Local Government

Why is local government in the UK so poor? Will it continue like this interminably?

There is so much wrong: poor services, lack of services, poor administration.

If the problem is that there is not the money required to run things properly, do the elected council simply carry on with this, year after year?

Is money the only problem? When I tried to renew my gardening waste collection - as requested by Lewisham - the payments system did not work. I phoned, and was told “there’s a problem”. Why was the system not tested before going ‘live’? I was told “no, we can’t take a card payment over the phone” - why not? and why no backup process in place? What about residents who want the service but who don’t want to use the internet to make payment?

Would more money solve this problem? This example is of course relatively trivial in the face of bigger problems: quality of care for the elderly, social services for vulnerable young homeless, ineffective planning enforcement, youth club funding cut, libraries closing etc etc

The below is just my opinion, and councillors like @MajaHilton, @ChrisBarnham and @CllrPaulUpex will be able to provide better information. But for what it’s worth, I think like all publicly-run operations they’ll suffer the constraints of:

• stifling bureaucracy (I’ve seen the kind of documents they have to read through and it’s quite shocking)
• no real competition and no profit incentive driving efficiency and results
• underfunding from central govt because it’s easy for the govt to cut non-headline budgets when the coffers are empty
• being staffed by well-meaning local people but working only part-time
• having to recruit using diversity and other social engineering initiatives, so not getting the best staff
• being nobbled by centrally-controlled procurement, so unable to use the best suppliers
• in Lewisham - no oversight, as they’re 99% Labour, with one token Green (who is rarely able to attend meetings)
• staffed with extra non-jobs because of ideological statism

Try arranging visitors parking in a cpz on their Web site. It’s broken and has been for a year. I have given trying to get it fixed. Unusual as this is a nice little earner for the council.

If the elected Councillors and Mayor can barely carry out their statutory responsibilities let alone their political programme, and the sole reason given is under-funding from Central Government …

what will it take for local authorities to resign en masse - telling the Government that if they want to run services without the necessary funding, they can do it themselves?

Yep, that’ll show em!

Having moved from Southwark early last year, I’m finding Lewishams services less generous and harder to access.

Yes a great deal is broken, which leads to cynicism, which leads to simplistic populist ‘solutions’ being offered by extremist politicians.

Is it tenable for Councils like Lewisham to carry on regardless, claiming their salaries and expenses, hoping that a friendly Westmisnter Government will one day arrive to save them with additional funding?

TBF, whilst the services have deteriorated they are still pretty good. Have lived in Harrow and Southwark Lewisham offering is still pretty good.

My local vote will always go to @JohnRussell who is a Lib Dem.

My reasons are because

• He was the one that got our pool up and running again, without hiim this would not have happened!
• He was the the one that instigated D Rd improvements, not anyone else in any other party pre 2010
• I have faith in him & trust him because I know he will fight our SE23 corner for what locals want
• As a good friend of mine I know how much he has our community at heart & Iwill always back him all the way

On that note I will back him all the way as I know he only has the community in his interest & as a very good friend of mine I’m all the way with him & back all his visions. For our community 100%.

You may think the problems you go on to list are inevitable with a publicly run operation, but unless you’re actually giving up on democracy all together, it’s not actually worth listing them.

In December 2001 I wrote something on the Sydenham Town Forum, which I’d like to think gives a more constructive answer, and I even got round to moving it to my own site, so you can read it here, without registering there

Whitehall, City Hall, Localism and The Renaissance of Bogotà

The four points I picked out were:

1. A single, powerful city wide mayor,
2. Regular, independent assessments of the quality of public services
3. Fiscal discipline
4. No effective planning controls on the construction of new houses and lettings

The main thing to understand about (1) is that it means taking power away from smaller units, in the case of London, the boroughs, where client groups build up, and because most people don’t identify with the smaller units, you don’t get the proper public scrutiny. This is why I am intensely suspicious of talk of localism, because so much comes from people who are already active locally, and without necessarily realising it, they are justifying their own ways of doing things, without admitting proper criticism of how they are doing

(3) should go without saying, but is also another reason for local government being done at a city wide level. Within a city there will be richer and poorer areas, and it’s unreasonable to think the poorest should not be supported, to some extent, by the richer areas, so local political organisation should not be fragmented within a big city.

On (4), I do actually think a city does better with some planning control, but the example of Bogotà shows that a complete lack of it isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a city. The problem we have in London is that planning restrictions have become a way small local groups can prevent the supply of housing expanding to meet the needs of future generations, so dividing cities into affluent central areas, and peripheries to which poorer people can be shoved off

Yes, unfortunately London is likely to become even more polarized by poverty and wealth . The fact that boroughs are now allowed to keep their business rates will benefit Westminster and other wealthy boroughs - even though people from across London spend money in the shops of Westminster e.g. in Oxford street.

Local government by individual boroughs now seems untenable, I would welcome abandoning the local authority structure and replacing it with a city-wide government authority but I don’t think any of the main parties have a policy supporting that idea.

Regarding 1, we risk a Mayor being elected on partisan grounds, or identity politics. In that case, they’re able to tear up the manifesto within days of taking office - because it wasn’t the manifesto that his/her voters cared about. IMO this is what’s happened with Khan.

Agreed on 2 and 3, but number 4 is pretty scary for a city like London that has so much beauty and history worthy of conservation.

Losing local governance means failing to protect the unique character of places like Primrose Hill, for example, which has very specific planning strategy (favouring independent businesses and protecting the lovely streets and style of its building facades).

I’m sure some of us care little about Primrose Hill, because we’re not personally able to live there (“them vs us” thinking). I will probably never be able to afford to buy a house there but I do care about it as an area, and I am glad that it is wealthy and retains its beauty and character.

