Lincoln people will pay 1.9 per cent more for city council services after budget is set

“And why this extra 1.9% for the police? most of the people of this county did not want a PCC but now we all have to donate to his wage packet. Disgusting thats what it is.”

“Accepting, of course, that when everything is run from one central point that when it goes down in one place it goes down everywhere ... witness the IT failure at RBS that has taken down three other banks with it.

Perhaps we should do away with all councils and run everything from Westminster, then?

But not until we've considered the difference between duplication and duplicitous, perhaps.”

“Oldern......

You make little sense to me. You point out the blindingly obvious - that the various councils do different things to each other (some actually do very little!); but neglect to consider that they've absolutely no need to. Joining them all together under a single body gives the opportunity to cut the duplicitous areas and access economies of scale in contracting. It also needs far less administrators and 'executives' overall to deliver services thus optimising the money available for those services. I also believe the county can manage with far less councillors than we have now and that the councils need to get out of non-core buisiness - why Lincoln City Council need to run a fleet of heritage vehicles when they aren't a motor museum and they offer no service to the public either directly or through fundraising to offset tax reductions is beyond me.

There is much wrong with the government structure of Lincolnshire and it needs sorting out - we shouldn't turn a blind eye because historically 'that's the way it's always been'.”

“A contributor writes:

These are all tiers of local government that are expensive duplications, that are unnecessary and are no longer effective, authouritive or listened to by the next tier up. Have one authourity and call it Lincolnshire. Combine all the dispirate funding into one budget. Call it Lincolnshire. Shock horror. Would a private company tolerate this massive duplication and inefficiency?

So let's explore the points ....

"....tiers of local government that are expensive duplications."

Well, these tiers are not duplications, of course.

The various councils have quite different responsibilities which do not duplicate each other.

The County Council does education - District Councils do not.
The County Council does social services - District Councils do not'
Where the locality is 'parished', Parish Councils do allotments - District and County Councils do not --- and so on.

There may be a small number of areas where responsibilities are interwoven (waste collection and waste disposal come to mind) - but the aspects are quite different from each other, in scale particularly, and there is not duplication of responsibilities.

The contributor also asks:

"Would a private company tolerate this massive duplication and inefficiency?"

To which the answer, of course, is 'yes', this is exactly how large very many large private companies operate - and there is no basis for assuming it's inefficient.

Where a company has many aspects to its overall operation, it will typically have have many independently trading companies, each concentrating on its own specialisms and each trading under different names from different locations and with their own boards of directors, chairmen and women, CEOs and all the rest of it.

Indeed, local accountability may well be the best tool we have for assuring efficiency in service delivery - certainly we can't hold large corporations to account.

We only have to look at what happened in the banking sector to know that.

We don't live in a world of 'Private good, public bad' - nor the other way around. We live in a world where both sides have strengths and weaknesses and both could learn from each other.

But it's generally helpful when people argue with reference to the facts and not dogma, I find.”

“Bin all the minor councils like North Kesteven ,South Kesteven, East Kesteven, West Kesteven, New Holland, Old Holland, Lincoln City, Lincoln Town, Lincoln Village, Lincoln Cathedral, North Lincolnshire, South Lincolnshire, Historic Lincolnshire, Look North Lincolnshire(sic) Any Lincolnshire..........

These are all tiers of local government that are expensive duplications, that are unnecessary and are no longer effective, authouritive or listened to by the next tier up. Have one authourity and call it Lincolnshire. Combine all the dispirate funding into one budget. Call it Lincolnshire. Shock horror. Would a private company tolerate this massive duplication and inefficiency? Vested intrests (councillors elected by a minority of those that give a damn) are very content with the status quo. Its a well paid job. Sorry, I meant "expenses".

By the way the latest Government has borrowed more to spend more than even the last lot. What cuts? Bah.......... soundbites!”

“What a load of twaddle - all those councillors wittering on about party politics: unions harping about injustice facilitated by politicians, ......

"Exactly what will be cut and when is still to be decided by the executive". Is the key sentence in this report.

There is absolutely no way this bunch of self serving idiots (the 'executive') will do themselves out of a well paid job and a luxury pension and no way alive the people we elect as councillors (of whatever party political persuasion) or the TUSC have the wit to change that.

For me the problem isn't the cuts, it's the cost of government - this 'executive' will cut every front line service before it takes a penny from the cost of providing their luxury upkeep and if we allow it, all we'll be left with is a bunch of executives and no front line services.

Time for people to start tackling councillors and unions - not central government.

Don't even bother writing to McCartney - curent reporting says he's likely to be rude in return.

At a local government level party politics clouds the issues - independant candidates with the skills and experience to hold the council (who are basically public servants paying consultants to do their jobs) to account and keep them focussed on local issues is the key to efficiency and value for money.

So - all you who voted for a Labour or Conservative or LIb Dem councillor because that's what you've always done and "that's what my Dad did" or because of some misconcieved notion of "that's what people of my class vote for" are really responsible for the cuts at a local level. That's how we end up with clueless councillors that these executives can run rings round - next time round think about what you're doing and go for the person with the skills and drive to do the right thing and don't blindly follow party allegiances - that's a matter for national politics.”