Tories - The Party of Financial Prudence. Oh Dear...

[Al Gorithum]

Tory led Thurrock Council is bankrupt with debts of almost £500m following profligate spending.

Is there anything the Tories haven't made a mess of?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/council-forc...

[S600BSB]

From the subject I assumed was a joke thread.

[Challo]

Al Gorithum said:

Tory led Thurrock Council is bankrupt with debts of almost £500m following profligate spending.

Is there anything the Tories haven't made a mess of?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/council-forc...

Unfortunately it’s not just Tory’s, councils in general have the ability to screw up.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10783711/...

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/croydon-cou...

[theplayingmantis]

grrr tories

[chemistry]

It’s increasingly apparent that for the most part, our politicians at national, regional and local level are useless.

Tories suck. Labour suck. Lim Dems, Greens…all useless.

[emicen]

No overall control for pretty much a decade and a good shuffle between blue and red across most of its history. But yeah, if it makes you feel good, grrr tories

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurrock_Council_e...

[gazza285]

Is there anything that politicians haven’t made a mess of?

[speedyman]

gazza285 said:

Is there anything that politicians haven’t made a mess of?

There pay increases

[anonymous-user]

emicen said:

No overall control for pretty much a decade and a good shuffle between blue and red across most of its history. But yeah, if it makes you feel good, grrr tories

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurrock_Council_e...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-63780100

So it’s been Tory since 2016 and in March 2018, the financial advisors Arlingclose wrote to Mr Clark personally to express urgent concern about the council's "extreme" appetite for risk… so it seems like it’s all on the current Councillors.

In a report published on Tuesday, the Conservative-run Thurrock Council admitted £275m of taxpayers' money will be lost as a direct result.
The £469m funding gap is about three times the authority's annual budget.
Thurrock Council said the council now needed "exceptional financial support" from government.

Thurrock's strategy of investing substantial sums of money borrowed from other local authorities had, wrote Arlingclose, moved the council "well beyond the tolerances of what we consider to be prudential risk-management boundaries".

So yeah, Grrr Tories seems appropriate

[gruffalo]

chemistry said:

It’s increasingly apparent that for the most part, our politicians at national, regional and local level are useless.

Tories suck. Labour suck. Lim Dems, Greens…all useless.

If absolutely every one is useless do you not think our expectation or the system is what is what is wrong?

[Murph7355]

gruffalo said:

chemistry said:

It’s increasingly apparent that for the most part, our politicians at national, regional and local level are useless.

Tories suck. Labour suck. Lim Dems, Greens…all useless.

If absolutely every one is useless do you not think our expectation or the system is what is what is wrong?

It is probably a heady cocktail of both.

Everybody wants better services, but they all want somebody else to pay for them.

Ehich leads to a lack of honesty in those who get elected to deal with it.

I don't think the situation is that different in any Western democracy of a decent size. Some are just at different points on the curve.

[Taita]

Parking the Labour / Tory side of things for 30 seconds.....

These councils have dedicated financial officers (almost CFOs?) who are civil servants / public sector employees too. They act as the 'long term checks and balances', almost on a smaller scale to what happens in Govt?

Or can the Councillors ignore everything they say and crack open the wallet?

[vikingaero]

The problem with Council and Civil Service is that they promote people into Purchasing, Contracts and Committees without any experience whatsoever. Even worse they often promote on Competencies - that is write 250 words on how you managed a quality service, delivered at pace etc. This can be truthful or more often fanciful. So you could have a adminstrator promoted into a contracts manager on the basis of competencies .

In the private sector, you would want proof of any qualifications to do the role or x years of experience - a surveyor would need to be ARICS and have experience to do the job. But for Councils, Mrs Miggins, Town Councillor, Mother of 3, fantastic cake baker, could be put onto the Environment Committee to spend a budget of £10 million without any experience of purchasing or contracts.

[Downward]

vikingaero said:

The problem with Council and Civil Service is that they promote people into Purchasing, Contracts and Committees without any experience whatsoever. Even worse they often promote on Competencies - that is write 250 words on how you managed a quality service, delivered at pace etc. This can be truthful or more often fanciful. So you could have a adminstrator promoted into a contracts manager on the basis of competencies .