If we went for a city-wide wealth-redistributing, population-cramming strategy, what kind of city would we end up with in a couple of decades? Lewisham town centres everywhere? Croydons built all over our precious green belt?

We’d have a city of miserable transient workers, with everyone praying for the day they can leave to a leafier life in the countryside.

There will always be wealth inequality in our city because some parts of London are beautiful and desirable, and therefore cost more to live in. Treat them as a aspirational target - not a cash cow to be plundered for socialist ends. Let’s make all areas of London as beautiful and aspirational as possible.

Let’s avoid making all of London equally mediocre.

“shoved off”

I’m not rich enough to afford to buy a house in the heart of Belsize Park (where I used to rent). But I wouldnt be so arrogant as to demand a subsidised house there, or to claim I’d been “shoved off” to Honor Oak. I take full personal responsibility for choosing an area in which I can afford to live. Why shouldn’t others? I will cherish Honor Oak and aspire to do everything I can to maintain it as a lovely place to live, just as Belsize Park was - by protecting and enhancing all the things that make it special.

The problem we have in London is that some people are willing to sacrifice precious remaining green space, functioning public services, transport infrastructure, school places and hospital beds in order to allow an absurd degree of population expansion in the City.

And why? For economic growth?

The future is the Automation Era. Relying on economic growth via population expansion is a dangerous folly in the year 2017 and beyond. Future problems will not be solved by throwing more bodies at them.

If we believe in statism, we should ensure the state stops its destructive focus on London, and starts making Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Birmingham more successful cities (rather than brain-draining their youth into London). There’s a whole country out there.

Please don’t get me started on this!

Bed for me now, and I will comment tomorrow

If people travel to Westminster to spend money, it’s because Westminster is doing something right. – seems entirely fair Westminster should benefit from this (especially as its council has all the admin work associated with the borough’s large retail sector).

Less desirable boroughs that don’t attract spenders from elsewhere in London should be forced to rethink their planning. Why are they less desirable? All councils should be forced to consider how they can improve their own areas to encourage more economic activity. It’s a very important incentive that feeds into beautification, innovation and the preservation of green space and character.

Boroughs lose the self-improvement incentive if, by being designated “poor boroughs,” then can then rely on socialist redistribution of wealth from better-run areas.

The current London Boroughs were not born at the same time with an equal stake. It isn’t a sporting event between equals on a level playing field.

There are long and complex histories regarding how different areas of London have developed their particular attributes. The fact that Oxford Street in the City of Westminster is now a renowned traditional shopping area did not happen overnight, it has developed over centuries, as has ‘theatreland’, and it is important to remember also that borough boundaries have changed through the years, and some boroughs have disappeared or been amalgamated.

It seems arbitrary (just one example) that business rates taken in Westminster should pay for social services in North Westminster (yes, there are poor areas of Westminster) but not in poor areas of South Camden which is physically closer to the opulence of the west End but the wrong side of the borough boundary.

Would you also argue that the poorer areas of Westminster should not benefit from the wealth elsewhere in Westminster? Should the commercial rates from Selfridges only be used for the benefit of Mayfair residents? Should Edgware Road should have to compete with Oxford Street as a shopping centre for London?

Good point. Let’s get our own Royal Family for Lewisham, build a string of 5-star hotels in Catford and offer business rates holidays for Harrod’s and Harvey Nicks to put in new department stores on Dartmouth Road. If that doesn’t bring the posh punters in, I don’t know what will. (DR traders needn’t worry about competition: Knightsbridge is thick with hugely successful boutiques that benefit from the Harvey Nicks footfall.)

Perhaps the hotels and smart shops are what the Council has in mind for SE14 after Millwall FC has been cleansed from the area.

That’s a fair point and a good question

I guess we need to agree on some optimum size for an administrative area. Too small, and we risk creating tiny pockets of extreme wealth around favourable assets. Too large, and we lose the good governance / reward incentives, and the local touch.

It would be fairest if the boundaries are long-lived, and if all areas started from the same beginnings, but this won’t be the case in practice.

So the question is - how large would we make the boundaries to produce the optimum results?

• I think @TimLund is suggesting larger boundaries - maybe even a single boundary around the whole city.
• I’d suggest smaller boundaries than we currently have (that is, have Honor Oak and Forest Hill as a single administrative area, for example)

My rationale behind smaller boundaries is that it should be easier to decentralise local government in the Internet era. We ought to be able to share common “blueprints” for governance and employ less support staff doing routine work.

Take planning as an example - information about sites, service infrastructure, existing housing and former planning applications should all be digitised and online. 3D models… Any applicable laws… It should all be available in an immediate, context-sensitive fashion. Decisions should be so cut-and-dried they could be made by AI, not by humans. This may be a few years off - but even in today’s world, we need fewer staff doing grunt-work than we did a decade ago. And certainly fewer support staff than we did when the boundaries were drawn up.

We currently elect 54 councillors, who cover the whole of Lewisham borough - a large area of 275K people (2011 census) covering differing demographics, architecture and priorities. I’ve met two of the councillors - Maja Hilton and Peter Bernards (of the three councillors that serve the Forest Hill ward). We’re very lucky to have councillors like @majahilton taking an active part in discussions here. Most councillors don’t.

Imagine we elected councillors at the ward level (i.e. Forest Hill), and councillors operated with total autonomy at this level - I think this would make local politics very engaging and accountable.

Would this work in practice? Interested to hear counter-arguments.

[we already do elect at the ward level… I should have consulted wikipedia before posting!]

Smaller boroughs, perhaps?

