Improving local council spending

A new topic about where money should be spent/axed is about as political as it gets, I think! (deciding what to fund and what to cut - isn’t that what politicians do all day?)

Yes the general discussion would be political & I would have no qualms about it being moved to Politicos if need be BUT discussion on “What public services provided by LC do you think are most important for SE23” or something similar could be on the main forum for all to express what paid services are important for them and the community.

I know this would be a job for the @moderators to keep an eye on and split if it got too political - Could have 2 seperate categories maybe - One on SE23 issues on the main forum & one in Politicos if that makes sense

@Pauline - for this topic to work well, we need to lay the groundwork:

1. List each type of spending and its current expenditure
2. If commenters want to increase spending of one type, they have to say which other type they would cut
3. If commenters provide figures we’ll be able to average out the results and present a new spending plan to the council

UPDATED: Turns out the council had similar ideas back in 2014

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Good points Chris but I think all should be able to comment on this freely by just sticking by:

#2 - If commenters want to increase spending of one type, they have to say which other type they would cut

All other info would be very relevant but would need research to be done & not everyone has the time to do this.

Hopefully we can share this thread with LC at some point xx

Personally, I think this bit is quite important:

There’s no point suggestion cutting service A to pay for service B if it’s only going to free up pennies.

I lean toward the “teach a man to fish” (and “expect a man to fish”) outlook as opposed to the “give a man a fish” spending plan. I’d cut the housing budget and adult social care (by £10M), and put the savings into “local economy and regeneration”. IMO social problems are solved in the long term by helping people attain the dignity and security of a job. I think the modern welfare state infantilises and stultifies adults and should be a last resort, not a standard procedure.

But we’ve had plenty of discussions along these lines before, and there won’t be much common ground.

Maybe it’s better to think about how we can innovate within our constrained budgets? Escaping the zero-sum game.

The great thing about local devolution is that our ideas don’t have to be constrained by central national thinking.

There are local councils all over the world and they’re all juggling very similar concerns. I wonder what we can learn from them?

By giving municipalities (local authorities) a revenue stream which they have more control with and can maniputlate its application to increase its competitiveness over other municipalities.

And now its political.

Since 2010 (?), local authorities have had the ability to run for profit companies. Perhaps Lewisham Council could take over Southern and do us all a favour!

This is a good point. One problem with the 2014 Council exercise is that there wasn’t any provision for possible income streams. Have mentioned a possible one here:

If Lewisham Council developed this then they could license it to other authorities. I know that councils are already collaborating in this manner but there does need to be more innovation IMO.

@Brett if 20mph limits are seen as a legitimate “revenue generator,” what’s to stop the council’s lentil-munching car haters from lowering the limits to 15mph to generate more revenue? Nobbling drivers with punitive limits isn’t innovative - we ought to find ways to raise revenue without hurting the interests of large sections of society.

I was answering the question of how to enforce speed limits, any limits. The revenue currently goes to the Treasury and they presumably see it as a legitimate income stream.

The 20mph limit is with us, it was a Lewisham mayoral manifesto pledge. If in the future a council administration is voted in to change the limit to 15mph or 30mph then so be it.

According to this in Perry Value, the households with no car: 44% (so with car = 56).

So just over half of the ward I live in has cars. What evidence is there that Lewisham Council workers eat lentils, and hate cars?

Kind of off-topic but seeing as we seem to be doing some weird generalisations on this thread - does this mean that all people who eat lentils, hate cars? Whats wrong with people who eat lentils trying to generate more income for the local council? Can car lovers eat lentils too?

LOL. Funnily enough, I ate lentils last night. Yum!

20 mph is nothing to do with income generation. Nor should it be.

Agreed.

As a separate topic some have questioned how speed limits can be enforced. I have suggested a route whereby enforcement could be self funding but it relies on speed fine income going to councils rather than central government.

The title of this topic “improving council spending” contains an implied criticism already. One person’s “improve” is another’s “waste”. Would
you redistribute council spending, how and why, would have been my phrasing. But then I probably wouldn’t start a topic like this. The whole point of having a local council is that they do this job. We influence the decisions they make on where public money is spent, by participating in the democratic process. And there are many ways to do that. I have some issues with how transport budgets are spent. So I join campaigning groups focussed on those issues, lobby councillors, make contacts with relevant council officers, I do use social media to publicise those issues, groups, meetings etc its true. But I don’t have the time to just moan about what money is being wasted where and what we’d do with it if we had it. Although Its true that kind of activity can be a starting point for more effective action, it’s not useful if it goes no further.

Totally agree with you that individuals moaning about spending is not constructive.

The council has a really tough job. To truly help them, we all need to enter a mindset where we can make trade offs, as councillors have to do. “What would I cut to get the extra spending I want?”

For that reason I find that activists and lobbyists unhelpful. They reduce the decisions to “who shouts the loudest gets the extra spending they want” (and all other areas suffer cuts)

In my mind the best and fairest outcome would be for everyone to participate in the council’s website linked above, where residents setup the budget they want, with realistic numbers that add up to 100% of the budget. Then the council simply averages out the submissions.

