Shape the Future

Ali · October 2010

If you want to get an idea of what may get cut locally go and complete this survey. Out of the £4500 each household gets in services around £650 will be lost as part of the spending review. 58% of the budget goes to kids services so it is obvious what will get cut! You can help chose whether you would prefer the school breakfast club to be shut, or the older members of our community that need care assistance loose it at night, or close the library, stop maintaining the parks etc http://www.haringey.gov.uk/shapethefuture

Brodiej · October 2010

I don't think you have to lose services. That statement assumes that every single penny is being spent in the most efficient way it possibly can, which i'm not sure is true. My companies budgets (private sector) have been cut dramatically this year, and as a result we have actually increased our useful output on a third less money. When you're made to make a change, you find ways of doing things better and more efficiently rather than just stopping stuff. Less money doesn't always have to mean less of a service.

staplejack · October 2010

putting the 'N' into cuts.

ADGS · October 2010

Less money doesn't *always* have to mean less of a service, but in practice it will tend in that direction. Even in less dire cuts of previous years, 'efficiency savings' has generally been something of a euphemism.

That survey is annoyingly organised. For instance, libraries (a vital part of the nation's culture) are bracketed with sport (a vile canker on society which, in so far as it has to exist at all, can surely be adequately supplied as community outreach by the obscenely wealthy and massively disruptive clubs).

Brodiej · October 2010

@ ADGS. Thats a fair point. I just get frustrated that people think that having shedloads of money thrown at something is the answer, and that reviewing how you spend your money currently is completely incomprehensible. We've overspent, need to get things under control and as a consequence can't have everything we used to have. Its exactly what anyone would do if they had to take a pay cut. You would carry on as normal, but cut back on the things that you could live without and not live beyond your means. I guess the debate on the cuts is what people consider to be non-essential. Given that the circumstances of people are so different, everyone will always have very different and often conflicting opinions.

As an aside, I went to the library near Holloway Road for the first time the other day. I was amazed at the range of things you can get involved with and borrow. Its a great service.

ADGS · October 2010

Which one? There are three along the length of Holloway Road, though I believe the midway one, on Manor Gardens, is currently closed for refurbishment. Those are all Islington libraries, mind, which are a lot better than the Haringey ones. Not that I imagine the coming cuts will help either service much.

Ali · October 2010

I guess as 58% of the budget is education maybe Haringey could try some of this <http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/11/school-buys-bus-ebay-classroom>; me thinks they are giving a pretty big hints on what they will do when you review the survey questions although they do seem to be thinking about the Big Society approach by out sourcing on the cheap to charities etc. I wonder if anything will come out of Lynne Featherstone’s campaign to get inner London money for Haringey School kids instead of the current situation that the teachers are paid Inner London money but with outer London school budgets ? The real proper efficiency thing is what is needed as Phillip Green has point out today. I can quite believe what he is saying about lack of accountability by management and very poor MI tools by which to manage.

Brodiej · October 2010

It was Manor Gardens, before it closed!

Eliz · October 2010

The libary on Manor Gardens is one of the nicest libraries I've ever used even though it's pretty small. I'm really hoping the current refurbishment enhances it and doesn't do anything to ruin its look.

miss annie · October 2010

That's my favourite local library too, the staff are fabulously helpful and the garden is lovely. I don't like the one on Blackstock Road at all.

Arkady · October 2010

I've just google-mapped that library. I lived on Sussex Way for a year, and somehow I never walked down that road. That builiding is massive! And beautiful too.

miss annie · October 2010

Oh my gosh, you'd love it. It's got a little glass lighthouse on top and everything. What you're looking at might be the Beaux Arts building next door which is huge and also beautiful.

Arkady · October 2010

Yes, I was looking at the latter building. Will go on a pilgrimage.

ADGS · October 2010

Yes, I do hope it doesn't lose the cosiness, the bizarre stock or the lovely little secret garden. The Blackstock Road one wasn't great even when it had a proper SF and crime section upstairs, but since they've given that over to the college it's become even worse; I mainly just use it as a pick-up and drop-off for reservations (free in Islington, yay).