@anon5422159 - I’m not saying there shouldn’t be smaller administrative areas, with some responsibilities, but those responsibilities cannot include matters where city wider coordination is needed - such as transport and development control. The problem with defining smaller areas is that, if they are to reflect actual communities, the areas probably need to change too often. Think about it, the Dalston of today is a rather different community than the one it was twenty years ago. If you define smaller areas, and bring in tiers of council officers and Councillors at those lower levels, the overall system gets more and more scelerotic. Rather better, I’d say, to encourage and empower - appropriately - community groups, which can be much more flexible, but also tend to come and go, so cannot be relied upon for big, long term issues.

I might add, perhaps cynically, that this approach is generally going to be opposed by existing local councillors, and also people in the community with whom they have developed links. From my own experience, I’d say that almost all these people are very genuine, wanting to do the best for where they live, but it is hard for them to see that they are part of a structural problem. It is much easier, however, for newcomers, who want to make a life for themselves in London, but don’t yet have those strong local links, to see the problem. They see local politics dominated by fine discussions of preserving what is there already, and nothing about the need to build the homes they need.

100% agreed on that. I believe it was @AndyS that said:

The Forest Hill Society (and other local orgs) deserve a larger share of public money - they are delivering fantastic things for the community.

I’d be very careful of such societies accepting public money. Good, and well intentioned as they are, they do not have the level of professionalism which can provide the sort of opportunities for good people who want to make a career in public service

This comes back to my earlier idea of electronic governance “blueprints.”

The FHS seems well run, and would probably tick many, if not all, the boxes associated with local government “professionalism” already. Could all the tick-boxes and processes be documented online in a modern “gov.uk” style, such that we could judge whether a community group is of “professional” local government standard?

I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you mean by electronic governance “blueprints.”, but it sounds like techno fantasy, and miles away from the good work done by dedicated local government officers, and civil servants. They do exist, and local community groups can work well with them - in fact, that’s one of the things which make them good officers.

With all due respect, I think you need to drop your ideological blinkers, and see people, including officers and local politicians, for what they are, some good, some bad, some hardworking, some lazy, but people first and foremost

I do see public servants as people. And I see local organisations doing the work of councils as people too.

By “blueprints” I wasn’t talking about replacing people with robots. I was just suggesting documenting online what it means to be a “professional” (in your words) local government and offering online help, so community groups can meet these requirements and share responsibilities of the council.

OK - that makes some sense, although for me ‘professional’ means as part of a respected career, in the way that solicitors, doctors, pharmacists are professional, rather than just doing things well. Getting community groups to take the lead sounds great, but it doesn’t provide a decent career path. I have frequently come across good paid staff working for community led organisations who suddenly depart, maybe because the funding dries up, or a dysfunctional board / committee to which they report. It can’t be much fun, and it can’t help get good people into these areas.

Thanks @anon5422159 & @TimLund for your recent posts, I appreciate, like, & understand them all

I also must point out I am posting as me here & NOT our library group as a whole on this.

I do think it would be great if the FH Society were given a small fee by local government for costs on local initiatives so professionals could actually be paid for their services, and probably even more could get done then. At the moment I think they rely on membership fees, but @Michael would know this more than me.

I don’t sit on the FH Society committee so am not the best person to work out if previous suggestions would work.

I am one half of “Forest Hill Arts” & am “Forest Hill Fashion Week” I do go for local assembly funding to cover the costs of the later (PLI etc etc) & we will be going for funding for FHA to do more this year - All funding we go for will be to cover outgoings & not for profit & we will be trying to tap into arts funding for this specifically & not locally.

Going back to our library, personally I can tell you it’s a massive financial burden BUT one we are all more than willing to take on for the next 25 years & are all very passionate about & we don’t doubt for one second that we can deliver the best possible community library for FH.

Yes we will go for funding for certain things BUT we are not too worried about this as we know the community is right behind us.

The support from our crowdfunder was amazing and because of this we have been able to:

• Update the computer systems
• Add baby changing facilities to the toilet
• Create & build shared office space which will generate ongoing income

And that’s just so far, so hopefully we can deliver a whole lot more soon regardless of funding or not.

I must mention here that our local Cllr’s @MajaHilton @CllrPaulUpex & Peter Bernard secured £5000 assembly funding for us to be spent on “Children’s Literacy” at the library which we are looking at now & are really grateful for. So massive thanks to them for the support they have and are giving to the library

This (your second point re Bogota, above) sounds interesting, and I think Lewisham could benefit from something like it. Currently does Lewisham evaluate quality of services?

Yes, but it isn’t democratic. It has an executive committee making decisions and setting agendas, and no obligation to consult the membership. I sympathize with this arrangement, as the activists who do all the work, get to make decisions, but it isn’t democratic.

Quite right. I think i would be the first to object if civic societies were given blank cheques to run services that some people cared about most.

If the Forest Hill Society believe it can deliver services it should be able to bid for the work like any other group. Ward assemblies have been good to enable us and other local groups to spend a small amount of money locally on interesting projects. Bidding for Portas Pilot funding enabled the community to spend even more, with oversight by the council and GLA.

We are actually quite lucky in Lewisham to have assembly funds. This is a rare arrangement and it is a good way to allocate small amounts of money to the community. But funding has been cut, which isn’t surprising when there are more vital services that the council is trying to avoid cutting.

On the larger level i would like to see more local authorities (and police forces) joining together. Southwark and Lewisham or Lambeth have lots in common, so why not combine more of their central activities? Local authorities can get too big, and i remember when Strathclyde stretched from just outside Edinburgh to the Isle of Mull, with 2.5 million people. That was too big but two london boroughs together would include 500,000 people.

20170112_161432.jpg3024×4032 3.39 MB

I’m back to the general theme of local government.

The picture shows wheelie bins obstructing the pavement. The residential development these bins belong to, had a planning condition that a bin store be approved and constructed as part of the development. This was never enforced and I’m told that the enforcement period has elapsed.

