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[News] East Sussex County Council cuts services to 'legal minimum'







Lush

Mods' Pet
To be honest, I've never understood how councils have been able to balance the books, when you think of the numbers paying council tax and only using basic services, and the high costs of many of the services they provide, not to mention vanity projects like the i360.

It's outrageous that adults who need social care or housing, or kids who need specialist help, should have to scrap with the council for it. But it can run into many thousands of pounds to help one person, which is why it's so difficult to get help. You also have the ludicrous situation where the council can only help people who have a connection to the area.

There's also employee benefits to pay for like the pensions scheme "The minimum contribution rate is 5.8%. In addition, the council as your employer will make a contribution of 19.3% towards your pension." that's a hell of a lot more than I get from my employer. From an article in 2015: "More than a third of council tax payments will go towards paying workers’ pension schemes within five years, a leading council finance chief has warned."

Maybe councils should only be providing basic services, but that would mean local councils losing power and influence, which I imagine they're not keen on, however this may well happen as more and more councils go bankrupt.

But with increasingly fluid populations, is there truly any such thing as 'local needs' anymore?
 


happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,934
Eastbourne
To be honest, I've never understood how councils have been able to balance the books, when you think of the numbers paying council tax and only using basic services, and the high costs of many of the services they provide, not to mention vanity projects like the i360.

It's outrageous that adults who need social care or housing, or kids who need specialist help, should have to scrap with the council for it. But it can run into many thousands of pounds to help one person, which is why it's so difficult to get help. You also have the ludicrous situation where the council can only help people who have a connection to the area.

There's also employee benefits to pay for like the pensions scheme "The minimum contribution rate is 5.8%. In addition, the council as your employer will make a contribution of 19.3% towards your pension." that's a hell of a lot more than I get from my employer. From an article in 2015: "More than a third of council tax payments will go towards paying workers’ pension schemes within five years, a leading council finance chief has warned."

Maybe councils should only be providing basic services, but that would mean local councils losing power and influence, which I imagine they're not keen on, however this may well happen as more and more councils go bankrupt.

But with increasingly fluid populations, is there truly any such thing as 'local needs' anymore?

Social Care - If the council closes intermediate care and rehabilitation units then people, mostly elderly, are stuck in hospital. However they then become an NHS problem not a council problem. Since the 80's, successive governments have ignored, or paid lip-service to, social care and the need to bring it under the NHS with a national policy and national funding.
 








Seagull73

Sienna's Heaven
Jul 26, 2003
3,382
Not Lewes
You really still believe this? Amazing.

Sorry, what’s not to believe? There is a reason why Labour didn’t win the last election when they probably should have done, and that is because enough people in this country still realise that we can’t endlessly spend our way out of tight public finances! Or is that a fallacy too?

Actually don’t bother responding - I can’t bear debating with the Momentum fuelled twats on here.
 


Thunder Bolt

Ordinary Supporter
Ridiculous statement, Jeremy is a Republican and would have run that rabble out of Windsor and Buck House in the first 5 years, Windsor Castle will become a refuge for battered one armed Lesbians of an ethnic background!!

He can have Buckingham Palace as that belongs to the State. If he took Windsor Castle that would be stealing.


All hail austerity. What a shambles.
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,331
Faversham
If its anything like Northamptonshire, it is in really deep do-doo's.

Where they supplemented their income with illegal speeding fines using unmarked hidden vans. And where the road surfaces are life threatening to cyclists. Frightening shit hole (I semi lived there for 2 years till 2016). Still, after Brexit it will be lovely I'm sure. :facepalm:
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,331
Faversham
Sorry, what’s not to believe? There is a reason why Labour didn’t win the last election when they probably should have done, and that is because enough people in this country still realise that we can’t endlessly spend our way out of tight public finances! Or is that a fallacy too?

Actually don’t bother responding - I can’t bear debating with the Momentum fuelled twats on here.

You think [MENTION=14669]LlcoolJ[/MENTION] is 'momentum'? FFS:facepalm:

Labour was last in power 8 years ago. Never run E or W Sussex has it? Ever?

Agree that labour won't win with chairman Corbyn, however. He is too busy right now redefining antisemitism, and engaging with other points of futile and embarrassing semantics.

