Forum Topic

Ways the council could save money: Suggestion 1

In response to LBEs insane decision to reduce the number of rangers it employs, I propose we give some serious consideration as to alternative ways the council might be able to save money.Suggestion 1 - Reduce the street lighting Billturn off the street lights after midnight, they really don't need to be on in the wee hours. By all means, ensure they are back on again by say 6am in the winter months.

Nina Thornhill ● 5622d34 Comments

Ha!  At last somebody else with similar experiences of the Greenford tip mob as me.I typically find them most unhelpful - yes, the "bods" included - who seem to like nothing better than to take time off from what must, judging by observation, be their main paid activity of stopping the shovels from falling over by leaning on them all day long to take random spiteful verbal jabs at local council taxpayers lawfully disposing of rubbish.Thanks heavens that there does at least seem to have been a change of guard on the weighbridge in recent times (last couple of years?) and the really truly miserable old g*t that used to mostly man it has now gone.

Tony Colliver ● 5608d

Legal disposal of waste is expensive everywhere.  The cost of landfill is set by government to go up each year.You can arrange for a large bag for the collection of your waste eg a hippobag which is smaller than a skip.DIY means Do-It-Yourself and I think a lot of what is disposed of is not done by the householder themself for themself but is done for someone else for a fee and is therefore business waste and I am sure that that is what the Councils (yes Councils - all of them) are trying to differentiate between.  Recycling of domestic waste is much better than that for the building industry. Maybe other Councils are ahead of ours in this respect so why not find out and give feedback to our own?  That might be a constructive way forward.  Everybody should be looking to reduce their waste by turning it into a resource.  Freecycle is a good way of doing this.

Philippa Bond ● 5611d

Odd that no none is interested about duplication or the hours of work and long holidays which Council workers enjoy.There's probably a lot of money here where savinngs can be made.

George Knox ● 5614d

I think that you will find that the Greenford site will try and charge for stuff that has come out of my DIY. My friends have had some bad experiences there: when they are not busy they will tend to "pick" on people and get nasty with them. I would suggest that you were lucky. Bollo Lane is not meant to take pavers and bricks; it depends on who is on duty. If there is a more senior person from the contractor there they will get nasty, if it is one of the "bods" who just do stuff then they can be very helpful. I personally have been lectured that the rubble skip at Greenford is a discretionary convenience that the contractors do not have to accept DIY rubble and that they charge for it and that normally you would have to go over the weightbridge. The refusal disposal service is a typical Ealing council lash-up I am afraid to say.

Eugene Wroblewsi ● 5614d

I know about the skip cost, but which local recycle area charges for domestic rubbish disposal.  I use the one on Stirling Road off Bollo Lane and they take fairly much everything that is domestic and not commercial.  They don't take batteries which has to do with the Council not issuing the license.  They also don't take paint cans that still have paint in them. They have to go to Greenford which also didn's charge the times I have gone there with bricks and pavers.

Charles Campbell ● 5614d

This could have something to do with the cost of waste disposal. With a skip costing upwards of £350 pounds and the rising cost of rubbish disposal at the local dump is it any surprise that people are looking ar every way possible to get rid of their rubbish? I am not saying that this is right, I am just pointing out that if we want Ealing to prosper then the services that are in place must be priced accordingly. We are much more expensive than most other boroughs in London and the local dumps have a kind of "thought police" that sensor what the domestic user is allowed to throw away. It is all pretty crazy, and hence it is no surprise that Ealing is such a mess: it is not easy to get rid of refuse and we lack basic failities such as public toilets: what sort of message is this sending out?

Eugene Wroblewsi ● 5614d

Fly-tipping costs the Councils thousands of pounds yet there are still people who prefer not to question whether there rubbish is being collected by a registered waste carrier and being disposed of legally.When it cost our Council thousands all of us Council Tax payers end up footing the bill.