Planning Dept referred me to Crime Enforcement and Regulation, who in turn referred me to Envirocall (I assume this is the new name for Environmental Health Services?) Enviro_call_ no longer take calls (so why was I given their number?) and there seems to be no appropriate category that this issue belongs to for the purposes of reporting on Lewisham’s website. I started writing an online report, but the address wasn’t found and I was referred to a phone number where the automated message referred me back to the website …

So I think what we can see is that there is service provision if it’s statutory and or commercially viable and easy. Anything messy or complicated that doesn’t fall into an unambiguous category of provision, is not dealt with.

I am happy to be proved wrong. If someone in a responsible position in Lewisham Council is reading this, there’s a mess of assorted bins obstructing the pavement alongside 30-32 Devonshire Road. Some of the bins have not been emptied for months probably because they have the wrong type of rubbish e.g. general waste in recycling bins Some bins have rubbish propped on top. There is also rubbish on the pavement. There are orphaned bins stranded in random positions along the road, some numbered, some without numbers. (what are blue bins for? There’s one of those)

Similar things happen elsewhere, for example just locally I’ve noticed between David’s Road and Sainsbury’s car park seems to have a particular problem with bins obstructing the pavement, also rubbish being dumped on the pavement.

On the broader issue, have you contacted your local councillor or attended one of their surgery sessions to discuss this?

I haven’t contacted then about this, but have about other matters - not helpful.

Given the lack of good service you’ve seen, I suppose this is something we should consider in the next council elections. Are there prospective councillors for your ward who might be better? I’d like to hear from more of them on this site if they’re listening…

I, for one, have a lot of respect for @MajaHilton (Forest Hill Ward / Labour) as she uses platforms like this to stay in touch with local residents and listens to our concerns even though she sometimes gets a bit of hostility. She’s a regular at our meetups too (although please do not acost her about rubbish bins if you meet her at one of our socials! )

I worry more about the systemic and structural problems and the organizational dysfunctionality of the Council’s administration. The fact that I was mis-referred twice in relation to the same matter is alarming. Do officers not know the function of their colleagues in the administration? If they do not have basic information about who does what, then I think there is a serious problem which needs to be addressed.

Pretending everything’s OK and muddling through isn’t a policy I support.

I don’t think that will ever be truly resolved though, do you? Without efficiency incentives, and with an effective monopoly, the state is never likely to make its customers as happy as the free market does.

My answer in general is to reduce the size and complexity of the state, and reduce its influence on our lives. And where we absolutely need it, force it to use private companies chosen via uncorrupted procurement (which is, again, another regular failing of the state).

I’m confused. Aren’t you in some way also describing PFI and PF2 programs? They were designed to have public services (transport, healthcare, services, education among many) delivered in the private sector. And in particular to remove (or at least share) in delivery risk. Does that not use private companies as you propose?

I’m unfamiliar with PF2 but (mostly Labour)'s reliance on PFI (private debt-raising to fund state enlargement) is the antithesis of what I suggested.

I’m suggesting shrinking the state and employing private companies to deliver services. Not employing private financiers to keep debt off government books. That was a huge mistake that we’re paying for in spades now.

PF2 was created by George Osborne to replace PFI begging the question whether the “I” in PFI was actually a “1”. I guess the difference is PFI (and now PF2 in England or NPD in Scotland) is best applied in substantial projects (say £100m+) which also benefit from private equity. The UK Government (both Conservative and Labour) made substantial errors with PFI insofar the procurement model was inappropriate to a number of the projects it was applied… and by moving the debt off government books. I also think the procurement process was too onerous and opaque. The problem isn’t PFI which works exceptionally well in many companies, it is how it was applied.

But yes… perhaps council services may be too small or low value for this model… unless services are bundled across many councils.

Thank you for the information on PF2. I see from the Wikipedia article on PFI that a 2011 Treasury Select Committee recommended that the “perverse incentives” of the original PFI (a Tory invention that “expanded much further under Labour”) should be reined in.

Getting back on-topic, what do others think about local government and how it could better provide services like waste collection that @DevonishForester mentioned?

I’m all for moving services into the private sector. Though I am concerned about the ability of local government (even national) to adequately procure and manage these contracts such as with waste collection. Some are better than others. In Southwark I was more than satisfied with the standard of environmental services provided through Veolia. I’m less than satisfied with the services provided by Lewisham.

I’d love to see more London councils bundle key services and benefit from economies of scale. I just don’t understand why each London borough has to have its own unique solution. If bundled thus increasing the size and value of the contract then there IS capacity to bring in additional private financing. This is not limited to waste collection… it could be applied to road maintenance, parking services the list become limitless.

Scotland has an interesting model called the Hub. The Hub…

brings together community planning partners, including health boards, local authorities, police, and fire and rescue services and several other public bodies together with a private sector development partner to form a hubCo to increase joint working and deliver best value in delivering new community facilities.

So yes. I think local government COULD do better in providing services. But I also think it can also be done differently. For this there could be an application with PFI or some other form of public private partnership.

Scotland has a Parliament. England is the only country in the UK not to have a national parliament. New thread? Does England need a parliament?

I don’t think a parliament is a requirement to pull together something like this. T

Coming back to what Tim referred to earlier in this thread

It would be good to hear from a Councillor or a senior manager in Lewisham about whether they assess the quality of the services they provide, and if so how it is done. And to have them explain why there are officers in the administration who seem to have incomplete and incorrect knowledge of who does what in heir own organization, and what might be done about that.

I’m not convinced that privatizing is an answer - especially where there is a monopoly - and we definitely don’t want competing bin collection services!

In my view there has been no advantage gained (except to shareholders and overpaid executives) by privatizing gas, electric, phone services, water, post office, Royal Mail etc. Britain’s ruling class has asset-stripped the country for the benefit of a few.

Given the run around I had last year when dealing with a council issue I would also love some feedback on that.