But that's another story.
 


LlcoolJ

Mama said knock you out.
Oct 14, 2009
12,982
Sheffield
Sorry, what’s not to believe? There is a reason why Labour didn’t win the last election when they probably should have done, and that is because enough people in this country still realise that we can’t endlessly spend our way out of tight public finances! Or is that a fallacy too?

Actually don’t bother responding - I can’t bear debating with the Momentum fuelled twats on here.
Ha ha. I'm no Corbyn supporter but you have swallowed the Tory lie hook, line and sinker. Do a bit of reading about the global financial crisis before you start calling people twats.
 




Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 11, 2003
73,363
West west west Sussex
Where they supplemented their income with illegal speeding fines using unmarked hidden vans. And where the road surfaces are life threatening to cyclists. Frightening shit hole (I semi lived there for 2 years till 2016). Still, after Brexit it will be lovely I'm sure. :facepalm:
If only all the money we'll save by leaving the EU wasn't going to the NHS.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,331
Faversham
To be honest, I've never understood how councils have been able to balance the books, when you think of the numbers paying council tax and only using basic services, and the high costs of many of the services they provide, not to mention vanity projects like the i360.

It's outrageous that adults who need social care or housing, or kids who need specialist help, should have to scrap with the council for it. But it can run into many thousands of pounds to help one person, which is why it's so difficult to get help. You also have the ludicrous situation where the council can only help people who have a connection to the area.

There's also employee benefits to pay for like the pensions scheme "The minimum contribution rate is 5.8%. In addition, the council as your employer will make a contribution of 19.3% towards your pension." that's a hell of a lot more than I get from my employer. From an article in 2015: "More than a third of council tax payments will go towards paying workers’ pension schemes within five years, a leading council finance chief has warned."

Maybe councils should only be providing basic services, but that would mean local councils losing power and influence, which I imagine they're not keen on, however this may well happen as more and more councils go bankrupt.

But with increasingly fluid populations, is there truly any such thing as 'local needs' anymore?

Indeed.

Thatcher 'devolved' the tax-in-spending-out centralized process so that it became more local, so that 'prudent' tory councils like Wandsworth could gain kudos and votes while 'feckless' labour councils like Southwark could be punished for wasting taxpayers' money on creches, adventure playgrounds for unemployed immigrants and signs declaring the burrough was 'nuclear-free' etc.

But then of course full devolution never happened. A council still needed central tax support since a borrough is not an independent nation that controls its own economy. It is part of a larger whole (traffic, education, health, defence etc). Even issues such as housing and related infrastructure are not local.

But we still have the Thatcher free-for-all where labour and tory have to sell themselves to the local electorate largely on who will keep the council tax lowest - without having enough power or reach to be able to deliver.

In Faversham the council promised to build a new bridge over the creek if locals raised £X. This money was raised. But no bridge. Why? Er, it will cost more than the council calculated and they don't have the money.

No, we need central control of tax and spending based on a coherent rubric (currently there is none) with local input via the general election. Currently the council arrangement is worse than the EU - you vote for a local set of representatives who then have their spending capped centrally. **** me, the EU doesn't cap the UK governments spending of its tax revenue.

You really coundn't make this stuff up. The only constant that is inviolate however is we get the governments (local and central) we deserve.
 
















Postman Pat

Well-known member
Jul 24, 2007
6,971
Coldean
Yeah cos they're all spongers and have loads of money.

Oh...

Didn't say they were spongers, just think they should contribute to local services if they are going to live here. Doesn't have to be 100%, but 8 students in a HMO generate a lot of waste, use roads and local amenities and should contribute to the police force that keep them safe.
 


TSB

Captain Hindsight
Jul 7, 2003
17,666
Lansdowne Place, Hove
Sorry, what’s not to believe? There is a reason why Labour didn’t win the last election when they probably should have done, and that is because enough people in this country still realise that we can’t endlessly spend our way out of tight public finances! Or is that a fallacy too?

Actually don’t bother responding - I can’t bear debating with the Momentum fuelled twats on here.

It's because they have an unelectable leader. That and only that.
 



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