Philippa Bond ● 5615d

The police look at fly tipping as a civil action and lower on the priority scale than mugging etc.... so you completely got the wrong end of the stick. no doubt if the police saw fly tipping in action they would take action. agreed that the police do not seem that effective in some areas. If we paid for and had the New York levels of policing then all these so called minor infringements would be dealt with.

Peter Chadburn ● 5617d

The police SHOULD NOT BE TO BUSY TO DEAL WITH THIS. Might I suggest that on the basis of your logic the council should set up a department of social help that provides social work support for those people that are entitled to care and help from Ealing Council but the Ealing Council Social Services department is unable to help because it is just "too busy" or does not have the resources to help.The answer is to fix what is broken (Ealing's less-then-effective police force) rather then creating new pseudo-law-enforcement departments within the council such as envirocrime, dog control, etc.

Eugene Wroblewsi ● 5618d

as for fly tipping.the police are too busy to deal with that!!! contracting out costs more as you then need people to manage the contracting out!! it breeds bean counters.

Peter Chadburn ● 5618d

Cutting the Park Rangers is an excellent start. I would suggest further pruning in areas such as:*Envirocrime Officers: Fly-tipping could be handled by the police and it would probably cost less than the salary of one of these pseudo-police to clean up Ealing's fly-tips. There are about a dozen of them in Ealing and they cost a lot.*Council Pest Control: As this is a service that end-users have to pay for, the Council could contract this out to someone like Rent-o-kill while removing the cost of half-a-dozen full-time positions along with the management infrastructure above them (another three people).

Eugene Wroblewsi ● 5618d

It all depends on which market is the highest at the time and you can't chop and change what you are recycling at the drop of a hat.Food waste just has to be one of the most worthwhile ones - it goes to make electricity and compost, saves people money as they realise what they are actually wasting and how they could plan their buying and meals to save both money and waste - AND stops the disgusting mess on the pavements.Do we really want even more packaging to promote products and make shelf stacking easy only for the Councils (ie Council Tax payers) to have to pick up the bills for the removal and disposal of it all?  The less there is the easier it is to dispose of however you do it.  It has been a free-for-all for the packaging industry with no incentive for them to create easier and better packaging solutions.  We've been paying-it-all.If we recycled more aluminium cans perhaps there would be less of a demand to deprive these people of their land:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/vedanta-resources-the-worlds-most-hated-company-2037977.html

Philippa Bond ● 5618d

I do appreciate that. It is just a question which I'm sure will be raised (at least short term)

Penny Crocker ● 5618d

It isn't just monetary cost it is the cost to the planet of all those resources going up in smoke or creating methane in landfill.

Philippa Bond ● 5618d

Innocent question - I am not anti-recycling. How would national costs compare if we re-cycled nothing - thereby saving all the costs of the re-cycling schemes? Does it matter if costs are national/local? We end up paying either way.

Penny Crocker ● 5618d

In the long run encouraging someone to recycle and reduce their food waste saves both them AND the Council money.The cost of landfill keeps on going up and you could say that it is people who don't make the most of the recycling services the Council provides who are costing US ALL money.The last figure I saw for Hammersmith & Fulham's landfill bill was £4m - so why wouldn't Ealing's be something comparable?  Encourage people to reduce their waste particularly food waste and the Council could make a saving and target the money they have on essential services.I think you will find that initiatives like the Road Shows are often funded by special grants from central government which have to be applied for.  It is very important that Councils have someone who can look out for these.  They are like special offers in the shops only they are not for everyone - you have to be a successful applicant.Better still for increasing participation are the door to door recycling surveys where people can ask questions and find out how to order bins and boxes etc but that would have to be another 'special offer' applied for AND won.Being stupidly British in walking over neighbours' waste in silence when we could talk to them and offer to help them find a better solution eg order a bin/tell them where to order one from is also costing us all. 

Philippa Bond ● 5618d

They all cost money. Can you give me £5 out of your wallet ? No - I thought not.But the same level of care appears lacking from public funds...Oh well says it all. We really are a society that has forgotten the value of keeping within our means.

Niall Connolly ● 5619d

Freebies?  You're worried about a few freebies?