Being a responsible citizen thought I would report an empty property in Wynell Road with an overflow running down the wall. Already looks as though the wall and surrounding area is soaked.
So phoned the council housing repairs number vague response then put on hold for 25minutes and 16seconds after which I hung up,

Tried to email instead having gone through several steps got a secure code and hey presto it went to an error page! I assume because I am not a tenant?

So gave Up!

Unacceptable. Very frustrating. I would encourage you to make a formal complaint. You could cut and paste the text of your post here so no need to compose something new.

Used the complaint feature virtually have to give your life history on the form but will see if they fix it.

“we might be forgiven for wondering what the point of local government is these days”

Posters here have expressed appreciation for the participation of councillors in this forum. My impression is that the participation is strictly limited to non-contentious and trivial matters e.g. wifi-enabled park benches. Are any of them picking up on the complaints above? How about some interest from Councillors in the destruction of woodland - which is causing tremendous sorrow and concern? I am referring to One Tree Hill and local cemeteries.

@MajaHilton has picked up multiple complaints made here on the forum and helped resolve them.

She has done this despite it being entirely optional to her duties as a councillor. There is no ruling from County Hall that local councillors must participate in SE23.life or other local forum websites. So personally I am delighted she takes the time.

In the next local elections, if I could vote for individuals, I would vote wholeheartedly for Maja (despite our polar differences, politically). She writes lengthy and detailed posts explaining council positions, and she has helped people directly with concerns expressed here on the forum. And I suspect she has also represented our opinions on the bigger issues too (but she is one of 50+ councillors in Lewisham, so we cannot expect her to resolve every issue we bring up).

@DevonishForester, if you want to make a difference, I would really appreciate you and others reaching out to other Forest Hill, Perry Vale and Crofton Park Ward councillors to encourage them to join the forum and take the positive steps that Maja has. If enough of them join and hear from local people, perhaps then they will have the combined influence to tackle the bigger issues.

On a related point - where are the prospective Conservative councillors? Surely if they wanted to be elected they would spend some time on local forums too. Let’s reach out to them too. They’ve got something to gain by involving themselves here.

I share your frustrations with the destruction of One Tree Hill’s historic woodland. I think joining @LewisSchaffer’s group would be the best way to pressure Southwark council to take action. If Southwark residents see just how dreadful their council is, perhaps they will vote differently in the next local elections.

I’ve just noticed this thread and want to add my thoughts. The problem with local government and often their poor services is global, there is hardly any country in the world that does not have problems with government and local government and their management and administration. But only people of very few countries have real opportunities to change things for the better. The UK is one of those few where people CAN make difference. The answer to your questions is people do not speak up, do not complain, do not come together to make good changes, to bring their problems to local government to rectify. If we keep quiet, local government will think that everything is ok and use the people’s silence for their benifits.

I learned from this forum that the current Lewisham Mayor has been keeping his post from 2001. HOW??? I use public transport a lot and have been living in Lewisham from 2001. I see a lot of Catford and Lewisham centre. There are hardly any changes in the area and it got worse, it is dirtier, filthier, uglier because buildings get older with the time. On the top of that I got to know from this forum that Lewisham government is in debts, 30% or smth from the budget! How mr Bullock has been keeping his post from 2001 till now!!! HOW?!! Has anyone questioned his ability to manage??? To me, he is a complete failure.

Local governors have to have good management skills, good administration skills, good financial management skills, I do not see them in our local government. They are complete and utter jokes. There have to be dramatic changes with the next elections.

I am planning to start a thread on this forum (when i get more free time) which probably will be called Leaseholders’ Saga. It will show, partly, how poor The Council management is and how the moneis are dripping from the budget. Obviousely it will be a tiny projection of the situation as it will be a reflection of my experience and experience leaseholders in our block. I find it quite shocking what is going on in financial world of the local government.

I picked up some quotes from the thread. The easiest one to answer is the last one. When you vote for your councillors you vote for the individual people. As our wards have 3 councillors you can pick three names from the list. When counting the votes, it is easier if all three votes are for the same party. Split votes are a bit of nightmare for the counters and candidates who observe the count. In Lewisham only 3 labour candidates will be on each list, eg my name was only in Forest Hill ward.
I see sharing my knowledge as part of my role. I may be lazy and typing on my iPad is an easy way to do this. There are some excellent Councillors who I don’t think have ever put a post on the internet. It doesn’t mean that they are not hard working or approachable. We all have emails, and phone numbers published. You can come to our surgeries or write us a letter. You can come to Assemblies and you can observe Council meetings. We talk to residents and generally try to help.

@DevonishForester there are monthly KPI reports looking at all the services. These are reviewed by management and by Councillors. There are areas that we as Councillors worry about, but it is likely that our priorities may be somewhat different. After all different Labour councillors will have individual priorities, and these can change over time due to changing environment and circumstances.
Problem with the communication and knowledge of who does what is consequence (in my opinion) of constant organisational changes, where savings need to be achieved. We all want most for our money, but the money available has gone 63% down in the last 10 years. Officers that used to look after one area, if they were not let go, would have taken slightly different role. Number of staff have gone down from over 4000 to less than 2500 (excluding school staff). So it is easy to criticise.

@kat.standlake.point I am trying to remember what the loans you referee to in your post were for. One thing is for sure, they were not used for day to day spending as that would have been illegal. There are strict rules in how the budgets can be set and what can be done if they are not achieved. There are lots of pots that one is not allowed to mix(something I never experienced in the private sector to this degree). I also don’t know who do you refer when you say Local governors. Do you mean councillors? It would be good to know what dramatic changes are you expecting from the next Council elections.

Sir Steve Bullock has been elected by Lewisham voters in the Council elections. He is not intending to stand as the Mayor again. The Labour Party has selected Damien Egan as our Mayoral Candidate for May 2018.

