Is it possible to cut €1 Bn from County Council costs

Paulzx

Head The Wall wrote: »

Are you claiming that it wouldn't save money?

Providing no service will always save money

donalg1

Well if you take the lower paid workers in the PS who would probably make up the majority of the 50% made redundant, the actual savings would be pretty minimal, once you take out the tax they pay, levies charges and the whatever else, then give them social welfare, be it the standard rate, or standard rate plus child or children, FIS, Medical Card etc...then there is the fact they will most likely need some assistance with their mortgages, or will require Rent Allowance or LA Housing the savings would be non existant.

nice_guy80

It is still crazy that we are paying councillors so much money

Councils should have been merged long ago eg Sligo/Leitrim, Roscommon/Longford, Westmeath/Offaly,
Admin costs brought way down by getting rid of layers of management through compulsory redundancy and natural wastage

No. of councillors drastically reduced and then actually give them something to do - eg vote on planning decisions and appeals in local areas like they do in England

so much money goes into salaries and running costs for county councils that they have to fleece local businesses in rates and still have little left for proper repairs to local structural issues - roads, water, sewage,

Victor

nice_guy80 wrote: »

No. of councillors drastically reduced and then actually give them something to do - eg vote on planning decisions and appeals in local areas like they do in England

You don't remember the planning abuses of the 1960s-1980s, do you?

Cookie_Monster

donalg1 wrote: »

Well the external auditors may have something to say about it if they are producing inaccurate financial reports. The transparency and accountability comes from having external auditors there so there is no issue with it really.

I am all for reform of CC's.

The same big 4 external auditors who time and time and time again have proven themselves to be completely incompetent perhaps?

kippy

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

The same big 4 external auditors who time and time and time again have proven themselves to be completely incompetent perhaps?

Auditing Agencies and indeed Ratings Agencies seem to have come through the past 5-6 years relatively unscathed, despite their hand in what went on in general on a global scale. (I think one or two cases may be pending against auditing agencies but not in this state)

Larbre34

This could well be the worst focussed thread on Boards.

Your'e all banging on about canteen dinners and meal subs, meanwhile Phil Hogan is bringing in the most ridiculous reform of LA membership since the foundation of the state

Dun Laoire Co Council has 28 members. Due to Big Phil's representation by population ratio reform, the Council will be increased to 40 members, which all of the existing Council, the Council executive and the political parties agree is utterly unnecessary, expensive and likely to bog down the amount of business the Council does.

So, the extra Councillors will cost €380,000 per year in pay and expenses alone, not the mention the mooted replacement of the Council chamber and offices to accommodate the new numbers which will no doubt cost a few million, in a listed building!

PS, like any state body, the CCs are subject to internal audit, Dept of the Envmt audit, an audit committee of the members, external professional auditors and the Comptroller and Auditor General. Whatever the alleged corruption of developers and councillors over the last 30 years, I dont think evidence of those payments would have been found in an audit of the published accounts, do you??

Vizzy

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

The same big 4 external auditors who time and time and time again have proven themselves to be completely incompetent perhaps?

I'm afraid that things operate differently here than in NZ.

When donalg1 refers to external auditors he means auditors that are external to the Local Authority but are employed by the Department of Environment so they are not "the same big 4 auditors who time and time and time again have proven themselves to be completely incompetent".

Would the big 4 auditors be private sector by any chance ?

murphaph

Vizzy wrote: »

Would the big 4 auditors be private sector by any chance ?

They would but as there's no compulsion by any one to use any of them, their (alleged) incompetence is their own problem.

Anyway....there's at least a billion to be saved by amalgamating the councils into larger bodies, in some cases (like roads, water and waste water) on a national basis. In other cases to regional levels.

Roads maintenance should not be carried out by expensive public sector staff. It should be contracted out completely. The public sector should just be the ones stamping any works as "satisfactory" or otherwise and paying the private company for their services.

Almost everything a council does can be tendered out to the private sector and things like planning certainly need to be at regional level (far too many discrepancies among councils as to what people can/can't build, all decided by a line drawn on a map hundreds of years ago by the English).

Then there's the really obvious back office functions, payroll/HR and IT departments can be amalgamated massively. Companies like Lidl have one HR department responsible for the staff in all stores nationwide. Payslips are posted out and there's a helpline for any queries. No need for payroll or HR offices in Portlaois and Carlow Town and Naas and Kilkenny and Wicklow Town etc. etc. Madness!!

The sheer economies of scale (imagine ALL road sign orders in the state were being made by 1 national authority, the NRA, instead of dozens of councils all getting fleeced by the suppliers). We'd have better, more consistent signage for less money.