Ali · October 2010

Beaux Arts used to be the Post Office catering college

andy · October 2010

<http://www.haringey.gov.uk/shapethefuture>;

mikecabic · October 2010

I haven't checked the details, so could be wrong in Haringeys case, but its unlikely they have much control over their education budget. The funding for schools is generally funnelled via the council, but they have to pass a minimum of c.90% directly to the schools. They can then keep up to 10% (at their discretion) for strategic services, to target specific issues.

The Tories (cough, sry, Lib Dems too, they are having a biiig effect) are likely to free up most of the rest of the councils budget, which was quite circumscribed under government. The irony of Gove saying he is setting schools free is that councils have relatively little say in schools - the curriculum, inspections and national pay spine are the key barriers to teachers and head teachers taking targeted action. And Goves key actions on these topics? Telling schools to teach a list of kings, and giving them the option of being a freeschool, or.... oh wait no, thats the only option they are ´free´to take...

@BrodieJ - a fair point, if it is of interest, try Paul Ormerods recent paper for the RSA on network dynamics and policy - a good intro to the topic, and discussions about why throwing money at a policy isn't always the best method. Unfortunately, the services delivered by local authorities are generally service based, and labour or capital intensive - less money = less people repairing roads, caring or collecting bins. Subsidies, incentives, communications and regulation are mostly the preserve of central govt. and its agencies.

mikecabic · October 2010

* sry meant be an academy

andy · October 2010

In good faith, I went to complete this survey. Question 1 might well be the most stupid question asked in the history of market research: Of the £4,500 the council will spend on services per household in 2011/12, how much would you allocate to the services listed below? (Please enter your chosen amount which can be between £0 and £4,500 but must not exceed a total of £4,500 for all services) Schools and children's centres Children's safeguarding Support for the elderly and for people with disabilities Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour Reducing carbon emissions Housing and homelessness Libraries,culture, sports and leisure Environmental services (such as highways, rubbish and recycling collection, street cleaning and enforcement) Regeneration and helping local people access jobs and training Support for community organisations

andy · October 2010

Also: Puzzled as to why we ask you so many personal questions? Well, we’re not just being nosey. Asking personal questions can help to improve the services we deliver to the community. Diversity is a key strength of our borough, and the following questions will help us monitor what different groups of people think about a particular service or issue. We’ll use this information to ensure people have their say and can influence decisions that affect them - regardless of their age, disability, gender, race, religion belief or sexual orientation. Remember that all the information you provide is confidential under data protection legislation; your information is not passed onto anyone else; it’s not used to check nationality or citizenship status; and *you’re not obliged to provide information* - but it is our duty to ask all the questions. ---- But it won't let you move through the survey unless you answer all the demographic questions. This is remedial stuff.

dion · October 2010

Try writing a letter of complaint to Haringey and see how many holding letters and diversity surveys and questionnaires you get. I can't quite believe that people exist whose jobs are to write holding letters to complainants telling them that their complaint has been received and has been passed to the appropriate department and if you are not satisfied blah blah blah.

ADGS · October 2010

Yeah, they are one clear instance where genuine efficiency savings could be made.

jandb · October 2010

I'm still astonished that somebody thought question 1 was a good idea.

ADGS · October 2010

Yes. Listing in order of priority, fine. This is just absurd. You'd almost think it had been created by a council who, even in the good times, were a byword for painful uselessness.

Papa · October 2010

The problem is that overpaid council and public service managers are very clever at protecting their jobs while cutting elsewhere. In my experience of council, NHS, police etc. I have yet to come across anywhere that couldn't save 10% with hardly any effort. Most private companies could do it too, they are just more likely to have already done so, or do so as a matter of course. How about dramatically cutting back on the propaganda produced, the people organising new and more complicated CPZs, the army of traffic wardens by reducing operating hours, the department charged with telling pubs their smoking areas don't cut the mustard, try photocopying and printing on both sides, or not at all, turning off the lights at night in the offices and making sure people shut down computers, negotiate some better outsourcing deals, use local firms that actually care about what they are doing for private contract work, stop putting up unnecessary signs everywhere, no more speed bumps, end flexi time if they have it, whereby every extra five mins worked gets timesheeted and taken as extra leave, this list took all of 30 seconds to write and may be scoffed at by some, but all of this is waste that goes on every single day. For example a quick glance at the consultation list leads me to wonder why is Haringey spending money on crime and anti-social behaviour? That's the police's job. 25% is a tough cut but that's not in one year, it's in three or four. Everyone else is having to cut back after the years of plenty and the party couldn't go on forever.

