Sandwell beats other Authorities

I see Sandwell are leading other authorities by miles, this time its spending but its not spending on schools or roads or the elderly, oh no

Its spent £12.5 Million on Agency workers

Yes Agency Workers?

While making their own staff redundant?

What's going on in Sandwell?

I see one Sandwell councillor has said it’s an appalling waste of money and Sandwell should get their house in order.

Sandwell Labour have been blaming Tory Cut’s for the redundancies, How can Sandwell justify that spending while sacking its staff? why not retrain them?

Will someone help me with my maths?

The Government asked Sandwell to save about (£25-30M) per year,                       

Sandwell rushes off and spends £12.5Million on agency staff.   
                                                       
Then starts to make its own staff redundant

Authority agency spend	2009/10	2010-11
Sandwell	£9.6M	£12.5M
Wolverhampton	£4.9M	£5.6M
Dudley	£4.1M	£4.7M
Staffordshire	£4.2M	£2.8M
Walsall	£8.4M	£7.6M
South staffs	£167,454	£216,834
Lichfield	£291,027	£311,190

Sandwell has an estimated pot of £9.7Million to cover redundancy costs (see below)

 A press report on Sandwell based on redundancy costs

Council bosses have set aside £4 million cash pot and have been given permission to borrow a further £5.7m from the Government

 http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/01/25/massive-bill-as-axe-falls-on-sandwell-council-jobs/#ixzz1fUZJPHmu

And also take a look at

E&S    3^rd Dec 2011  page 6 Midland Councils spend £35 Million

Is it a Labour policy not to have a policy?

So far all we’ve had from Labour is there plan to get out of their debt crisis is to have more debt.

(I’m very impressed at that one)

Then we have a robotic Labour leader in a time warp

It’s very easy to moan and say we wouldn’t do it that way, but when you ask “what you would do then”? the silence tells a lot.

Labour seem to have forgotten that everyone is the managing director of their own personal finances and I feel there cannot be one person left in the UK who is not aware that Labour went on a spending binge of epic proportions. (see my comments on the Public below) 

This with the European socialists and the Yanks also having a good spend all funded by the banks lending to what now seems anyone with a smile on their face, has taken us back to the 1930’s.

Postal Voting Changes

We are introducing changes to the postal voting system to tighten up on election fraud just a few years after a leading judge said our postal voting election system had led to levels of fraud that would disgrace a banana republic

Sandwell Tory said

These changes are set to come in early 2012 and will require people wanting a postal vote to provide their date of birth and National Insurance number and proof of ID

Red Ed’s déjà vu moment

Take a look and listen to these answers to a ITV reporters questions.

 From the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition 
on such a serious subject  

Have Labour lost the plot ?

Did he lose the script ?

Tell me one more time?

 you could not make this up?

These were Ed's words a few months ago

Answers on a post card please, Ho Ho Ho

Sandwell Tory said

Please do not replace Ed, since the Two Ronnies finished there’s not much comedy on TV

I wonder if we could have  "The Two Ed’s are better than one show" ?  

see also

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/01/ed-miliband-interviewer-shame-strike-soundbites?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487



The Public

What would you do with £72Million and approximately £2Million a year there after?

Build 6 swimming pools for the people of Sandwell perhaps? One for each town?

Replace most of the schools?

Build approximately 1000 homes, enough homes to almost remove the waiting list?

Put central heating into 24,000 homes? Or rewire 36,000 homes perhaps?

Or would you re-roof 18,000 homes making them more energy efficient and cheaper to run?

or would you use the money to help industry in Sandwell, to produce jobs for the people?

Or open the public ????????

Sandwell Tory said  “what would you do?”

See more

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/11/24/the-public-makes-58k-but-costs-hit-2-29m/

Chicken’s teeth

The bond markets are voting with their feet giving interest rates to Italy of over 7%. Spain and Portugal have similar problems and now the people are voting with their feet as well as a number of European countries all seem to have a problem with socialism.

Spain has just shown the back door to the socialists in an election of epic implications and proportions

Italy has its technocrat government and I have to wonder who else will be next to realise It’s easy to spend someone else’s money it’s hard to pay it back.

I further wonder when the people will start to realise that it seems even the bank crisis was just one little gear in a socialist economic engine that was overheating years before the banking crash, which gave the illusion of economic growth at the expense of tomorrow when the debt payments start and  the fuel for this engine was borrowed money

I have to ask are we watching the end of a socialist European experiment called the Euro and will socialists in Europe be as rare as chicken’s teeth?   

