Letter: How Telford council can save cash
Wednesday 5th October 2011, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: Telford & Wrekin Council now faces a cut of £35 million. Cutting councillor numbers to 22 would save £224,000 per year and this is a saving that has been dodged for too long.
The council leader’s salary should be linked to the average wage of a Telford worker.
The regeneration schemes, which will not create jobs, will cost us money we haven’t got and quite honestly do nothing to drag Telford out of its economic problems. They should be cancelled and cancelled quickly.
These fanciful building projects should be scrapped and the money reinvested in supporting real community services that have been cut in the last four years.
We need to limit pay rises to senior management and need to reduce the number of managers and executive roles within the council.
This is a public service not a FTSE 100 company.
We need to be realistic about what salaries we pay to people in the top jobs.
No councillor should be in a pension scheme that’s funded by the taxpayer, it’s not sustainable in the long term.
The mismanagement of our council by the previous regime left many problems and broken promises.
People voted Labour in May for change and that means ending regeneration schemes, which are more like degeneration.
Oliver Healey
English Democrat
Hadley
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Cutting to 22 councillors? That will make those who take up the challenge of representing their local communities harder. Your suggestion will mean only those who can afford to become a councillor will do so.
I’d rather see a smaller reduction of councillors and better measures to ensure that those who represent actually reflect the diversity of communities and the people across Telford.
I applaud the number of female councillors, councillors with disabilities, councillors from ethnic minorities and LGBT councillors that are already on the council but the diversity could always be better.
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Well said Oliver councillors have had it far too good for far too long, you have hit the nail on the head. 10/10. councillors take note you have been rumbled.
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Oliver – end regeneration completely? So Telford would be stuck in a time-warp with no potential for private investment at all?! Vicious circle!
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I agree, the private sector isn’t going to invest in a tired place that has barely changed since the 80s which is why you can count the number of new buildings in the town centre over the last 10 years on one hand unlike normal towns who have been through something of a construction boom.
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There are some valid arguments however I believe the real measure of those who wish to act in public life is what the public should reasonably pay for such elected volunteers . The allowances was increased in 1998 a Blair project to supposedly improve the quality of candidate in local government though in reality the same old tired stalwarts profligate spiteful politics where there should be no such nonsense which serves to deter decent better qualified people from entering local government.
In the fifties councillors allowances amounted to not have having to pay local tax rates in reward for their public service by today’s standard this would be equivalent to not having to pay their community charge. If one considers an average council tax as £1500 per year it equates to around 250 hrs a year at minimum wage. There is a direct comparison to be made with other public servants , special police constables receive no allowance however prior to austerity measures regional trials were being made to reward such public officers with a yearly allowance payment of between £1500 -£2000 which similarly equated to a minimum wage equivalent for their hourly service , notable duty of a public servant who in the course of there duty may face a serious harm . The conservatives as a fallacious election pledge proposed reducing councillor no’s by 14 a reasonable equation if one retains the amount of wards however the real cost is excessive allowances with no obligatory conditions for reward. Councillors residing outside of the country is nothing unusual to the criticism of the current system and is clearly open to abuse.
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