Eric Pickles critical of Croydon Council spend on new officers

“re: ArfurZTowcrat

The qualifications I have set in my earlier text is typical of what would be expected for an applicant for a role with a large business. If you are unable to comprehend why I have set this criterium then maybe you would check for yourself and satisfy your own mind that the vast majority of our Croydon Councillors, MP's and notably our GLA Member are ill-equipped to be running the Council. Just because they can all apparently say YES does not make them experienced and qualified for the job.

I Understand our GLA Member was an unemployed former Insurance salesman who had absolutely no managerial experience, business experience or qualifications beyond grammar school. Yet he has managed to be paid over £100,000 per year for his GLA role as well as his Croydon Councillor/Cabinet Member post. Can you however tell me what wonderful decisions he has made besides telling us since about 2007-8 that he has the ear of Boris and the Tram will be coming to Purley?

Far too many of the pin-striped suit brigade apparently spend too much time at the local Masonic Lodge Halls. Could this be how they manage to get on way beyond their capabilities and all apparently to the detriment of Croydon and Croydon's residents. Do you think their apparent membership is recorded in the councillor's Members' Interest register?”

“@GuyFawk - and what qualification(s) do you possess?”

“How many of current Croydon's councillors both Conservative and Labour have

1. any large business experience?

2. any managerial experience of large organisations apart from their councillor roles?

3. any significant academic qualifications; i.e Chartered, Degree, Masters Degree etc.

I think you will find but a handful can qualify on one possibly two of the above from the three criteria I have asked. In fact I am reliably informed the Conservatives dumped their only councillor who would qualify on all three at the 2010 local elections. There is obviously no place in a local Council for anyone who knows what they are doing for only lapdogs are required who then do as they are told. I also believe that not one of Croydon's three MP's would qualify against the above questions which shows what a pretty poor bunch we manage to elect and we wonder why Croydon is in such a miserable state.”

“Eric Pickles should keep his fat nose out - this is none of his business.

The real issue here is what is on the "regeneration" agenda.

We've had plenty of fancy ideas, such as Croydon - Edge City, Will Alsop's visions of Croydon including turning Wellesley Road into Las Ramblas (a great idea), the (thankfully) ill-fated Park Place shopping centre, Queen's Gardens being turned into a public square, a Wembley-style arena at East Croydon and some huge tower blocks along Cherry Orchard Road.

Instead we have empty shops and offices, planning blight, multi-lane roads jammed with fume-belching cars (and more to come) and the ILYO tower, which stands as a monument to stupidity; a high-rise residential block in the middle of a two-lane one-way gyratory ***.

If it weren't for the fact that it's difficult to find a word that rhymes with Croydon, Sir John Betjeman would probably have written his most famous poem about our town, which after years of meddling by politicians, developers and planners, "isn't fit for humans now" - just money-grabbing speculators.”

“@GuyFawk:

What Labour is saying is that we could have used empty office space that already exists in Croydon to cover the problem of Taberner House ageing, and then save up to get a new 'Taberner' in place. Basically waiting for better times to lay out a lump of cash that big.

What the Torys have actually done is handed over unused Council property to John Laing in a 'swap' arrangement ( from what I understand there are concerns The Taxpayer made a loss on this bit as well ), mixed with having to lend Laing money to keep the project alive. So far it's cost us an estimated £150m. There is no way on earth this building was free, as the Torys claim. There may be a profit-share factor involved, but it will take years for that money to be recouped. Possibly even decades before The Taxpayer breaks even on this project. The expenditure now, during some seriously rough times, is the factor you need to consider. The initial investment. It may pay for itself in the end if we wait long enough, but we have major issues in the hear and now that are serious stuff. And £150m would have been dead handy to deal with those.

If it was free, as The Torys claim, we would still have all those unused Council buildings to sell off or fix up or... But they are DEFINITELY gone now. So it clearly was not free.

Much as that bill may have been undodgable in the end ( Taberner is ageing ) could it not have waited? That's the main argument. What about the other cheaper options? Like renting for a bit whilst we saved up? We are in seriously tight times, services vital for looking after our Ill & Old are taking a kicking, and instead The Council hand over £150m for a new town hall which genuinely could have waited.

