plan, why cant shropshire council do this instead of closing care centres and privatising rubbish collections to french firms who cant cope with the british winter
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Sensible, i dont need a representative in this day i have a soliticer if they mess with me and this is the age of e-petitions and if i really was bothered well council meetings are public events after all
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Representative is supposed to do what the term suggests ie in this case, represent the view of his/her voters, that way works democracy. We however are in a post democratic age where the political elites in all parties have colluded together to remove the power of influence from the voter and our representatives in most areas of government.
I do not think e-petitions will fill the gap because they can and will be ignored; they are therefore nothing but a contrivance to give a parody of democracy where none exists.
Your solicitor is no good either because they will be forced to work within the law which is made, changed and ignored to suit the same political elites, several cases have already proven this point.
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They aren’t allowed to represent your views. Any councillor is disqualified from voting on any decision if they have any opinion on the matter before the meeting.
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Yes Kath, I was however going of theme and was referring to our Parliament and the new idea of citizens initiative procedures rather than local government.
But your statement about the rules for local councillors is well made and is itself anti-democratic and rather indicates the fallacy that we have any form of local democracy, what is the point of voting for someone who is prohibited from representing the view of the voters. Taken to its logical conclusion would not this rule not also bar any party member standing for local government, they are all elected on their parties manifesto so they all have opinions on several diverse subjects.
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Your starter for 10, SS reporter – what is wrong with this sentence?
Any proposal would not effect council elections in May 2011 and would come into effect for local elections in 2015.
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I don’t think it will be very affective anyway…..
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very welcome news, time to de lice the parasites
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finally a popular and sensible policy from the council, this should be done in a way which disenfranchises as many council estate layabouts as possible in my mind all labour areas should be merged into vast rural wards where they are diluted by educated people – that will sort it
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