CEO of the Local Government Management Agency

Dannyboy83

On one hand, the CEO of the Local Government Management Agency, Paul McSweeney is threatening that street lights will be turned off:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/mcsweeney-pay-charge-or-street-lights-could-be-turned-off-563182.html

Street lights may need to be switched off and community-run sports clubs will no longer exist if people don't comply with the household charge.

That's the warning from the CEO of the Local Government Management Agency, Paul McSweeney.

The organisation, which is tasked with collecting the controversial €100 tax, says so far just 61% of all homeowners have paid the household charge - meaning there's around 700,000 people who have yet to register and pay.

.
.

Paul McSweeney says it's no exaggeration that many basic services like street lighting may need to be looked at to cut costs: "It is unfair but what we're talking about here are public goods, your street lighting, your parks.

"If there isn't enough money to be paid for it in the first place, they have to be curtailed which is why parks will be closed, mobile libraries won't be going out and we may have to start switching off street lights except for junctions. These are the inevitabilities of it."

On the other hand, councillors are debating wheter to CUT the Lord Mayor of Cork's salary to TWICE the average industrial wage, rathern than FOUR TIMES the Average Industrial Wage.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/councillors-to-debate-halving-lord-mayors-salary-to-62k-203796.html
Councillors will next month debate a motion to slash the lord mayor of Cork’s salary in half to €62,000.
Independent Fianna Fáil councillor Kenneth O’Flynn believes that the city council — which is facing a €1.7m reduction in its budget on the directions of Environment Minister Phil Hogan — cannot afford to pay such "extravagant" wages to its figurehead.

Cllr O’Flynn said Lord Mayor Cllr John Buttimer (FG) receives an annual salary of about €123,000.

"The lord mayor of Cork is the highest paid mayor in the whole of the country. The average annual income of a mayor in Britain is €62,000. Boris Johnson gets around €182,000, but in fairness he’s the mayor of London, and London is an awful lot bigger than Cork," said Cllr O’Flynn.

He said that €62,000 per year was double the average industrial wage, and any lord mayor of Cork should be able to live on that quite comfortably.

As Fianna Fáil, Labour, and Fine Gael have a voting pact in operation for electing mayors, Cllr O’Flynn knows he may face an uphill battle in getting his motion passed.

Nevertheless, he wants to force the issue and is insisting that councillors vote on his motion, so the public can see in the face of current austerity who supports paying the city’s first citizen a salary of €123,000.

"Because of the budget cuts foisted on us by a Fine Gael minister, people with disabilities will have to wait for housing improvement grants, those on the housing waiting list will also be hit. Let’s have a small bit of cop on," he said.

"Ordinary householders are having to cut their cloth to measure to make ends meet and I think it’s only right that Cork City Council does the same."

Cllr Buttimer said it would not be appropriate for him to respond to Cllr O’Flynn’s comments.


..................

My question is:
Is this the result of an embarassing lack of communication? (right hand doesn't know what the left is doing?)
Or is it likely that all parties are informed and simply trying their brazen luck?



Either way, it looks like a terrible PR blunder...

femur61

Paul Mc Sweney of thelocal management authority agency said councils are looking down the back ofsofas for money for services. He saidcuts to local council funding because of non payment of household charge. Here in Kilkenny road works are on-going. For example, the footpath on the Dublin into the city roadwas widened for a cycle lane where a painted cycle lane would have sufficed. The road has been considerably narrowedmaking driving on the road dangerous. On the College Road in the City so called buildouts which narrowed the avenue were put in place, they were completed at the end of last yearare now being dug up.
These inane road works are being completed and then undone butyet are being told that services such as libraries and parks are underthreat.
Has this practice where tax payers money is being wasted andtaxes such as the household charge has been introduced to fund works

Chuck Stone

Just indicative of the total disconnect from reality of our higher paid civil/public servants.

We might have to turn off street lights but we can't talk about my wages which are totally out of proportion with my European counterparts because like the L'Oreal ad says 'I'm worth it'.

They need to take a machete to the upper end of PbS wages. Indeed, I would suggest that anyone on over 100K in the PbS (or indeed anyone being paid from the public purse) should go on a rolling yearly contract that can be terminated at any point.

woodoo

They are playing a very dangerous game here. If i paid the household charge and they turned the lights off i would be raging. I'd be blaming the government not my neighbours. They are trying to set citizen against citizen but it won't work.

Farmer Pudsey

May be if they stoped wasting money recently I was passing through Co Limerick. On a byroad they were repairing potholes. Now normally either you put a bit of tarmac or you use tar and chip to repair.

On this by road they were filling the hole with chips and dust ( I think it is called 804) using a plate whaker to compact it and covering with tar and chips. I was talking to a local from the area he says that they are doing this for the last year and a half. It a waste of time as the first guy that spin his wheel on one will reopen it. The plate whacker will loosen the road around the pothole so that next winter it will reopen again.

It is as slow as a wet week they are lucky to do a mile of road a day and there was 6-8 in the road gang and two small trucks to fill a few potholes.