In the private sector, you would want proof of any qualifications to do the role or x years of experience - a surveyor would need to be ARICS and have experience to do the job. But for Councils, Mrs Miggins, Town Councillor, Mother of 3, fantastic cake baker, could be put onto the Environment Committee to spend a budget of £10 million without any experience of purchasing or contracts.

Yeah I don’t think people are promoted into purchasing with no previous experience. But the purchasing department don’t hold the budgets and facilitate the requirements and ensure it’s all legal, fair and transparent. How much is spent with a Purchase Order not been raised is the question. For me Finance should be managing all the departmental budgets and this should be forecast. I know everything has increased cost wise with the cost of living and population growth so with funding cuts you can see the issues.
I don’t know their budget or spend but £400m doesn’t just appear overnight as a deficit !

[mondeoman]

Downward said:

vikingaero said:

The problem with Council and Civil Service is that they promote people into Purchasing, Contracts and Committees without any experience whatsoever. Even worse they often promote on Competencies - that is write 250 words on how you managed a quality service, delivered at pace etc. This can be truthful or more often fanciful. So you could have a adminstrator promoted into a contracts manager on the basis of competencies .

In the private sector, you would want proof of any qualifications to do the role or x years of experience - a surveyor would need to be ARICS and have experience to do the job. But for Councils, Mrs Miggins, Town Councillor, Mother of 3, fantastic cake baker, could be put onto the Environment Committee to spend a budget of £10 million without any experience of purchasing or contracts.

Yeah I don’t think people are promoted into purchasing with no previous experience. But the purchasing department don’t hold the budgets and facilitate the requirements and ensure it’s all legal, fair and transparent. How much is spent with a Purchase Order not been raised is the question. For me Finance should be managing all the departmental budgets and this should be forecast. I know everything has increased cost wise with the cost of living and population growth so with funding cuts you can see the issues.
I don’t know their budget or spend but £400m doesn’t just appear overnight as a deficit !

"In 2018, the council were accused of having ‘an extreme appetite for risk’ after they provided £655 million to companies via bonds which included the purchasing of 53 solar farms."

Since when did councils become banks or commercial lenders?

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Al Gorithum said:

Tory led Thurrock Council is bankrupt with debts of almost £500m following profligate spending.

Is there anything the Tories haven't made a mess of?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/council-forc...

The Labour mob in Nottingham are so poor the government is considering coming in to run the show.

[Countdown]

Taita said:

Parking the Labour / Tory side of things for 30 seconds.....

These councils have dedicated financial officers (almost CFOs?) who are civil servants / public sector employees too. They act as the 'long term checks and balances', almost on a smaller scale to what happens in Govt?

Or can the Councillors ignore everything they say and crack open the wallet?

They're called Section 151 officers

They have a legal (Statutory) duty to ensure that there are proper arrangements in place to administer the Council's financial affairs

[Countdown]

vikingaero said:

The problem with Council and Civil Service is that they promote people into Purchasing, Contracts and Committees without any experience whatsoever. Even worse they often promote on Competencies - that is write 250 words on how you managed a quality service, delivered at pace etc. This can be truthful or more often fanciful. So you could have a adminstrator promoted into a contracts manager on the basis of competencies .

In the private sector, you would want proof of any qualifications to do the role or x years of experience - a surveyor would need to be ARICS and have experience to do the job. But for Councils, Mrs Miggins, Town Councillor, Mother of 3, fantastic cake baker, could be put onto the Environment Committee to spend a budget of £10 million without any experience of purchasing or contracts.

That's not true. Procurement Managers would need to be CIPS qualified and they would need to have a thorough and demonstrable understanding of PCR2015.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Countdown said:

They're called Section 151 officers

They have a legal (Statutory) duty to ensure that there are proper arrangements in place to administer the Council's financial affairs

Nottingham have been selling off council houses & spending the money on non capital items. This is strictly against the rules. The 151 mob must have been asleep.

[ChocolateFrog]

Why do they all go around investing in high risk investments in the first place.

There should be limits on what they can do with their money beyond putting it all on red.

Didn't some councils lose loads when Iceland imploded.