Friday 22 October 2010

Councils 'Sharing Services'

Cathy Newman, FactCheck, posts on the requirement of Eric Pickles for local councils to share more services and comments on the proposed amalgamation of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster - three authorities which have announced plans to merge, creating a supersized council with a whopping budget of just under £2bn. She links to this article from the Hammersmith and Fulham News which carries the headline "Shared services 'to protect frontline'".

In January 2009 I posted about Multi Area Agreements here (rather a long post but one worth 'following through') and showed how this was a cover for the implementation of the EU NUTS programme. This requirement of Pickles is nothing more than the continuation of the process, begun by Hazel Blears (who remains a Poisoned Dwarf).

One of the reasons given for low voter turnout is that of the voters themselves who frequently complain that it doesn't matter who they vote for because nothing changes. Yup, all we seem to have done is exchange the Poisoned Dwarf for the Fat Controller!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well picked out WfW.

What difference is there to Regional Assemblies and Regional Development Agencies.

I believe that our friend Julia Middleton, of Common Purpose fame, has already had contact with Frances Maude in order to enable a culture change amongst our civil servants.

This is to get us used to the (now present) "post democratic society".

They're traitors, and they sneeringly know that we can not touch them.

English Pensioner said...

I suspect it will increase jobs. They will need co-ordinators to ensure the proper organisation of the shared services, accountants to ensure that the costs are shared appropriately, more internal paperwork to order the "shared service" to do something, whilst the cuts will be made to those who actually do the jobs ensuring that they are carried out less efficiently than before.
In simple terms as an example, a team of bin men and a truck can only empty a given number of bins each day, and if only the necessary number is employed at present, you will still need the same number however they are shared. All we will get are more managers!