I assume when you say Council Management you refer to one of the Housing Associations.(HA) All housing stock has been transferred for better or worse to these organisations. HAs will deal with renovations, maintenance ect.Council will manage the housing list and eligibility criteria and refuse. Council also may have a representative on its Board, but these are separate organisations. Their budgets are not for Councillors or the Mayor to control. They operate with its remit. We can ask for things to be reviewed and maybe suggest the best practice. We can’t instruct them on the specific operational matter. I am sure members who sit on the Housing Committee (Cllr Carl Handley is the chair) would like to hear your saga, but their influence would not be a direct one on HA issues. Hope this helps a bit.

Morning Maja!

Thank you for your time to answer. I agree with Chris, definitely will vote for you if your name is on the list for one simple reason - you talk to people, you listen to them, you are trying to help. It is priceless. But I believe I am in the different ward and wont have a chance to do so.

When I was referring to Lewisham debt, I ment this topic:

What those loans were taken for? Could Lewisham avoid taking loans? Could central government help? If It could not, why not? The government bailed out Halifax bank, why not to help local government in the similar way?

Local governors I refer to all people in the local government who make decisions in different areas.

Thank you for confirming that.

Housing stock transfer: for managing it only, right? My lease shows that Lewisham Council is my landlord and not Lewisham Homes (LH) who is a managing agent of our Estate. My understanding is if LH is a managing agent for Lewisham Council then Lewisham Council must manage its managing agent - its performance, finance management, etc.? I believe Lewisham Council pays LH £18.5 million, I am guessing per year, and extended its contract for 10 years? This £18 million, are they for services only or they incorporate spending for maintenance of housing stocks as well? I am a leaseholder and see, through my portion of contributions, the full scale of spending by LH on our estate.

I am shocked to be honest and do not find it acceptable not only because I pay a portion from my pocket (as leaseholder), but also because another portion (the council) - i believe there are currently 25% leaseholders and 75% council tenants on our estate - is contributed by council funds…it is not only leaseholders who are ripped off but the Council too!

For example: LH charge £40 per hour for caretaking with just only 10 hrs per block per week which we realisticly get only 5 hrs per block per week if we are lucky, for the past 4-5 years we have been living in pigstyies. We have been battling from April this year to get our 10hrs per week caretaking and already told LH that we would go to Tribunal if they dont get it sorted.

Latest one, just over £900 to patch/repair/fix bird netting

About £900,000.00 pounds spent to replace 6 lifts in 3 blocks with 6 workers + 1 supervisor on site with works lasting one year. I have been talking to private lift companies and they told me that realisticly the job could be done for half of the time and for about £500,000.00. I did not have guts to question LH because I was new to leaseholder business at that time.

The block entrance door replaced for the price, i think is about £24k, i need to check that, with only one year warranty, but one of the leaseholders in our block wrote to LH offering the entry system for half of that price with more functions, with video, etc (we dont have video function now).

£54 charge to remove a dead bird/birds by the caretaker for whose service we pay £40 per hour.

£15 for the electronic form of the block insurance policy…how???

There are some more…

I personally see a lot of money (my money and council’s money) going down the drain or where are they going ??? LH is not-for-profit organisation…

I will definitely take this opportunity to bring the leaseholders saga to the attention of Housing Committee amd Mr Handley). I will put my thoughts in a more coherent form and will forward them to yourself so it can be kindly passed over to Mr Handley. We will be holding a Standlake Point leaseholders meeting today and I will ask them if they have smth to add to what I have said above.

Thank you Maja very much for your time and patience to read my posts.

Here come my dreams😇
I would love the newly elected governors and their staff to:

1. tackle benifit frawd, i want to see more people working, working more hrs to pay their bills themseves. I want real people in need get help and stop wellfare system to be abused. I want “benifit in generation” families tackled and stopped. I know, I see them on the streets, there are people who make lots of children so they can have benifit and house. You cannot use children to get benifits, it is immoral.
2. i want cleaner lewisham, I want to see more street cleaners, I want to see bridges walls washed and kept clean and any parts if land, carparks, sites kept clean and tudy. I want old pedestrian parts replaced, i want the Council to make all property owners to keep external part of the properties regularly refreshed, repaired and looking nice, well maintained and clean. A lot of shopfronts look awful and dirty now.
3. I want rubbish collected during Off Pick hrs and not when the traffic is awful and driving you mad and when you are at the boiling point, the rubbish collecting track blocks the road so you cannot pass ending up late for work.
4. I want better finance control and spending management, I want value for money deals and contracts. Raising taxes and councul tax to patch holes is not an option. It is not news and the problem is global that businesses use public budgets to milk lots of moneys through different schemes, I want government to be aware, prevent and tackle these kind of business fraud.
5. I want public servants to be more productive, more effective in their day-to-day work, I want more technologically advanced facilities, I want local government and all its staff to be the top example of customer service excellence.
6. I want housing problems tackled with long term outcome in mind. Building 500 homes create 1000 homes demand in the future which in turn create 2000 homes demand in the later future - how that would be tackled? Housing problem should be resolved involving all regions of England. It is a nationwide solution.
7. I want more trees, i dont want to see boxes with bushes or trees in pots, I want to see real trees planted. I want green areas protected and I dont want to see Lewisham becoming a concrete prison in 20 years time.
8. I want more benches on the streets and roads
9. i want to have one lewisham citizen communication portal where all of us can report problems, see live complaints, reported problems and their resolutions and participate/input/petition, etc there rather us looking for councillors to help.
10. I want to see easy flowing and on time coming public transport and less cars on the road.
11. i want destructive business like gambling, magic/ fortune teller to be prohibited.
12. i want children and parents and people in general to be more educated on healthy living and life style ( and not eating that poxy McDonald’s and chicken’n’chips)
13. i want ordinary people life to be easier and with less stress and bills, I don’t want to see homeless people, poor people, sick people who cannot find help.

