Local government - expensive and purposeless?

Plowman

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Sleepy

If a government had the balls to make the necessary redundancies and face the flack from the rural electorate (since the regional authorities would be be probably be best located in large towns / cities) it'd save us millions per year.

Permabear

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golfwallah

Permabear wrote: »

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Regardless of how many local authorities we have, the key issue is - fixing the democratic “accountability deficit”.

This is an essential point because there is no transparency in exactly how and where Council money is spent right now. And this critical issue must change if we are to take control from the hands of paid officials and place it where it belongs - in the hands of the taxpayer and their representatives.

The reason is startlingly simple - if you can't see exactly how the money is spent, you can't direct what way it should be spent.

The Councils prepare their budgets in line with statutory requirements. These statutory requirements, which ultimately lack transparency, were drawn up by central government in consultation with the County Managers.

Most people have no problem with council spending as long as they have some say in how it is spent. However, their vote only allows them do that every 4 years or so. What they want is the information to enable them to communicate meaningfully with councillors on the various activities our taxes were being spent on.

Current Fingal Co. Co. published accounts and budgets report spending by highly summarised service areas only. Such highly aggregated reporting hides the detail needed to see precisely “what” the council spends our taxes on - the “public accountability deficit”.

For example within the general area of “Recreation and Amenity” services, the lowest level of detail currently available is for “Op, Mtce and Imp of Parks, Pitches & Open Spaces”, “Service Support Costs”, etc. – what is needed is detail by each major sporting activity area, such as GAA, Rugby, Soccer, Hockey, Swimming, Golf and Other Sports & Leisure Headings.

More detail will enable taxpayers to assess if this is how we want the money spent, considerably reducing the “public accountability deficit” that so disenfranchise both the electorate and their public representatives.

Public accountability implies the rendering of account for matters of public interest, i.e. an accounting to enable meaningful judgement to be made by the citizens so they can provide more precise feedback to their elected representatives.

To find out the key areas people want reported on, the council can employ well tried market research techniques such as focus groups, surveys, etc.

With the growing hue and cry over Household Charges and more to come about water charges, the sooner this accountability deficit is tackled the better for local and national democracy.

Farmer Pudsey

It would be quite easy to change the system we could use the region's as ocal authority areas the South Cork/Kerry, Mid West Limerick,Clare, North Cork andTipperary, The west Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal etc. This would leave us with about 10 councils. I do not think rural people would object

golfwallah

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

It would be quite easy to change the system we could use the region's as ocal authority areas the South Cork/Kerry, Mid West Limerick,Clare, North Cork andTipperary, The west Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal etc. This would leave us with about 10 councils. I do not think rural people would object

Easy in principle, yes, but in practice such a change could take years. Think of all the negotiations with staff / unions, consultants, etc. that would be involved.

And, if history teaches us anything, it is that change involving a lot of people takes a lot of time and hard work.

Don't detect that politicians, other than Ming & Co., have the stomach for that right now.

It would be much more manageable to agree the the level of detail in budgets and accounts - Councillors want accountability and the change to the format of the accounts would only involve County Managers and Government Departmental officials.

Sleepy

I've some experience of the Local Authorities Financial Reporting. The level of details you're looking for in terms of breakdown by Sport etc. simply doesn't exist within their current accounting system. To include it, while technically a simple task requiring relatively minor changes to their financial system, would be a *major* countrywide project (as virtually all the councils use a unified chart of accounting and reporting structure - something which would actually make merging them simpler than otherwise).

Better to get the overall structure right and then worry about improving the transparency of reporting imho. As it stands, to implement something akin to the UK model where details of all purchases of a value of £500 or greater (or where the supplier has received more than £500 worth of business in the year) have to be published on the council's websites would be a doddle in comparison (though it still wouldn't have the details of what exactly the spend was on).

You're also faced with the fact that 80% or greater of any Local Authorities spend is on the wage bill so detailed publishing of this information becomes difficult as you're stepping into the area of data protection. Not impossible by any means, but politically difficult: the unions really don't want their members salaries published.

Gumbo

Sleepy wrote: »

You're also faced with the fact that 80% or greater of any Local Authorities spend is on the wage bill so detailed publishing of this information becomes difficult as you're stepping into the area of data protection. Not impossible by any means, but politically difficult: the unions really don't want their members salaries published.

What Council have you experience with?
In 2010 Dublin City Council spent €400M on salaries and pensions from an income of €896M wihich is under 50%.

I would assume that cost has reduced for 2011 as DCC have lost approx 1000 staff member since. although their income for 2011 is approx €795M so the % value might remain but the actual cost will have reduced.

Plowman

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Farmer Pudsey

golfwallah wrote: »

Easy in principle, yes, but in practice such a change could take years. Think of all the negotiations with staff / unions, consultants, etc. that would be involved.

And, if history teaches us anything, it is that change involving a lot of people takes a lot of time and hard work.

Don't detect that politicians, other than Ming & Co., have the stomach for that right now.

It would be much more manageable to agree the the level of detail in budgets and accounts - Councillors want accountability and the change to the format of the accounts would only involve County Managers and Government Departmental officials.