Euro mania

What going on with the Euro?

It’s basically simple they have spent money they haven’t got and now find they can’t afford to pay the debt interest instalments.

The UK is in a better position but sadly not much better, as we also have a major debt problem, which was a nice little parting thank you from the last Labour administration.

Our UK debt is currently being paid back to the tune of about £120Million per day, that’s the same as saying if we had no debt we could build a new hospital every day of the year, we are paying more in Labours daily debt interest payments than we do on our defence or schools.

Labours solution was to say we are cutting too fast and too deep a nice little phrase which caught on in the press, they also said we should spend more money.

The trouble is Greece, Italy and others did follow that route and their debts continued to rise to the point we are now at.

If debt got you into the problem how can more debt solve the problem?

We are better placed than most of the Euro countries and the USA simply due to the following  

The first nine months of this year, the UK economy has grown at the same speed as the US economy – despite the latter’s massive fiscal stimulus. ( the USA pumped in $Billions)

Since the general election, the UK private sector has created over half a million extra jobs

Yet the government in Greece is now finding problems to raise enough money to pay the wages of its public sector workers.

Even though Labour gave away our veto on bailouts and Labour signed up the UK up to a Euro bailout mechanism fund

 we have said

 No UK contribution to the Eurozone bailout.

 No IMF funding specifically for the Eurozone bailout.

We will protect Britain and if we had not had a credible plan 18months ago to rescue our economy, we would have been in the same firing line as Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain & Italy are now in.

We will also protect Britain’s interests in Europe strangely enough this approach now seems to be grabbing cross party support

Sandwell Tory said we can always follow Labours spend, spend, spend and go the same way as the other countries

More help for Sandwell Small business’s

Once again we listen to the people who know what going on and help produce jobs for the people of Sandwell.

This time its small business loans, sometimes a shop or small company may only need a small sum to bide them over a problem or so they may buy new stock or equipment.

Often it's a small investment that can get those businesses going, create the jobs, kick-start the innovation and exports that we need. But these are the very loans that you simply can't get without personal guarantees, like putting up your house - and even then the banks might say no.

This has got to change - and we're going to use the Regional Growth Fund to help change it.

Lord Heseltine has brokered a ground-breaking deal with two major High Street banks where the government will provide £95 million of new Regional Growth Fund money for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). These two banks will administer the scheme and provide new lending, unlocking a total of £500 million of new investment for SMEs.
Sandwell Tory said
By using high street banks like this we will give support to those SMEs that can't access big commercial funding and we will help our area

Sandwell Localism

One of the strangest things to come out lately is a thing called Localism

There are a lot of people who have stated that localism is bad for Sandwell, let’s take a look, to see what it’s all about

Localism means just that, local people and the consultation process, we’ve all seen instances where consultation to a planning application or change of bus route was an A4 leaflet, with a very small font,  posted on a lamp post about 8 foot in the air.

That approach to consultation was highlighted in the comedy  “Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy “ a program from the 1970’s, which went along the lines that Earths impending doom relied on the fact that the notice of Earth’s demolition had been posted on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri 3.5 light years away and they had not received a single complaint. (Watch it on You tube)

How will localism affect you?  

Regional special strategies have gone.

Top down, you will have this development has gone

Town Centre changes will have to go to the public for their acceptance

It’s quite simple if someone wishes to build 50 three storey houses on a ½ acre of ground by your home, it’s proposed you will have the legal right to call for a referendum

Developers and councils will have to work with local communities to get an agreement

Councils will also have an incentive to build more social housing

Sandwell Tory said

I feel the people will love it, as it gives control of development to the people, as for the politicians it will force them to conduct consultation and work to the peoples wants.

Take a look at West Bromwich; I have to ask if we had the Localism bill in 1970 would our main town look much different? After all in the last 40 years we’re now on our 3^rd Police station, our 2^nd Bus station, our 2^nd College, a three screen cinema which closed, a gala swimming baths which closed, with a 10 year promise of a new one, strangely enough the new Police station and College have no staff car parks, but we have got a £70Million arts centre which is internationally famous.

I welcome the Localism Bill the quicker the better   

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/draftframework

More Sandwell Cuts?

Latest reports show that Sandwell Labour is cutting £241,000 from its Youth services.

Immediately this could be considered a very sad move under the economic climate, but a further look shows that Labour are looking to spend £0.5 Million on new electric cars and a further fortune on replacement cars for the Mayor

Its only 30 years ago councillors went to council on the bus

Sandwell Tory said

You could not make this up

E&S p10    27:10:2011