Which is a great use for these local Forums. But Lewisham finances are not a secret including their debt. The information is published and available on their website. For the last few years much of this information is collated an published for all authorities by DCLG with the added benefit you can compare your council’s finances to all others in England (and maybe Wales I can’t recall).

It was either yours or someone else’s FOI request which led me to discover this amazing website What Do They Know which tracks and publishes all FOI requests and their answers. I reviewed a bunch for Lewisham and many were turned down simply because the information requested was already in the public domain. In my opinion FOIs shouldn’t be used as some library service, but to uncover information which is kept from the public either by purpose or often innocently.

My point is much of this information has always been available. And in recent years easier to understand and find. I just really wish people would become more engaged with finding and using this information to judge the performance of their own local government rather than rely of Forums of local news media.

Is that the case? I had though Lewisham Homes was set up by the Council to manage residential property still in its ownership. In that regard it is an ALMO rather than a housing association. In which case I would think the Council can have much more authority over Lewisham Homes than it would another HA like LQ. The board is made up of councillors as well as residents. So on that latter point @kat.standlake.point sounds like you should check when a position may become open!

ETA - In this case it is an important distinction as Housing Associations are not subject to FOI requests whereas Lewisham Homes as an arms length management organisation for Lewisham Council is.

I even did not know that residents can be board members and who are those residents that are currently board members in Lewisham Homes?

https://www.lewishamhomes.org.uk/about/board

Oh-la-la… I guess I have a choice .

i am sure @anon5422159 can provide us with statistics that more people are in work. I would want for welfare system to be a bit more kind to people as huge demand of Food Banks is due to delays /problems within benefit system. I would like to live in times with more job security and progression within companies. Certainly no unpaid internships.

I assume you have reported all the cases of benefit fraud you have seen on the streets to:
National Benefit Fraud Hotline ( NBFH ) Telephone: 0800 854 440. Textphone: 0800 328 0512. …

With regards to the rest your best option may be to run for the Mayors office next May.

Thanks, I stand corrected. Although it is still minority on the Board.

Happy to oblige.

Morning Maja

No Maja, I believe it is for the government departments to investigate. That what those departments and employees are paid for and it is their jobs, not mine and that is where they have to improve.

I do another, my, job from which I pay taxes for the government and local government to be paid to do their jobs.

And again, Maja, no, I would like the new elected governors to work towards those goals that is why I am electing them for and that what I want to pay my taxes for.

On this we disagree. We live in a civil society which relies on its citizens to be an active part of the process at all times, not just once every four years. Would you not report a burglary if you saw one in the process? How about ill-treatment of an animal?

Benefit fraud is a crime too.

It is kind of the proof of my point, the system does not work properly, the people who are really in need do not get help. And I was not talking about unemployment, people counted as if they are employed even working minimum hours and claiming benifits.

Are these not matters determined at a national level rather than a local level?

I guess we disagree, animal and theft is visually clear, wellfare fraud needs to be dealt and prevented from inside through the adequate procedures in place. I would not like to live in society where I have to do my job and government job on the top of that. For the past 6-7 months we have been battling to get what we are entitled for and paying for £40 per hour. This is the example of the system. If I start reporting what the government is missing, i wont have time to do my job, who is going to pay my bills?

The above are perfect example of the mentality that I experienced dealing with public body people or those closed to them- footballing back problems to the person seeking help and answers. And I am not aiming at Maja as I have great respect for her come out to people and hear bad or good.

Kat I agree with you that it’s frustrating to see our council estates teeming with able-bodied people.

On the other hand, the work capability assessment brought in by Labour in 2008 has made a big difference:

Labour originally outsourced this to ATOS, who became notorious for many reasons, but the Tories ended this contract, and recent dramatic drops in the claimant count show that this policy is working in its current form. Seems those people with “sore knees” and “achy backs” are now getting back to work and contributing to funding our public services again.

Benefit fraud is actually very low these days.

Thank you Chris for the info

Dear @kat.standlake.point
Please don’t get this the wrong way. You are very passionate and have some firm views. It is therefore difficult to have a conversation over a forum without getting cross wired. I would suggest for you to give me a ring and arrange a meeting where we could discuss a range of issues. (Phone no 020 8314 7899)

I suppose my tongue and cheek suggestion to run for the Mayor, was because a lot of your suggestions are limited by legislation. Other limiting factor is finance. There are also limitations on raising the finance.

Your comments 4,5,6 one could write books on
Comments 6, 10,11,12 Local Government can play a role, but are national issues. It reminds me when my kids challenged me to ban smoking. Great idea, but I can’t ban it. I can teach them not to do it, and ban it in my own home. But if someone disobeyed my orders, what could I do?

Do give me a call and we can arrange to meet for some coffee/tea and a chat.

Dear Maja, I am very sorry if I came across as blunt, abrupt and fuming. I can assure you my comment were not aiming at you but triggered my steam to come out that has been accumulating for the past few month of encounter with people from the Council and their “arm length” colleagues. Thank you very much for offering the opportunity to meet with yourself. I will definitely would love to meet with you and have a chat. I will also take the opportunity of this meeting to pass some information to Mr Handley about our leaseholders saga we have been having this year. But I need more time to gather the information so my words are supported by tangible facts. When I am ready, I will give yourself a call and we can arrange to meet at your convenience of course. Thank you Maja for your help and communucations

@starman - it’s not strictly true that the website What do they know, tracks and publishes all FOI requests and answers, they only do that for ones that are raised through their website. however it is a good place to look for previously requested FOI information if it’s been requested via that website. it’s also good for councils, as they can see what else a requestor has asked, and if they’ve asked the same thing to lots of other councils, or what other answers have been given etc. you do know that you’ll get a response, and your response will be tracked and available to the wider public where a personal request offline, or via personal email wouldn’t be publicly available unless you chose to publish it yourself.