Anyone that can't see the waste in the county council system as it is presently is not looking.

antoobrien

murphaph wrote: »

Roads maintenance should not be carried out by expensive public sector staff. It should be contracted out completely.

In fairness most of that is already tendered to the public. It's only small patch jobs like potholes that are done by councils now.

murphaph wrote: »

Then there's the really obvious back office functions, payroll/HR and IT departments can be amalgamated massively.

Already under way. IIRC the body concerned was mentioned earlier in this thread, though no idea what the progress is.

murphaph wrote: »

The sheer economies of scale (imagine ALL road sign orders in the state were being made by 1 national authority, the NRA, instead of dozens of councils all getting fleeced by the suppliers). We'd have better, more consistent signage for less money.

The NRA already have part of that - the maintenance and signage of N routes is their responsibility - but the idea of giving the NRA sole responsibility over regional and local road maintenance scares the crap out of anyone that doesn't live in Dublin. It's hard enough to get the LAs to do some roads.

Larbre34

antoobrien wrote: »

The NRA already have part of that - the maintenance and signage of N routes is their responsibility - but the idea of giving the NRA sole responsibility over regional and local road maintenance scares the crap out of anyone that doesn't live in Dublin. It's hard enough to get the LAs to do some roads.

The NRA's capital oversight function is all but dormant, and will never again need to be at the scale it was from 94-08. When it is joined up with the RPA, it will take on a role more like the Highways Agency in the UK, network management, safety and engineering review, contracting and procurement efficiencies, the RSA will look after driver related issues.

By the way, practically everything the public sector consumes has or will soon become part of national framework procurement which reduces costs and duplication massively

antoobrien

Larbre34 wrote: »

The NRA's capital oversight function is all but dormant, and will never again need to be at the scale it was from 94-08.

The road building programme will resume later this year with M17/M18 and NX/M11 projects. After that the New Ross & Enniscorthy Bypasses are planned. We won't have 4 new projects going at any one time like we did in '08, but to say that the capital oversight function is dormant is to show a serious lack of understanding of what is in planning.

Larbre34 wrote: »

When it is joined up with the RPA, it will take on a role more like the Highways Agency in the UK, network management, safety and engineering review, contracting and procurement efficiencies, the RSA will look after driver related issues.

They already do this for the N & M routes, RSA already look at driver related issues.

Larbre34 wrote: »

By the way, practically everything the public sector consumes has or will soon become part of national framework procurement which reduces costs and duplication massively

As has been pointed out earlier this is already under way.

nice_guy80

Victor wrote: »

You don't remember the planning abuses of the 1960s-1980s, do you?

that were held in-camera? and bankrolled by big business

nothing wrong with councillors deciding on small scale planning - extensions, front changes etc

Victor

murphaph wrote: »

The sheer economies of scale (imagine ALL road sign orders in the state were being made by 1 national authority, the NRA, instead of dozens of councils all getting fleeced by the suppliers). We'd have better, more consistent signage for less money.

The NRA can't manage 100,000km of road - some level of functional or geographic sub-division is needed. How would they manage winter snow/ice? they would need hundreds of staff that would be idle at other times.

New road signage tends to be put up by contractors anyway.

In some ways it can be useful for the council to employ the staff. I think it is Clonakilty town council has a street sweeper, a traffic warden and a dog/animal warden - all the same person.

murphaph

Victor wrote: »

The NRA can't manage 100,000km of road - some level of functional or geographic sub-division is needed. How would they manage winter snow/ice? they would need hundreds of staff that would be idle at other times.

That's all contracted out here anyway. Many companies that do landscaping/gardening have multi-purpose vehicles (think small unimogs) or even Suzuki Jimnys! that they change the attachments on to turn them into things for clearing snow and ice. It's all contracted out to these guys. No need to have staff hanging around all year leaning on their shovels.

skafish

donalg1 wrote: »

What canteens are subsidised across the public sector, are they all subsidised or just one, by your post it seems that they all are but I seriously doubt this is the case.

AFAIK there are a few, mainly in head offices of various agencies Departments etc. Howeve, most of the PS pay full price for our food...... as it should be

ardmacha

It is not so easy, if there are less than 4 workers at the pothole then it is dangerous
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/council-staff-who-tried-to-fix-pothole-suspended-without-pay-29153330.html

Jcarroll07

Personally I think that local authorities should be given more funding. In that more of our taxes should go to them. Let locals deal with local problems rather then rely on the government in Dublin. I'd like to see more of my taxes going towards fixing local problems rather then it being shoveled in to a black hole in Dublin where it will be of no benefit to me or the local community. It could also mean you would not have to run a massive inefficient government sector (no offence the bigger something is the more inefficient it is). Rather local authorities better equipped in handling local affairs.