When it comes to 'plutocrats' and people earning high salaries for doing ‘non-jobs’ it would be hard to beat (mostly) Labour run Councils who invariably blame any deficits in services or finances on ‘Tory Cuts’. That doesn’t stand close examination. Take Lambeth Council: It has debts of £1 Billion, yet has more than 40 staff paid more than £100k a year. The Chief Executive is on £187,775 – more than the Prime Minister. Of 3,000 staff, more than 1,000 are paid above £50k. Average earnings per employee is £48,165.
One of the best paid is the ‘Director of climate and inclusive growth on £169,334. His job - created last year - is to: ‘build strong collaborative relationships between industry, academia, all tiers of government and local stakeholders around a set of ambitious shared objectives to foster including economic growth, reduce inequality and work towards net zero by 2030’. Then there’s the ‘Director of climate change, planning and transport on £143,355, the ,Director of community safety and resilience’ (£117,957), and the ‘Cost-of-living crisis programme director’ (£101,000).
In the local election manifesto in 2018, the Labour Council promised to build 1,000 new homes at ‘council rent’. In the ensuing five years, it’s only built 236. Over the same period, the number of empty council homes has doubled to 654. Almost £1.00 in every £6.50 it spends is interest on its debts. It’s spent £3.5 mill on ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhoods’, £2.9 mill on cycle lanes, and £21mill on ‘decarbonisation and climate resilience’.
This isn’t to say that the council - and others that are in financial difficulties - don’t have serious problems to cope with in providing services, but really, the primary purpose of the funding it gets from Community Charges and central government isn’t to build ‘ivory towers’ stuffed full of highly-paid superannuated executives doing non-jobs – it’s to provide services to residents.
The Labour leader of Bradford City Council says nearly 50% of the council's entire budget was now being spent on children's social care, but this was still not enough to cope with current pressures.
Councils are also seeing increased costs and demand for transport to special schools outside of their local area. An officer at North Yorkshire Council said spending on school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities had increased from £5m to £21m over the past five years.
I'm ambivalent as to who forms the new government - most likely Sir Keir Starmer.
I just hope they have a working majority and don't have to pander to the whims of the fringe parties to get anything through. (Greens, Lib-Dems, SNP, etc). It's worth bearing in mind that when Labour last came to power in 1997, those such as Wes Sweeting, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner were still in their teens, not old enough to vote. Since they became MPs, for most of the time, Labour has been little more than a 'protest group', which is a doddle compared to being in Government. In their desire to get elected, as with all politicians, they over-promise and under-deliver, blaming any shortfall in expectations on 'the mess created by their predecessors'.
It won't keep me awake at night.