Good to know. Thanks.

Whom shall I send a request for compensation for lateness to work - to a rubbish collecting company or the local government

09:13am

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Sorry Kat, in the 16 years we lived in FH we knew the rubbish was collected on a Wednesday so set out earlier. It’s not as if it is a new thing. They really are damned. Collect early, they wake people up, collect later they slow people down. They take away all our crap in all weathers. Please cut them a little slack.

They cannot do it after 11 am when all people waken up, children taken to schools and people arrived to work???

Their run takes most of the day so if they do it after 11am they impact on the evening rush hour.

Well, what is the worst - to be late for work or late home from work???

And I see them mostly in the morning.
Their runs are not well thought at all, their logistics sacks. Why you have to be at the busiest roads and spots during the rush hour? They can do quite streets and places first and when the rush on streets comes down, the can do busy roads and places. Pls dont exuse them.

I am not making excuses, I am telling you the way it is. Refuse collection is a massive organisational and logistical nightmare. I am pretty sure this has been looked at pretty carefully. Search the threads on here for early collections and you will see complaints about that.

If people stopped throwing away as mush waste as they do we would not have this issue, but we do.

This is one area where you cannot please all the people all the time.

No doubt there are many.

You know that because you work for one of those waste collection companies? Or you made an enquiry in the past and got explanation from officials how these companies work?

I do agree with u on that.

No to the first question and yes to the second.

Ok, understood.

I have just made an enquiry too:

Hi, I was going to work today and almost ended up late for work (and this was not a one off case) because a waste collection track blocked the traffic on mayow road and my bus had to wait until the waste collection crew finished what they were doing. The time was 9:13 am. It is always rush time in the moring, why waste collection service tracks have to add agony to what people going through on the roads every morning? People going to work, taking children to school is enough as it is, why waste have to be collected on the top of that during peak times? Why cannot they collect from quiet roads and places first and come to the main roads and busy places after 11 am when road rush comes down??

I will appreciate if you pass my comlaint to the waste collection department. I would really like to receive a comprehensive explaination as to why better time of the day schedules, better logistics cannot be implemented in order to stop the nightmare people going through every morning.

Thank you very much.
Kat

You might be better directing your ire at parents who drive their kids to school. Have you ever been caught behind a refuse lorry during holiday time?

That is an impossible task. It is smth that the government has to deal with.

I’ve been living here for 20 years and have never really been inconvenienced by the dustmen - to describe it as a nightmare is a bit OTT, a slight inconvenience at most I would say. I know when they are collecting and try to avoid it or make adjustments to my day. I have a great deal of sympathy for them and the people organising the logistical aspects of the collection. It’s just a fact of life and it is the same everywhere. In my experience they pull over when they can and are really friendly while doing a difficult job.

Got the reply from complaint department. Pretty standard and what I expected. But comments noted and that is good.

Dear Kat

I apologise for the inconvenience that our refuse collection vehicles have caused you, on your journey to work yesterday.

We do understand that our refuse collections can sometimes cause delays to traffic, and with this in mind we map our routes intricately, so that our collections will have as minimal impact on our residents as possible.

In Lewisham we currently collect refuse daily from 80,000 properties across the borough and this does not include our business collections throughout the day and night. Our residential refuse crews start work at 6am in the morning we cannot legally start earlier - we have to be sensitive around residential neighbourhoods. To minimise delays, we have tried various options on routes and timings, however Mayow Road is always a very busy road throughout the day and unfortunately a degree of disruption is unavoidable.

We also have environmental and economic challenges to consider and with this in mind our service has recently undertaken an overhaul which included the option for fortnightly collections to ease the huge impact these daily collections have on daily traffic, amongst other things.

We review all our refuse collection timetables periodically to ensure that they are as safe, efficient and cost-effective as possible, we will take your comments on board.

Kind regards,

Gillian Harewood

That was nice of them to reply. What do you think of it?

Wow, what a tough job for the group both in terms of logistics and physical effort. I nominate the refuse collection employees serving Lewisham as Local Treasures (this imaginary order is only second to its national equivent, a National Treasure).

Replied back today with my thoughts:

Dear Gillian, thank you very much for your prompt reply. It is sincerely appreciated. Thank you for the detailed information on how the waste collection services work and what challenges the service provider encounters. I am also grateful that my comments have been noted and it is reassuring that the delivery of the services are revewied periodically with improvements in mind.

The most importantly I would like to say a big thank you to all of you who work hard, particularly the waste track crews, making sure our waste is collected regularly and promptly. It is no doubt a very hard and challanging job with logistics that has virtually no solution. I do hope that all of us will be more recycling minded to reduce amount of waste we throw away daily, may be one day recycling become a legal obligation that will help us to solve not only the problem of collections but also the pollution we cause daily with our waste.

Once again, thank you for your time to answer my enquiry/complaint.

Kat

Time to revive this topic? It will be interesting to see (during and after Covid-19) whether the fortunes of particular London districts change, and in what way.

What really got me looking today for an existing thread on local govt, was having the Council’s contractors banging on my door before 08.00 this morning, to tell me to tell me that if I didn’t want my car blocked in by their pavement works, I should move it. (the vehicle is on my front driveway)

There has been refurbishment works going on and I knew they would eventually reach my house. That is why I approached the crew on Monday to ask when they thought they would reach me and whether I would need to move my car. They said I would not need to move my car, as a ramp would be in place. I don’t mind moving it, but why was I told that it wouldn’t be necessary? And if I needed to move it, why can’t I have 24 hours notice? They’ve been working for weeks, none of this is unexpected.