Monday 27 September 2010

The Latest 'Unfairness': Loud Voices

Lewisham Council has plans for its libraries in the current economic situation. They aren't being met with unbridled enthusiasm from the voters:
Around 17,000 people, some of whom lobbied last night's Lewisham Council meeting, have signed petitions against possible library closures in Crofton Park, Sydenham, New Cross, Grove Park and Blackheath Village.
But they weren't just having a whinge - they had alternate suggestions too:
Slashing the pay of council chiefs, ending local assemblies and cutting the millions paid to consultants are all alternatives to shutting libraries, a meeting was told.
That, as you can imagine, didn't go down too well.

I mean, there's localism, and then there's 'You what? Our pay and perks?! You lot can just do one! What do you think this is, a democracy?'
Sir Steve warned the meeting there were other under-threat areas affecting people “who don’t have the ability to mount a campaign”.

He said: “When we come to the crunch we can’t simply decide on how loud the voices are on one given issue.”
Because if you raise your voices to be heard, that's somehow 'unfair' to those who...err... haven't raised their voices. Apparantly.
Councillors’ questions revealed the authority spent £5,264,796 on consultants in the last financial year and has an annual budget for local assemblies of £866,000.
We can't have consultants starving in the gutters of Lewisham, now can we?

7 comments:

microdave said...

"the authority spent £5,264,796 on consultants in the last financial year"

And this authority will no doubt (like all the others) offer top rates for its own staff, and then try and justify same by claiming that it's essential, in order to attract the best people.

If you have the best people why do you need to blow FIVE MILLION QUID on consultants, you tossers???

In a time of need said...

Parallels: A colleague of mind once spent a whole day moving a colour printer round an office as the purchasers of it couldn't make up their mind where the thing should go. When he had manhandled this beast several times and finally had it wired in to the network, etc, he gave them an invoice for forty quid.

They were not happy. Forty quid was a lot of money for what he did.

Unfortunately the person who wrote cheques had an invoice on her desk for £900. It was for 'diversity' training and would take a few hours. No, she argued when the fact was pointed out, the training was valuable; the colour printer (and therefore this man's time) wasn't.

So various councils endlessly spend money like water on 'diversity' and consultants and the forty quids (or in this case the libraries) can go boil their heads.

Priorities, people. Priorities!

Anonymous said...

We have a 'community centre' round the corner with a large car park. There is a library branch in it and a coffee shop. I have seen no community activity in this large building, which is also shut when it might be containing street yobbery. It couldn't be that they have built offices for themselves, could it?

Greencoat said...

If they can't close public libraries down they make sure to ruin them.

My local library was once a small, silent cathedral of books and learning.

Nowadays, it's full of jabbering ethnics and gangs of 'students' scoffing junk food as they giggle over the computers.

You'll find more culture in a bus shelter.

Greencoat said...

If they can't close public libraries down they make sure to ruin them.

My local library was once a small, silent cathedral of books and learning.

Nowadays, it's full of jabbering ethnics and gangs of 'students' scoffing junk food as they giggle over the computers.

You'll find more culture in a bus shelter.

Greencoat said...

So good I blogged it twice.

Sorry, folks.

JuliaM said...

”If you have the best people why do you need to blow FIVE MILLION QUID on consultants, you tossers???”

Just a guess, but it's because they HAVEN'T got the right people at all...

”It was for 'diversity' training and would take a few hours.”

Scrapping all the diversity nonsense should be the first thing any cash-strapped council does.

”It couldn't be that they have built offices for themselves, could it?”

You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.. ;)

”My local library was once a small, silent cathedral of books and learning.”

Oh, how terribly middle-class and backwards!

”So good I blogged it twice.”

No worries. Blogger's been playing up a bit lately.