ADGS · October 2010

Those are all good suggestions (except the flexitime - fuck the long hours culture, nobody in any job should work a minute more than they're being paid to work). Indeed, some of them are already being implemented - one of the coalition's earliest moves on local government was to drastically limit their propaganda and lobbying spend, and that at least was a very sound move.

Agreed, though, that too often bureaucrats find ways to guard their own 'vital' input at the expense of fripperies like the actual bloody services.

I would dispute, however, that private companies do those things as a matter of course. I see so many lights left on all night, or computers, and it makes me deeply annoyed. I even tried to change the latter at my last staff job (it was official policy that we should log off but not turn off) but for various tedious and nonsensical reasons was told it couldn't be done.

mikecabic · October 2010

Papa L - the council should be doing this, but these little things just don't cost that much, and to achieve them you have to pay people to make sure they are being done - large organisations tend to be very intert, public or private. By and large local government is better than central government on the efficency front , because funding has been so weak for so long (i've worked in both, and as a research/economic consultant to both). But this won't save much money.

Cuts mean cuts. I'm sure they could squeeze out 10%, especially with flexi time (although i'd agree with ADGS on that), and most people would only notice strains, less opening hours and so on. But 25% means services getting cut completely. I just wish they'd do the job they were elected for, and not bother around with this ridiculous survey. They should know which services are wasteful, which are councillors pet political projects, and get on with the nitty gritty.

dion · October 2010

I would love to be let loose in Haringey and Islington councils with a remit to cut out waste and non jobs. I would take a % of the savings hence I would have no job to protect at the expense of making savings. I would merge them into one uber-council (or unter-council) for starters. It is the corporate entities that resist cuts to their jobs, self preservation is a strong instinct, and in lieu of cutting jobs, cutting headline services like libraries or putting out faux consultations is an easy way not to do anything and hope reality goes away.

Papa · October 2010

Apologies for the rantiness of the previous post. It's just you see so much waste and having worked for a council in the last ten years, been in and around their machinations afterwards, and had relatives work elsewhere in the public sector it drives me mad to see the amount of waste that goes on and then hear the 'this is ripping the heart out of public service tosh' trotted out my certain vested interests and MPs. Flexi time is a difficult one. I am heavily anti-long hours and pro less time at work. But a system where five minutes extra is counted, logged and taken off takes the piss - as do many of the people on it. My idea would be that before you can count something as flexi time, you have to be more than half an hour over your day's normal hours and you count what is past that half hour. This creates a buffer and means that you still crack down on long hours, reward people for doing extra but also balance the system with the fact that everyone else in the country just has to get on with their job and lump it. Private companies do waste money. but that's their call - it's their money. There are too many people in the public sector doing non frontline work whose entire job is built on self-justification. Cutting back on just constantly telling us what is good for us would save at least 5% alone. Bollocks. That turned into another rant.

dion · October 2010

Very easy to get ranty on this subject so I will stop here with great restraint.

Ali · October 2010

But once you have sacked a load of people because they were doing nothing of value add they do even less value add while they are unemployed and then are likely to start consuming public services in a different way. ie unemployment benefit, housing benefits etc . I think I heard on the radio this morning that PCW are predicting around a million jobs cuts overall. A lady being interviewed made the point that when she looses her job she will no longer need childcare so that person looses their job and on that goes. I was in Greece during the summer and saw the effect of the big cuts there were around a third of the shops/restaurants in the resort that were shut, it was more like Easter with tourist numbers etc. It is going to be interesting to see how the private sector is supposed to employ all these wasteful (lazy according the mail etc) people ? I think we are going to see the trickle down effect that Mrs T was so fond of but unfortunately this time it will be a negative one as so much demand is taken out of the economy. You can see they are worried as QE is being considered again and that will all make all a lot less well of “by stealth tax ” through low interest rates and deliberate inflation. Elsewhere we are trying to predict what SGR will be like in 2050 I would be more concerned about the next few, as it will be more crime, closed down shops, un repaired roads and pavements, no pretty flower baskets, more people in WLM keeping warm in the winter etc etc PapaL it seems that you have worked in councils for 10 years. Seeing you seemed to be quite angry and rant about this so how come you have not felt empowered to not reduce waste etc or is there something “more rotten in the state of Denmark”? which is what this is all really about?

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