Trampas

Lets say they close parks earlier or don't open them at all. What happens to the park ranger? Sits at home drinking tea as he doesn't need to open the park?

Street lights. Do you think a person down in the sticks gives a toss if street lights are turned off.

How much is a speed ramp costing a council does anyone know? I say they could get it cheaper if they shop around but you will probably find the builders have a rule not to cross each others boarders and they all quote the same. The ones with bricks fall apart over time. More wasted money.

Councils are great at wasting money. They should be made publish their annual figures so people can see what things cost

Maura74

Yes I agree all councils should publish their figures so that we can see where our money is being spent on....

I found this link about public libraries


http://www.librarycouncil.ie/public/

golfwallah

Trampas wrote: »

Lets say they close parks earlier or don't open them at all. What happens to the park ranger? Sits at home drinking tea as he doesn't need to open the park?

Street lights. Do you think a person down in the sticks gives a toss if street lights are turned off.

How much is a speed ramp costing a council does anyone know? I say they could get it cheaper if they shop around but you will probably find the builders have a rule not to cross each others boarders and they all quote the same. The ones with bricks fall apart over time. More wasted money.

Councils are great at wasting money. They should be made publish their annual figures so people can see what things cost

Maura74 wrote: »

Yes I agree all councils should publish their figures so that we can see where our money is being spent on....

I found this link about public libraries

http://www.librarycouncil.ie/public/

Well said and I agree 100%!

Local government decision making is concentrated from the top down and left mostly to civil servants and the county managers. This reduces elected councillors to the role of lobbyists, requesting information or services from the county manager (e.g. grants / facilities to sports clubs, road repairs).

This is not real democracy and, hopefully, the coming furore over Household Charges cuts will prompt councils to provide more transparency on how they are spending our money.

This transparency / openness would give councillors and the public a lot more say in choosing the services they want for their tax euros – rather than the “county manager knows best” approach we now have.

There is a long overdue need to repair the democratic deficit – rather than just leaving it to a few interested councillors or citizens to ask questions that are forgotten about before they are eventually answered.

Although Minister Phil Hogan has promised Local Government Reform, this will not address fundamental problems in giving local communities meaningful detailed information on how their taxes are being spent. Published budgets and accounts are so highly summarised (conveniently agreed between the Department and County Managers) that councillors and joe public are left with no meaningful power to change things.

To make this happen, people need availability of relevant information as a matter of routine (e.g. more disaggregated accounts, where key information is not “buried” in programme spending summaries, like “Recreation & Amenity”).

For example, we should be able to see at a glance just how much of “Recreation & Amenity” is being spent on open public parks, GAA, soccer, rugby, swimming, golf courses, etc. so we can have a rational input into how much we are prepared to pay for our preferred services. That would be more like real engagement with the taxpayer and real democracy!

Farmer Pudsey

Our biggest issue is that we have too many councils we do not need as many . The councisl should be based on the administrive regions, the West the South the East the Mid West all corporations and councils abolished.

This would reduce the number of county/city managers from 30 odd to around 10 and over time we could slim down staff levels. In one wat I do not blame the ordinary worker you or I in the same position would swing the lead if we also got away with it.

We could then get back to elected officials running local government again ang we could sack them after 5 years if they were not doing the job right.

Lantus

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Our biggest issue is that we have too many councils we do not need as many . The councisl should be based on the administrive regions, the West the South the East the Mid West all corporations and councils abolished.

This would reduce the number of county/city managers from 30 odd to around 10 and over time we could slim down staff levels. In one wat I do not blame the ordinary worker you or I in the same position would swing the lead if we also got away with it.

We could then get back to elected officials running local government again ang we could sack them after 5 years if they were not doing the job right.

Agree as do many others. I would go so far to say that we could reduce the number of local authority's to around 5 or 6.

We currently have 34 local authorities to cover the country and each one has a well paid CEO (county manager) at around 100k. Thats €3 million before you get to the deputy's and all the other layers of managment below. 34 IT departments, 34 HR departments, 34 other departments for whatever they are required to provide all duplicated at a cost of tens of millions.

Some of these counties have populations in the 40 to 60 thousand only!!!

The running of these counties should by a board of directors drawn from the residents in the area. Application should be subject to a minimum level of education and relevant experience to make up the boards specialist positions as required. Director positions should be reviewed on a yearly basis at an AGM and budgetary figures provided to all. Where there is a surplus the people can be asked to submit ideas for where they want to se money spent. Where there is a defecit they are asked the same. Let the people decide.

Taxes to be raised by a household charge or similar, no exceptions. Central tax to be reduced accordingley as more responsibility is devolved to local areas.

Farmer Pudsey

Lantus wrote: »

The running of these counties should by a board of directors drawn from the residents in the area. Application should be subject to a minimum level of education and relevant experience to make up the boards specialist positions as required. Director positions should be reviewed on a yearly basis at an AGM and budgetary figures provided to all. Where there is a surplus the people can be asked to submit ideas for where they want to se money spent. Where there is a defecit they are asked the same. Let the people decide.
QUOTE]

This would be just another copunty council with propective politicians trying to get control of this local area. There is no reason that a group elected could not run the south area ( Cork & Kerry) or the M id West ( Limerick, Clare West Tipp and a bit of Cork Or the South East wexford, Waterford East Tipp Carlow & Kilkenny. There is no point in Subdividing to allow more politicians milk the system. Like France 5 year term around 21 Councillors paid at present rate one elected Chairman who appoints a ceo for five years at the end all contracts expire for 8-10 top managers in area.

