Forum Topic

£500+ SPENDING. Council from the top down mired in waste

Council spending detail over £500 is on webpage. http://www2.ealing.gov.uk/services/business/procurement/500/As the Chief Executive seems to be in the frame at the moment, and someone presumably has brought that to his attention, I had a look at the expenditure in Quarter two 2010. In that period the Excel sheet of invoices tells us that the total expenditure against his department was £299,294.83.Out of that total on Stationery Consumables and Printing his department spent £184,664.48.Obviously I cannot say if that was a lot or a little but what I can and do ask is why on earth does his department need to use 30 different contractors to provide this service for his department.Using 30 contractors for apparently just one department when the country is broke, is just shameful. When looking at the total expenditure for all departments for Stationery Consumables and Printing for this quarter the cost was £382,066.77, but this time there was a monstrous number of 75 different suppliers. Do 3,373 Council employees really need so many suppliers?Have they not heard of bulk buying discounts? Have they not heard of the economy of scale in dealing with just a small handful of contractors? And under the heading of sharing suppliers with other West London Alliance Councils has the Chief Executive considered the further discounts which would then also be available? Once we see his department starting to lead by example, then at the same time some of the massive invoices paid by some other departments need to be looked at to see where else bulk buying would reduce the annual Council spending.I think Minister Pickles would be interested in this example of poor management. Over to you Councillor Taylor.

George Knox ● 5531d13 Comments

Local labour party is trying to challenge the local Tories to come up with alternative savings.The top 21 positions permanaent positions pay a basic of £2.1M - plus bonuses of say at least I estimate another £250K. On top of which the Council pays National Insurance and presumably contributes to their pension.The job losses at these and just below appear to be very limited indeed - and not in proportion to where other, and front line, jobs are going.Sorry but it's hard times and proportionally many more seniors should go. Just on these figures and being generous this year there are savings which could be made and spent on essential works to day centres and libraries.At the other end of the scale the Councillors allowances should have been reduced across the board, not just cut in places.So what savings are the Tories coming up with anyway? Do they need nursing as well?If Leader Bell got on his bike he could have got sharing services further down the road to make these savings.I also see that he is due shortly to have a meeting in Southall about prostitution and drug dealing, as three whole months back he was reported to have had an "eye opening" experience when he walked the streets in that area. Three whole months!! What does this man do? This is more evidence that he is dilatory in managing the problems facing this borough.

George Knox ● 5509d

Odd that the Permanent Secretary to the Department for Communities and Local Government gets paid a basic which is a mere £2500 more than our Council Chief Executive is paid for a small patch of territory known as Ealing.It would be interesting to see how formulae as used in HayMSL would come up with such a small differential.

George Knox ● 5510d

A new White Paper will set out an automatic right for private sector bodies to bid for public work.Outside providers would be offered payment-by-results contracts, which would earn them more as they increased the quality of services.There will be a new presumption – backed up by new rights for public service users and a new system of independent adjudication – that public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service. However, they are likely to be fiercely opposed by Labour and the trade unions who will interpret them as a return to the era of privatisation and a cover for Coalition spending cuts.If our local Council does not pay attention to this, then Ealing being Labour you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be punished even more by the non Labour parties as regards future government grants.So our Councilors in Cabinet can vote tomorrow for the status quo at theiir peril. Seems pretty clear that they would be more likely to keep control by demanding a new approach to reducing costs - including sharing with other Councils and other Authorities. Otherwise in the face of an independent adjudication body they can risk losing control gradually in the future - altogether. And then we really will experience the worst of privatisation.

George Knox ● 5524d

Exactly. The poor the weak and the disabled are dealt with in such a way that he can blame the coalition. albert dane is a case in point. dressed up saying that the disabled wanted these changes. of course the lies and spin are disgraceful. councillor anand as well appears to have no regard for users of albert dane. makes me ashamed to have voted labour!! whilst top people get more pay, bonuses and rewards the poor will suffer. who is in charge of that? yes the workers party. animal farm is alive and well in 2011 ealing.