Philippa Bond ● 5619d

Avoid more profligacy - apparently some freebies to be given away at recycling roadshow tomorrow at council offices. Probably low value but the saying "look after the pennies..." comes to mind.Someones paying for all this - are we ?

Niall Connolly ● 5619d

Now here's comment from someone who arouses passions on this website and elsewhere, but in this case, on the face of it I am inclined to agree with the approach once you disentangle it from the politics and the personality issues. Not easy when he suggests chopping off a leg to achieve savings, which without proper explanation does not ostensiblly seem too realistic. However he may wish to clarify - with some new detail - what he is paddling on about.It's about the costs of duplication, its about lack of shared services, it's about hours that Council staff work, it's about localism, a silly word which I don't understand, but it's akin to more democracy for the Residents and it's about the fear of loss of power and jobs at the centre leading to the sacrificial loss of frontline jobs such as park rangers - or PCSOs as Councillor Stacey recently suggests in a rather scaremongering comment on Ealing Today. What I don't know because it is not explained is the scale on which these negative criticisms happen or do not happen. What I do not know, because it not explained, is the achievable cost savings (all of them) which are envisaged by the suggestions. What I do not know, because it is not explained is how quickly the approach could be implemented. What I do not know because it has not been explained, is how much less such an approach would be felt by the Residents of Ealing, than the approach being promulgated by the current administration.However these views have been made by a very active ex Cabinet Member - and whatever you think of him, it would be very foolish to think he knows naff all about his subject. To find out what I am talking about read the comments inhttp://philtaylor.org.uk/?p=4019#respondWhat does not seem to be mentioned in the papers to be decided by Cabinet on 30 November is what risk assessments have been undertaken. The Council should publish these.If the Labour Councillors cannot sell their package to the electorate and if they cannot convince us that they have also taken a radical approach to management structures and driven out duplication - but just lamely cut frontline staff and services, then some Labour Councillors will be on a hiding to nothing at the next election.

George Knox ● 5619d

How about a tiered pay cut for higher earners. those over £40K say 2%. those over  £60K 3% etc... up to say 20% for the highest earners on the basis that the lower earners will be kept in jobs. that means no cuts in parks and other things.

Peter Chadburn ● 5619d

Make sure that we have looked at the latest list of what we can recycle, have all the bins necessary, and follow the instructions. Check out how to REDUCE the amount of waste we are making.Help out neighbours who need the information and can't access it easily and let the Council know when new people move in and obviously need information sent to them etc. Landlords should be providing this information to new tenants together with the bins. At this time of year a lot of new students will have moved in.Perhaps this would then allow the Council to put more money towards more essential services.

Philippa Bond ● 5619d

Take more note of those lazy people who can't be bothered to do ANY recycling and whose rubbish we have to walk through on the pavement on dustbin day. (They are generally the ones not using the food collection bins.)  We have a good service in LBE.LBH&F reckon that landfilling waste costs £4m a year and that this could be halved. I haven't searched for Ealing's costs. April 1 2008-March 31 2009 Municipal Waste Rates from defraEaling:  Recycling 22.69% Composting 12.37% Total 35.06%H&F:    Recycling 26.09% Composting 1.75%  Total 27.84% Hounslow:Recycling 17.82% Composting 5.70%  Total 23.52% Composting includes food and green waste.Hammersmith & Fulham don't have kerbside food collection.Hounslow have had one for about a year Hounslow started a small electrical waste kerbside collection this summer.Hammersmith & Fulham have been having a month long small electrical collection in Fulham Library.

Philippa Bond ● 5619d

Regime change doesn't mean that much when we all live in an Officer led Council.

Eric Alan Leach ● 5621d

2. Stop paying for massive signs on the front of the council offices telling us what a wonderful place ealing is and how well the council is doing. Several months since the change in regime and still going on!