AlekSmart

From my early morning (c.0500) forays along the M50 this week,I can speculate that Mr McSweney has already got his wish.

Large stretches of the M50's lights being switched off at least an hour earlier than usual,mind you,we've been here before.....:(

charlemont

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Our biggest issue is that we have too many councils we do not need as many . The councisl should be based on the administrive regions, the West the South the East the Mid West all corporations and councils abolished.

This would reduce the number of county/city managers from 30 odd to around 10 and over time we could slim down staff levels. In one wat I do not blame the ordinary worker you or I in the same position would swing the lead if we also got away with it.

We could then get back to elected officials running local government again ang we could sack them after 5 years if they were not doing the job right.

I'd argue that the current County system gives a good geographical system for administration of services..
If we were to have say 5/6 councils then they would only end up sub dividing the areas again and adding another layer of bureaucracy.

But I agree with the rest of your post, We have far too many people working in and for the councils, The councils need to stripped back to the bone and let the elected councillors actually involve themselves in the needs of their areas rather than letting the civil service or other expensive advisor's do it for them.

The fact that we even have a CEO of the Local Government Management Agency is a joke, Why do we need a L G M A ? What do they even do ? And I'll bet he gets paid well too.

We have far far too many governmental bodies.

n97 mini

woodoo wrote: »

They are playing a very dangerous game here. If i paid the household charge and they turned the lights off i would be raging.

Sounds like you haven't paid it!

woodoo wrote: »

They are trying to set citizen against citizen but it won't work.

They're not really, they're trying to guilt people into it, and to an extent it's working. On the citizen vs citizen thing, there are probably are a few of those already, e.g. public vs private, scroungers vs taxpayers, welfare tourists vs everyone else etc.

n97 mini

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Our biggest issue is that we have too many councils we do not need as many .

Our biggest issue is that what ever we are paying for, we cannot afford as many or to pay as much. Not just local councils.

flutered

the proverbial elephant is that the majority of councils already require bailouts, this will not reach the public for some time, most likely the new year well after the budget, so asset stripping will become a reality.

markpb

charlemont wrote: »

The fact that we even have a CEO of the Local Government Management Agency is a joke, Why do we need a L G M A ? What do they even do ? And I'll bet he gets paid well too.

Did you bother to find out what the LGMA does or do you just automatically assume we don't because it suits your rant? The LGMA provides centralised services to all local authorities so they're not replicated by each one. If we insist on having a plethora of local authorities, having someone like the LGMA makes a lot of sense.

n97 mini

markpb wrote: »

The LGMA provides centralised services to all local authorities so they're not replicated by each one.

Why does every Local Authority have its own planning computer system? If there was one single, very costly, system that was going to benefit from centralisation, that was it.

It is possible the LGMA doesn't save as much as it costs to run when it misses biggies like that.

tails_naf

I know first hand that county councils are STILL playing the game of spending the entire budget each year, in case it is cut next year. This was true as of last year at least (this year is TBD, but I doubt it will be different). There was panic spending in November/December, and all kinds of 'work' that didn't need doing was done.

So until the budget spending practice of 'use it or lose it' is stopped, we're going to waste huge amounts of money.

It turns my stomach that such low hanging fruit has not been tackled - yet they threaten to turn off lights!

Trampas

tails_naf wrote: »

I know first hand that county councils are STILL playing the game of spending the entire budget each year, in case it is cut next year. This was true as of last year at least (this year is TBD, but I doubt it will be different). There was panic spending in November/December, and all kinds of 'work' that didn't need doing was done.

So until the budget spending practice of 'use it or lose it' is stopped, we're going to waste huge amounts of money.

It turns my stomach that such low hanging fruit has not been tackled - yet they threaten to turn off lights!

Forgot about that. Lets do everything at end of year cause we need to spend out money or else we lose it.

Surprised they didn't come out with we wont be able to buy salt to treat the roads when it gets cold but I am sure they probably forgot about it and will pull this one out in a few weeks time.

femur61

tails_naf wrote: »

I know first hand that county councils are STILL playing the game of spending the entire budget each year, in case it is cut next year. This was true as of last year at least (this year is TBD, but I doubt it will be different). There was panic spending in November/December, and all kinds of 'work' that didn't need doing was done.

So until the budget spending practice of 'use it or lose it' is stopped, we're going to waste huge amounts of money.

It turns my stomach that such low hanging fruit has not been tackled - yet they threaten to turn off lights!

As I said happened in Kilkenny, road works started in November and dug up in January. They bought appartments in one area last year of the county and the building is still empty. The builder couldn't sell them and they came up and offered him an extortionate amount of money.