I am old enough to remember why the power was taken off politicians orginally as they refused to stay with in budget however as for problems with reducing no of councils they could before the next local election abolish all 5 borough councils, and 75 town councils. and give over the responsibility to the County Councils. Also along with Limerick and waterford coporations being abolished Galway and Cork city Coporation could be combined with County Councils you have to start somewhere also see how Enda is chickening out of abolishing the senate

mikemac1

Sort of a similar example with the merging of the VECs.
Ok a far smaller example but it's a start

Are the politicians ready to face down local interests? Or realy will they be leading them

Tipp South complaining that Tipp North got the HQ and Minster Alan Kelly lapping up the credit from Nenagh

Waterford City and Waterford County merged and sent to Wexford town and the deise outcry that Brendan Howlin was looking after Wexford. May be some truth in that

Will the new regional authorities be based where the ministers have an interest?
Decentralization all over again

Good idea, makes sense but who will oversee which town becomes HQ?

Sleepy

kceire wrote: »

What Council have you experience with?
In 2010 Dublin City Council spent €400M on salaries and pensions from an income of €896M wihich is under 50%.

I would assume that cost has reduced for 2011 as DCC have lost approx 1000 staff member since. although their income for 2011 is approx €795M so the % value might remain but the actual cost will have reduced.

I've worked with pretty much every council barring Dublin City, Wexford County and Cork County. The Dublin councils are somewhat different than the rest of the country (Fingal are actually quite well run from my experience, some of their debt collection techniques are very clever).

Though I'd have been admittedly over-stating that any of the councils' wage bills would be over 80%, there are councils where it's approaching 90% of total spend.

Sleepy

mikemac1 wrote: »

Sort of a similar example with the merging of the VECs.
Ok a far smaller example but it's a start

Are the politicians ready to face down local interests? Or realy will they be leading them

Tipp South complaining that Tipp North got the HQ and Minster Alan Kelly lapping up the credit from Nenagh

Waterford City and Waterford County merged and sent to Wexford town and the deise outcry that Brendan Howlin was looking after Wexford. May be some truth in that

Will the new regional authorities be based where the ministers have an interest?
Decentralization all over again

Good idea, makes sense but who will oversee which town becomes HQ?

Exactly why they should allow the IMF to call the shots on it imho

K-9

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I am old enough to remember why the power was taken off politicians orginally as they refused to stay with in budget however as for problems with reducing no of councils they could before the next local election abolish all 5 borough councils, and 75 town councils. and give over the responsibility to the County Councils. Also along with Limerick and waterford coporations being abolished Galway and Cork city Coporation could be combined with County Councils you have to start somewhere also see how Enda is chickening out of abolishing the senate

There'll probably be some argument for keeping the City Councils but the Town councils in particular are ridiculous, there is absolutely no need for Ballyshannon, Buncrana and if I'm correct, Bundoran Councils in Donegal. Letterkenny I can see some argument for but it already has an electoral area, just increase the Councilors elected or proportionally reflect population.

mikemac1 wrote: »

Sort of a similar example with the merging of the VECs.
Ok a far smaller example but it's a start

Are the politicians ready to face down local interests? Or realy will they be leading them

Tipp South complaining that Tipp North got the HQ and Minster Alan Kelly lapping up the credit from Nenagh

Waterford City and Waterford County merged and sent to Wexford town and the deise outcry that Brendan Howlin was looking after Wexford. May be some truth in that

Will the new regional authorities be based where the ministers have an interest?
Decentralization all over again

Good idea, makes sense but who will oversee which town becomes HQ?

Well Tipp is kind of unique but if you put it along regional areas, put it in the largest population centre. You could still have County Councils, just regionalise things like Libraries which don't need County administrative centres.

mikemac1

Tipperary was split nearly a century before the first Dáil even existed

Even the Brits recognized it was twice the county of anywhere else :cool:

golfwallah

Under questioning on RTE’s Pat Kenny radio programme today, Minister Phil Hogan covered a whole raft of issues on Household Charges, related communications / process problems and, most interestingly, Local Government Reform.

I’m summarising, but he said that the Local Government Reform Package, currently being worked on by an “expert group”, would be published within the next few months. Reform would include the number of councils, new admin processes, more efficiencies and a new “Croke Park Agreement”.

He also stated that property tax would become more progressive and fairer, based on ability to pay. He said issues being looked at by the “expert group” included Local Authority Tenants and Privately Rented property.

In response to Pat Kenny’s question about the unfairness of people in remote rural areas being asked to pay for Council services they couldn’t avail of, he said they needed to take account of an element of community solidarity and the common good. People in these areas used roads maintained by the Councils to access other National Roads and services, etc.

Responding to the point that Deputy Luke “Ming” Flanagan had introduced a fear factor as regards tax collection, he said that Law Makers should not be advocating that people break the law.
For recorded interview go to: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/

loxyboi

Does anyone have a copy or know where I can get a copy of the debate? I tried RTÉ Player but I am too late and I have just missed it.

golfwallah

loxyboi wrote: »

Does anyone have a copy or know where I can get a copy of the debate? I tried RTÉ Player but I am too late and I have just missed it.

Go to: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_patkenny.xml

and scroll down to:

The Household Charge
Phil Hogan, Minister .........