Council Cleaning Con

THE CITY COUNCIL ALWAYS AMAZES ME BY THEIR SHIRKING OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Take this poster for example.  Double left click on the image to enlarge.

This is a poster in a charity chop window on Kilmarnock Rd (which is the main street in Shawlands). It is about so-called “Community cleaning of a lane”.

Yes, it is advertising the fact that the council wants local residents to clean their own streets and lane.  Hey, isn’t that what we pay council tax for?

Things are getting worse when the council can take council tax from us, and then get us to do the work ourselves! How Bizarre!

Guttered

THE COUNCIL ARE SPENDING MILLIONS INSULATING COUNCIL HOUSES.

The trouble is that they are not doing a very good job where the council property meets a privately owned property as shown in the picture to the right.

As ever, double left click on pictures to enlarge.

The above picture shows that it is not confined to new meeting old — even when dealing with a new-new interface, they have screwed this up! What you are looking at are two examples of stupidity.  The rainwater gutter could have been trimmed shorter to allow a full and proper rendering, but instead, the full original length was allowed to remain unchanged, and the insulation and new rendering cut around it!

This is completely unbelievable, it creates a heat bridge and one of the most likely sources of damp in a building I have ever seen. Things are certainly getting worse!

Deeper Surface

I WAS PASSING PC WORLD ON ARGYLE STREET WHEN I NOTICED THAT THE CAR PARK WAS FENCED OFF.

Then I noticed a sign that stated:

“SORRY FOR ANY
INCONVENIENCE
CAUSED DURING
CAR PARK
RESURFACING WORK”.

That seemed fair enough.. that is until I glanced through the fence at the work itself.

Please double click on any picture to enlarge.

I was stunned to see how deep these excavations were — this was not a resurface, this was archaeology!

I may be cynical, but was this all really necessary?  It just seems a tad excessive.  Things are certainly getting worse when a car park’s surface is a metre and a half!

Pot Luck on Roads

THE ROADS ARE IN A DREADFUL STATE.

However, it seems that the council’s new LLCs would rather spend our tax-quids on speed cameras and speed humps in parking bays than fix the pot holes!

It is no exaggeration, and there is often no opportunity to avoid driving into them because of cars parked either side of the road.

These photographs were taken at the Battlefield monument right outside the Victoria Infirmary (one of the two southside hospitals in Glasgow city).  I pity the occupants of ambulances that have to deal with these pot holes on a daily basis!

Mind you, according to a news story I read, the repairs are never done very well. It’s all one big money-spinning racket. We’re going to pot (holes) — and, yes, things are still getting worse!

Scandalous: Council Secret Sell offs!

“DIRECT AND CARE” IS AN ANNOYING NAME FOR A COUNCIL DEPARTMENT BUT IT IS NO LONGER!

When I poked fun at “Direct and Care“ on this site, little did I know it really did have a bad name.  Not just that it was badly named, but that it was causing all sorts of financial trouble for the council.

I checked the City’s website this morning, and was surprised to see an entry dated a few days ago (31 October 2008 to be exact) regarding “Direct and Care”.

• www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/News/DirectCareLLP.htm

This is an amazing tale, and it demands your attention for a host of good reasons, not least of which is that almost no-one knows anything about what is going on!

Here’s the deal: “Direct and Care” grew to be one of the biggest council departments, with a staff of about 8000 civil servants.

Now, as you can imagine, all City councils are legally obliged — and committed — to meet financial targets set by the main government.

Back in June 2007, it was noticed that the so-called “Significant Trading Operations” (or “STOs”) of Glasgow’s “Direct and Care” department was in bad shape. Even their targets were to be met over a three year period, they were not on track to do this, they were heading for disaster!

So what to do?

The Executive Committee immediately asked for a “review” — they needed suggestions, ideas, and most of all, they needed answers — and fast.  They needed to get out of this hole — somehow.

So with Grant Thornton and Burness solicitors, a review of different options for getting out of trouble was produced.

The option that was decided upon was to privatise the department — something they had done before with “City Building”, “Culture and Sport Glasgow”, and “Glasgow Community and Safety Services”.  The council’s website puts it like this:

“Members of the Council’s Executive Committee today (Friday, 31 October 2008) approved a business plan to turn the department into the Council’s latest arm’s-length company…

The move means Direct and Care will have more opportunity to grow as a business by targeting the external market and should become more competitive in the longer term.”

Basically, there was no way this department was going to toe-the-line financially.  It was a huge money-pit.  There was no way the department would match the cheaper costs in the private sector — but they couldn’t just sack everyone, close down the department and put the workload out to competitive private tender. The City Leader, Steven Purcell said:

“If no action was taken by the Council it’s likely that we may have had to put these services out to competition, and winning contracts would be very difficult.”

Not one civil servant is made redundant, and the newly formed company will continue to provide the expensive and inefficient services we have come to expect — it’s just that because they are no longer aprt of the council, the targets are avoided and the council’s legal obligation evaporates!

Amusingly, the “business plan” produced as part of the review shows the new company becoming profitable in it’s FIRST year! It did not explain why it could not become profitable when run as a council department!

The company formed is a limited liability partnership, so if anything goes horribly wrong, the damage (liability) to the council will be limited — the council being in partnership with the private company — in that it provides work and money for the company but doesn’t take profits!

Things are getting worse when councils can do such significant things without asking the people who voted them into office and who pay for it all.