On the other hand, you’d get some people who set zero for everything they don’t want and 100% for the thing they do… so maybe it’s not so easy!

I am intrigued by what exactly you mean here, @Taoschno. Holding politicians to account is more than just voting every couple of years. An ongoing active dialogue, scrutiny and the participation of an interested community are important parts of a functioning democracy, surely?

This part of the discussion has definitely gone beyond local services, so to bring it back to Lewisham, I’d like to see the Mayor justify the quoted £1.3M outlay on the rollout of the 20mph zone. It’s been done with piecemeal signage, woeful communication and no streetscape changes - indeed I’d like to know where the money went, given what we’ve seen so far.

If you look at the programme timetable on the website, presumably that gives us some clues as to what they have spent and will be spending it on. Timetable ends in 2018. [https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/transport/road-safety/Pages/20mph-borough-speed-limit.aspx] And voting is only part of the democratic process, of course. And I described a few other aspects and agree with what you say absolutely about public scrutiny and holding our councillors and officers to account for what they spend and how they spend it. I’d rather see a discussion on the different and most effective ways of doing that, than hear a whole group of people write their list of what the council is wasting money on and what they should spend it on instead. And whilst I think that offering all residents the chance to indicate their preferences by clicking a choice on a website, can be part of that democratic process, I think it would be a real mistake to make it the definitive method by which councils define their budgets, even if statutory services are protected. There are many minority groups out there who would be at the mercy of the rest of us remembering they exist, if we used a computer click method.

In my experience of joining campaigning groups, it’s never been a case of who shouts the loudest gets the most. But I’d agree that there can be a flaw with this part of the democratic process, it can be that who pays the most gets what they want. And as I’ve never been part of a campaign group with any money, shouting loudly hasn’t been of any use. It’s more about gathering information, holding elected officials and officers to account. That kind of thing. Engaging with your community as fully as you can.

Thanks for this, @Taoschno - I agree with you on many of the points you make.

The implementation details of the new limit are pretty vague on the link you posted. And the most worrying thing is this:

“Larger signs (600mm diameter) are needed at the entrance points to the borough and smaller repeater signs (300mm diameter) are required at regular intervals, approximately every 150 to 200 metres.”

As I’ve pointed out elsewhere this is no longer the case. So the council here is clearly spending at least part of that £1.3M on something which is not actually needed.

The next question is how to hold them to account on this. If anyone has any ideas, please speak up. Maybe one of the Lewisham council members who use this site would like to comment?

Has anyone tried to contact someone at Lewisham Council recently? What used to be an excellent service has gone down the tubes. It is nearly impossible to get an answer on the switchboard and I am told when I get through to “email the person I need”. I dont know who I need to speak to hence the call, then switchboard throws a wobbly because I dared not to let her know who I wanted to speak to and to “just email”.

How the heck are people who do not own a computer get on these days?

I used to hold Lewisham Council up as a beacon compared to other councils I have to deal with but this is looking worst and worst.

Hi @Londondrz

I feel your pain. And although I do have quite a few numbers in my address book the easiest way is to email.

Possible reason is that in 2010 the council had more than 4000 staff. It has barely half of that and it is still trying to deliver all the services it used to. Not using the phones are one of those improvement measures and everything is tried to be streamlined online or via email.

Do give me a call and I will try to help. Number on the website is 020 8314 7899

So is it now official council policy to discourage people from telephoning them? If so, what publicity has been given to this change of policy?

It is noting new. The Council has been developing web forms for few years now, and has been encouraging everyone to contact them via these forms. You will notice that all do it online forms are easier to find than the phone numbers. Staff answering the switchboard has been cut. In 2010 there was 4000 staff working for the Council, now there is barely over half of that number. This is the reason, the Council simply has to find new ways of delivering services.

I hope you will agree that dealing with emails and prepoulated forms is more efficient way of dealing with queries. If follow up information is needed the staff can call, when the budgets have been cut by more than a third over the last few years it would be irresponsible not to use new technology to make efficiency.

I understand this. But I still think it would have been helpful if the council had made a clear public statement somewhere (perhaps they did and I missed it) that the telephone is no longer a good way of contacting the council, and giving advice to people who, for whatever reason, do not have access to email.

I searched the Lewisham site recently looking for a way to find out who to speak to about trees (the council keeps cutting them down on our street). I can find a form to report a problem with one, but nothing in the way of contact details for the person / people responsible for trees across the borough. Nothing visible.

The measures Cllr Hilton mentions above may make it easier for the council the manage things, but as far as I can see, they’re not exactly improving the service delivered to us residents. While I appreciate the need to save money, manning a switchboard should be considered as a front door to services just as much as a website.

As they are street trees, you can email Highways@lewisham.gov.uk and they might give you a sensible answer.