Niall Connolly ● 5622d

I agree that organisations like NEF, the Green movement and the Transition movement are a breath of fresh air.But try and have a sensible conversation with Ealing Councillors and senior Officers about NEF, SROI and Transition topics and you'll find precious few who won't just glaze over.'Corporate social responsibility'? The Government just announced that McDonalds have been appointed to advise the Government on food issues. Next, no doubt, we'll hear that Government control of agriculture has been outsourced to Monsanto!Bottom up grass roots movements are all well and good. However if they are not matched by top down initiatives sooner or later they will become marginalised; wither and die; or turn into sometimes violent confrontational activist mobs.

Eric Alan Leach ● 5622d

I digress from the main subject for a moment, as it was only last night a friend of mine reminded me how the world, indeed the country is not run by common sense, it's run by economics. However all is not doom and gloom in the ways of the world... with more than mere rumbles of discontent concerning the state of our current economic system, the birthing of new solutions is well and truly underway. No longer are people waiting for the government to act, people are taking action, new shoots are being planted in the grassroots..This new way of thinking has already gone beyond the tipping point of 'IF only'. In the UK, social enterprises are springing up all over the place, 'corporate social responsibility' is the new buzzword and companies are falling over themselves trying to sell us their environmental and social benefits. The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is spearheading new economic thinking, putting people and the planet first.Economists stuck in the old way of thinking only see financial value.  New thinking expands this view considering the wider social and environmental value as well. Who would have thought a subsidy reliant rural bus service in Scotland had any economic value whatsoever.... after undergoing SROI (Social Return On INvestment bought to the UK by NEF) analysis, T2e operating in the rural Highlands established a broader social economic value, with a combined benefit to individual user and the state of about £9000 per year. With this new wave of thinking and acting, contracts such as the example given will simply cease to exist, as their true value (or lack thereof) will be seen for what it truly represents, long before pen is put to paper!

Nina Thornhill ● 5622d

Yes it would cost more to adjust the contract than all the money saved in the electric bill no doubt. Outsource/PFI contractors do not take on the risks involved as their lawyers make sure that variances in the contracts are punishable by heavy penalties. invented by two brain willets, loved by brown and now favoured by lansley. It would make sense if Paul Daniels was chancellor but these hair brained ideas come from so called educated economists.....

Peter Chadburn ● 5622d

Home Office research tells us that people feel safer with street lights on. There is no compelling evidence that there is more crime in poorly lit or unlit streets.The Ealing Street Lighting PFI (signed in 2005) is now owned by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE). SSE runs Ealing's street lighting. SSE is also the major supplier of electricity in Ealing. If street lighting is turned off in the middle of the night SSE might well get paid less for supplying energy. This could make SSE unhappy.How Ealing Council could have allowed the same company to run the lighting and supply the energy is one of life's great inponderables.

Eric Alan Leach ● 5622d

You're right, it could be more a perception of safety and security but I don't think the council would take such a risk. Appreciate the difficulty facing us all and it is very hard to see where they could make seamless cuts which go deep enough.

Penny Crocker ● 5622d

I understand your concerns over safety, and the fact that attacks happen when its dark in well lit streets. I was once 'ambushed' by a flasher down by Strand on the Green around 10pm. In these and many other cases I'm sure, well lit streets do nothing to deter would be assailants.In which case, is it more a case that street lights should be left on all night because they make us feel safe?We are living in tough times facing tough decisions, sacrifices will have to be made somewhere, are we happy to stand by and watch people loose their jobs so we can feel safe?  These seem to be the sorts of questions the council is having to face right now.

Nina Thornhill ● 5622d

But, they could switch off all the Christmas lights - that wouldn't hurt anyone

Penny Crocker ● 5622d

I would be very unhappy about that as many young people come home after midnight. My daughter was attacked outside our house at 21.00 but I would still feel very unhappy about switching off the lights ! We used to live in suburban Cambridge where they did switch off the streetlamps and I hated it and felt very unsafe indeed.

Penny Crocker ● 5622d

As the Street Lamps are under a PFI contract it would probably cost more to change the contract. savings could be made

Peter Chadburn ● 5622d