Peter Chadburn ● 5524d

Your scrutiny paper. Depends on your word recently. It must be fairly horrible working in a Council where there is fear of redundancy and a lot of change putting extra pressure on the staff. So you may have to wait a bit. On the other hand when you are confronted with a statutory authority having to deliver to residents and also having response time standards to follow, it gets difficult in deciding whether to wait patiently or adopt the other tack of the person who shouts loudest gets the attention.Trouble is that you get accused of being a troublemaker and sometimes Councillors think you are attacking them because your politics are opposed to theirs – when in fact you are driven simply by what is appropriate and fair. I prefer to criticise where I think there is unfairness and that goes for young Councillor Withay(!! ;-) as much as it does for J Bell. Just at the moment I think Bell is making a seriously massive mistake because there is a very strong impression that he is trying to stitch up Ealing because he always wants to blame the Coalition for the cuts. The public now are too fed up with each party trying to stitch each other up because they are miles more concerned that every possible route is being taken to alleviate the worst of the cuts. There is just no evidence that he is doing this.It is such a pity that there are not more Labour Councillors who have the strength of integrity to stand up to him –instead of being dragged down. What they should but don’t want to is to demand a strategy change on 22 February so that services where possible are shared. Even the Overview and Scrutiny Committee this last Thursday was too chicken to introduce this. Shame that some senior officers are not opposing him but the prospect of losing say £70K per annum with nowhere to go is just too daunting.  Some of the cuts seem so bad that it could almost be said Bell is behaving like a rank Tory. I certainly see little social justice running through his actions. But worst, he is not acting or behaving in the overall public interest and so may soon be winged permanently by dearth of leadership skills. Won’t be long now before there are marches and some violence. Strikes could well follow. If Bell were seen to be making genuine efforts to rationalise suppliers extensively and also keeping junior staff by stopping bonuses until the next local election for people (down to salaries of £58K), then perhaps he could be seen to be more on the side of most Council staff and also the 100,000 CT payers. This man must stop confronting us with his cynical ideology and put the people first.Scrutiny used not to be so rare because every now and then you had good local newspapers with intelligent journalists doing much more research. The Ham and Hi is a good example. Whether the Camden New Journal is still alive which also held the council to account I don’t know. Chiswick also used to have an excellent paper – also dead and buried. Trouble is that Councils spend money on their own mouthpiece (Around Ealing), instead of on local papers which means that the tomb of the Ealing Gazette is being dug faster. It certainly has less good quality coverage than before.I think these websites are run by a person and their dog and just do not have time to scrutinise. The journalists just do not seem to attend Council meetings regularly. And so unlike the Sun being able to claim that it was the “the Sun wot dunnit” our local journalists don’t seem inclined to campaign.So local government gets away with murder – possibly more so than national government which at least has the BBC and the like on its tail. Can’t see an Ealing second chamber of peers ratifying decisions (look what happened to brave Eric at the last election). All that seems possible is for citizens to be seconded to various committees but I don’t know how that works. However I do feel that the views of Residents Associations must in decision making processes be given far more weight.

George Knox ● 5525d

An apology. Our ward forum produces small turnouts. Others produce 60-100 so I mustn't scrap the lot because mine is so poorly attended. Sorry. The problem remains. Scrutiny like yours is a rare thing. Hey and where are the opposition? And what sort of advice is Julian getting and from whom? Is this the problem ?

Arthur Breens ● 5527d

George,I am humbled by this research and analysis. A big thank you. I will comment properly but was out last night trying to persuade London regional delegates at a British Medical Association meeting to "Kill £ans£ey's Health and Social Care Bill" before it "kills" the NHS. They voted to oppose the bill I think by 200 to 10. Thank goodness for that.We've seen U turns nationally in youth sports and forestry so let's hope we see one in health. Back to your research and analysis. These are the items that need airing and discussion at Ward Forums. If the Council and councillors can't attract more than 12 people to a meeting they must hand over their proceedings to Residents Groups. They will attract more people with a debate about the questions you have raised and not lenthy discussions on the "dogs in parks theme". George perhaps you and others could sit as a second chamber to ratify and return cabinet decisions that you don't think are sensible or in the public interest. Evolution has preserved old men and women well past their reproductive age solely to pass their experience and judgement to younger generations to their benefit. You see Scrutiny doesn't work with this council either. I've written a paper on it just recently..no reply.Thank you again George

