Mr Easdale, who owns McGill’s with his brother James, told The Telegraph: “Local authorities struggle to fill in potholes and collect bins at the moment so I don’t see how they expect to be able to run bus services.
Mr Easdale, who owns McGill’s with his brother James, told The Telegraph: “Local authorities struggle to fill in potholes and collect bins at the moment so I don’t see how they expect to be able to run bus services.
There has been a serious agency problem with the relationship between Central Government and Local Authorities for some time now. Central Gov’t can set onerous obligations on LA’s e.g. social care, whilst at the same time throttling LA’s financial capability to deliver e.g. retaining rates, cutting grants, restricting local tax rises. Obviously, there are multiple reasons for this, Ministers shield their own fiefdoms by pushing pain to areas with less power to resist, LA’s are proxies for unpopular or misguided policies e.g. Central Gov’t has a thin veneer of plausible deniability when LA’s fail to deliver obligations imposed upon them without sufficient resources (voting out your local councillors doesn’t change the conditions imposed from the centre). So we have the dichotomy, the centre doesn’t want to take accountability for these things, but it also doesn’t want to give up the power and influence that warrants that accountability.
They’ll outsource it to the bus companies. But they’ll add extra layers of inefficiency and define routes based on politics rather than need.
Labour have obviously forgotten the thrill of waiting 2 years for a telephone to be fitted by the GPO…
They’ll outsource it to the bus companies. But they’ll add extra layers of inefficiency and define routes based on politics rather than need.
And then blame the failure on greedy capitalists.
@MJW – I am sure that is correct, but it is also correct that local authorities are utterly useless and would fail to fulfil their basic functions if they had £1m to spend per citizen. They are stuffed to the gunwales with non-jobbers, skivers and idiots, although none are as thick as the councillors.
A close relative works for our local unitary authority and her tales of waste, skiving and incompetence are staggering. In particular, the well-paid ranks of senior management are filled with unsackable idiots and cowards (hence the skiving thriving). There are, of course, many people – especially at the lower end of the pay scale – trying to do useful work, but they are hampered by the oxygen thieves above them.
The Glasgow Council, on McGill’s patch, is currently spending God-knows how much money ripping up the pedestrianized area of Sauchiehall Street. They’ve been at it for over a year. (Meanwhile, half the shops lie empty. The old BHS building hasn’t had anyone in it since the business went tits-up in 2016.) When complaints came in about the cost of the current granite paving, the public was told it would last a century. That was less than 20 years ago.
I long ago came to the conclusion that the entire purpose of local government is wasting money. Anything else is a side-effect.
Anecdote (true): the other day I was in a supermarket queue; I had quite a few items, the man behind had just one or two. I told him to go in first as it would be quicker. He pointed to the council logo on his fleece, and said “You don’t think I’ve got anything more important to do, do you? You carry on, pal.”
Our tax money at “work”.
I was told that our local transit authority that reports to the local mayors was mainly created by central government as the ministry of transport was fed up of being blamed for everything and wanted a middleman to hide behind
Potholes = Washington Monument Syndrome – ie cutting the most visible or appreciated service provided by the government when faced with budget cuts. Local authorities will never make the cuts that would help the taxpayer – eg trimming bloated “strategic management teams” on £100,000+ each (with on-costs, admin support, etc). Instead, they cut what matters and/or increase charges for parking etc.