Things are getting worse when a loss-making department is turned into a loss-making company when the best way to serve the people would be to (a) run the departments better, or else (b) scrap everything and get quotes — the private companies quoting would obviously be unable to meet the sudden demand, so they would naturally have to employ experienced and qualified people — in other words, those who used to do the job for the council department.

This would separate the wheat from the chaff, and we’d get the best people for the best money, but no, we’ve got the wrost people for the worst money — and the government mechanism put in place to make councils more cost-effective has been by-passed.

Taxi “Enforcer”

TAXI AND PRIVATE HIRE ENFORCEMENT UNIT — YES, THAT’S WHAT IT SAYS ON THE VAN.

I saw a Glasgow City Council Taxi and Private Hire Enforcement Unit van today, and just had to take a photograph of it; no-one would believe me if I didn’t have evidence to back up the existence of this council-tax paid council department.

What on earth is going on with Glasgow City — are they all mad? If you can remember our post on the obscure department called “Direct and Care“, then it will come as no surprise that there exists a Taxi Enforcer!

Yes, things are getting worse! Oh, and enjoy the fireworks and bonfire at Glasgow Green tomorrow (everywhere else in the UK celebrations are tonight, but Glasgow is doing it tomorrow because Celtic and playing a game of football tonight in the city — maybe the council is touchy about celebrating the burning of a Roman Catholic [Guy Fawkes] on the night of a Celtic match)!

Speed Parking!

NO ONE LIKES SPEED BUMPS.

In an earlier post we explained why the council have used speed bumps (and things like extra traffic lights) to force drivers to use particular routes (such as the M77).

The Tantallon Road Traffic Calming Scheme (part of the M77 Corridor scheme) provided for speed humps because The Scottish Executive states “Road humps are the most effective traffic calming measure available for reducing speed. “

What can we say about a speed hump in a parking bay (double click on picture to enlarge).

Bizarre. Things are definitely getting worse when the council spend thousands of pounds of our council tax money on rubbish like this! I would dearly love to hear the official explanation of this silliness!

Jobcentreless

JOBS ARE GOING IN THE JOBCENTRE — HOW IRONIC!

Double click on the picture to enlarge.  The picture is a photograph of a poster sign stuck to the shop window frontage of the Shawlands Jobcentre — where people go to look for work.  It says:

“Jobcentre Plus is considering
closing this office and
delivering its services from
nearby Newlands office

“We welcome your views about what we
are planning to do.  The final decision has
not been made and your views would be
greatly appreciated.  If you wish to make
comment please write to:

“David Collie, District manager
Jobcentre Plus
Corunna House
39 Cadogan Street
Glasgow
G2 7SS

“or email
david.collie@jobcentreplus.gsi.gov.uk

“Jobcentreplus

“Part of the Department
for work and pensions”

It is patently obvious that they do not really want to close down the office and lose their jobs.  They want people to write (not call) a letter or e-mail in the vain hope that people will “demand” this office remain open.

Well, I for one will be writing and e-mailing to demand that this place be closed down as soon as possible and all the supercilious so-called civil servants be slung out on their fat, lazy arses to go look for real work in a real recession.  What do we need them for anyway?  Bank accounts and state benefits are automatic and computerised — as is looking for a job.

They don’t make calls for you, they don’t appraise, they don’t even have to write out the cards any more.  People just go in and look for a job themselves, using weird free-standing computer terminals.  Times have changed, let’s face facts.

On top of that, this old arcade has seen better days.  It needs knocked down and something else built in its place.  The more empty units we get, the more likely this will be to happen. The job centre “plus” needs to go!

This location has brought the arcade to its knees, to be honest.  It has attracted, over many years, the worst down-and-outs.  As a direct result, the shops in the immediate vicinity have turned into “unemployed world” — where one is surrounded by neds, druggies and smokers loitering outside the jobcentre, betting shop, arcade games shop, pound thrift shop and cheap pub. “Unemployment World” is really “Disny World”, as in: “disny work” or “disny gie a flying fork”.

Things are getting worse when they have to ask for support from these people. At the end of the day, it’s a bit like ecology in reverse.  We have built up this environment, and to remove the jobcentre might affect the migration patterns of neds, smokers and druggies!

I would urge everyone reading this to e-mail and write to demand closure NOW!

The Silly Road Sign

IS THIS THE SILLIEST ROAD SIGN EVER?

Just look at it!  It is TINY.  It is the size of a business card.

It says “No loading at any time”, but you’d need to either have outstanding eyesight, or park your vehicle, and walk up to the sign to read what it says!  It is also very high up; you would need to be fairly tall to read it comfortably.

Look at the size of the pole that supports this small sign!

It beggars belief that they couldn’t have fixed this sign to the WALL — what a lot of bother digging up the pavement to erect the pole!

It is completely daft, and goes to illustrate the lack of common sense by local authorities who spend our hard-earned council taxes on bizarre things like this.

When I first saw this, I imagined it was some expensive public work of art; that’s how ridiculous it seemed.  Yes, things are getting worse!

The Anderston Hippo Family

MANY THINGS MIGHT SPRING TO MIND WHEN ONE THINKS ABOUT THE ANDERSTON AREA OF GLASGOW, but I would wager that Hippopotamuses is not chief among them.

Nevertheless, when Anderston was deemed to require civic or public art, sculpture of a wee hippo family was thought fitting.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but the hippopotamus is neither native nor representative of the area in question.  I thought it best just to mention that lest readers of this blog jump to the wrong conclusion.

Things are getting worse when this sort of thing can happen, and when this sort of thing barely raises a quizzical eyebrow!