Arthur Breens ● 5527d

Arthur. The revised Medium term financial strategy page 40 dated Feb 2011 shows redundancy costs over the term of this administration as being in the order of £4.3M. In Regeneration and Housing most of the redundancy of about 0.5M seems to be projected for this year.The department which takes half the total hit is Children & Adults.This document goes before Council soon.God knows why they want an army of staff involved in spending around £15M on a new car park in Southall and three service centres instead of keeping the services in central Ealing. You would have thought that Labour would be more interested in looking after children and adults and keeping more of the staff in that department.  How can a nice to have be justified during a recession? I speculate that Bell got stitched up by Sharma for the car park while he sits in Sharma’s office doing research rather than working full time for the residents of the whole borough.Or they could be less harsh on the Voluntary grant cut backs knowing as was confirmed today by Iain Duncan Smith that there will be many more unemployed and so needing support from the third sector and indeed the Councils. And they also want to limit the charity relief enjoyed by charity shops.Against Corporate Finance there is an entry: “ Leadership Incentive Programme - Removal of the the Leadership Incentive Plan, which was introduced to help with the recruitment and retention of Directors, making part of their remuneration subject to performance achievement on both a corporate and individual basis.”Sounds interesting.Revenue expenditure for Ward forums to come down by 25%. That will keep us happy.Housing Benefit processing will get interesting. There will be an appointment based face to face system. Some applicant queues will get longer. Some assessments will be risk based. That means checking of documentation won’t always be so vigorous. Take your cheque book with you after death as burial fees going up.Take a trowel with you to ensure that holes in the road are 30mm deep instead of 25mm. Otherwise they won’t rush to repair the hole for grannies. Incredibly they think they will save £2M by inflicting this horror upon us.Gully cleansing I think I read is twice a year. Now it will be on demand. Better warn the insurance companies.As for park rangers. They envisage savings of about £5M. We only have 837 hectares (2068 acres) of parks and recreation grounds.The number of Councillors meeting will reduce so we get less governance. It’s bad enough anyway. What they should do is reduce the allowances across the board. The savings would be similar.Interestingly I have just discovered (years too late) that they will rationalise the Stationery and Printing budget referred in earlier in this thread.There is a great deal more in this document listing cut backs – some are huge. The above are just snips of information.However nowhere in this wretched wretched document did I see a regular theme developing which steps towards sharing services with other Councils.For me that is gross negligence in the face of legislation which imposes a duty to manage a Council’s finances and services prudently. It is also ideology on the part of this pathetic administration which has turned its back on Socialist values to refuse to join in with other Councils to deliver services. Leader Councillor Julian Bell should hang his head in shame.

George Knox ● 5527d

I now see that this TFM contract in June 2010 has not been working satisfactorily and that was countersigned by the leader as well as the Chief Exec. The document said Audit would follow up in December. Presumably problem sorted. Nothing yet on the website.They signed as follows in the statement of Accounts under the naughty boy section:Weaknesses were found in respect of commercial cost valuations, payments, budgetary control and performancemonitoring.

George Knox ● 5527d

Guardian today reports there are plans to share a number of key services between Westminster Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea councils and they are set to generate savings of £35m a year by 2014.I see that back in 2009 a new Total Facilities Management (TFM) contract - to drive significant savings negotiations and a high quality service throughout the corporate estate was set up April 2009 by the Ealing Business Directorate.Judging by what we see in the £500 listings I form the impression that in conjunction with a Partnership Board (Council seniors and cabinet people) this may be a toothless Council talking shop.In Councillor Bell's next Press pronouncement he needs to tell us what big initiatives he is taking to save money on contract expenditure.

George Knox ● 5528d

ArthurVery briefly as regards a hugely complex subject:-The Council has a Union and where more than 20 employees are to be made redundant then there is a duty to consult. Consultations are to include ways of avoiding redundancy situations or dismissals.Human Resources in large organisations do try to find alternative posts, and hopefully Ealing provides retraining for those with potential in other departments. HR really don’t like being responsible for high redundancy costs.However the grapevine tells me that sadly many are already or will be losing their jobs. Some doubtless will be excellent workers to which you refer.Also people are losing jobs at Ealing Hospital.

George Knox ● 5529d

George,Another gem. As I was reading I wondered about redundancies. They are sure to come. So if an excellent worker had to be made redundant from one department would he/she be offered a job in a vacant post in another department? Or would this demarcation result in both the loss of a valuable worker and an unnecessary redundancy payment?

Arthur Breens ● 5529d

Whereas Hammersmith and Fulham report just 19 suppliers for their stationery supplies, (but Ealing has at least 75).http://www.spotlightonspend.org.uk/317/London+Borough+of+Hammersmith+and+Fulham/SpendThat Council clearly has a far better approach to transparency and a far more professional way of presenting its expenditure than is the case for Ealing Council, although at least Ealing does show which department spent how much which Hammersmith should also do.It would appear on a recent Ealing report (9 February) to the Value for Money Specialist Scrutiny Panel that the Kate Graefe, Head of Strategic Procurement implies that the Ealing Departmental Directors do not confer with each other on suppliers. She says” At Ealing, procurement and contract management is devolved to individual service areas; Service directors are responsible for procurement and management of contracts within their own areas.”  If that is true or mainly true, then these Directors should change their ways as soon as possible if they are to convince Ealing residents that they are doing everything in their power to reduce costs. Ms Graefe should long ago have analysed how many Stationery Consumables and Printing suppliers there are for Ealing and then negotiated far better procurement.What is the lady doing or is she confronted with “barriers”? And Councillors Dennehy and Malcolm should have been jumping up and down at that Scrutiny meeting.I wonder what the senior stance is in the big spending departments especially Housing and Social Services and Schools. There must be huge opportunities for rationalising some suppliers in these areas. The lack of radical recommendations in that report certainly underlines that the leader Julian Bell is utterly wrong to start off by saying the cuts should be spread evenly across the board.Is this fogged up lazy attitude a legacy of many years of sloppy Labour administration?

George Knox ● 5530d