For me & Labour that priority is a touch screwed up. We're just not happy with it.

Just imagine how much Affordable or Social Housing £150m could have paid for. How many homes for our stranded locals? And how many building jobs to help our local lads & lasses? Instead it all goes to, well, Big Business in plain english. With very-little-to-no benefit for the average Croydonian.

Sadly this is typical of The Torys. It's all about Shareholders & Corporate profit. Oh, and scoring that next high paying job with the Corp you just helped out obviously. That's all they care about.”

“... are they saying the £millions spent of the new Council offices are not regenerating the town and in fact only drain its reserves?”

“Croydon does need some kind of regeneration to bring it back to life, capitalise on the regained sense of community since the riots, make it the great place to live that it has so much scope to be. But it definitely does NOT need NINE new Council officers on the permanent payroll to achieve that. It will take more than two years to achieve the regeneration goals, by which time those employees will have redundancy rights and the taxpayer will be saddled with a salary bill for superflus staff who are very hard to dump.

Firstly, I'd like to see a detailed job specification explaining to Croydon's long suffering taxpayers precisely what these employees would be expected to do. The quotation above ("identify innovative delivery solutions" and "scope, appraise and enable potential schemes") only tells us that these people will be paid between £39k and £58k per year to do very little more than merely think up some ideas.

Maybe they're expected to appoint contractors to do the work, but they would not be qualified to assess and select the right people to do the work. This is a big problem in all levels of government. You have lawyers and administrators who know nothing about the work that has to be carried out, yet they have responsibility for choosing who should do these specialised jobs. Invariably, they end up choosing badly, most often paying far too much for services, costing the taxpayer millions more than would have been necessary had they appointed suitably knowledgeable contract negotiators. All contractors who do government work do so precisely because they know they are dealing with people who don't have the requisite knowledge, which means the contractors can get away with charging multiples of the proper going rate for the job. It's not just the councils, but the contractors who work for them who are ripping off the taxpayer.

The article finishes by saying, "A council spokesman said: "There is no additional cost to the council. "The posts are from within the existing budget and from a restructure.""

This "existing budget" - is that the budget that exists as a result of the increase in Council Tax? That's not quite what the taxpayers would think of as "existing budget".

And as for the "restructure" - I can tell you where a large chunk, if not all, of that £400,000 is coming from: the 'restructuring' of Croydon's arts and culture, ie the abolition of most of its arts funding such as closing the David Lean cinema and so much else.

These ideas for regeneration would be better sourced from the People of Croydon who live and work in the town. Not some £50,000 pa administrator who probably lives outside the town, doesn't shop there and basically knows nothing about the town or how its residents use it or would like to use it, or their needs. Ask the people what they want from their town and work with what they tell you. Cut out the superfluous nine new staff and hire appropriately skilled project managers and contract negotiators as and when needed. Stop spending as if taxpayers' money is a limitless resource. And get rid of the philistine arts haters on the council. They do not understand the long term damage they are doing by cutting arts out of the town. Art makes all people equal. It nurtures confidence, communication skills, problem solving and creative thinking. It nurses people back to health after mental illness. It is far too important to cut.”

“Once again we might wonder just what planet our councillors are on.”

“Don't forget the Council Tax Benefit cuts. That's what Simon is flagging up. And where is the money to counter that and protect The Poor.

Average Band D's who are lucky enough to be off benefits fully are only to pay £22.00 per year more sure, but what about The Unemployed? They face a rise of £3-4 per week. Which is about £180.00 per year more.

I'm just not seeing the fairness.

A wise Council would be creating a fund to protect such poor & vulnerable people from these Council Tax Benefit cuts. But The Torys just haven't.

So food-bank use continues to rise, and with that will come injuries the NHS will have to pay for. All because our Govt is more interested in beating up The Poor ( Vidhi Mohan and his 'get a job' comments being a prime example ) than actually Taxing The Rich.”

“He said: "The money being spent on these jobs, and the millions being spent on the new HQ; it's totally skewed priorities while frontline services are being cut.---------------------------------------------------
Tubby himself gets £65,000 a year PLUS expences from the public purse.
"All in this together" LOL”