THE BIG QUESTION NEEDS A BIG ANSWER

If Tameside council wants to save money, then the big question that many constituents have been asking; and still await the big answer, is why do we need 3 councillors in each ward? That’s 3 lots of allowances, expense claims, and possibly 3 lots of free pensions to pay!

 Ask a Tameside councillor to justify their existence and invariably they’ll tell you they are overworked looking after the welfare of their constituents, but with a population of approx 215.000, that equates to approximately 3772 citizens per councillor. Contrast that with London’s 25 councillors who administer the affairs of over 7.6million citizens (that’s 304,000 per councillor) or New York with a population of 8.4million, they only have 51 councillors, which averages 165,000 each.

Based on those figure, we could easily trim each ward down to two councillors and save maybe £200,000 - per year, every year!

The purpose of a councillor is to represent the people of a local ward in their council. They are elected to bring their expertise and experience to address the specific needs of their local community. These duties are meant to be separate from their private and professional lives outside the council and their position is voluntary. Any payments they receive are not intended to represent earnings but instead to compensate them for incidental expenses incurred in fulfilling their duties in local government such as the use of their phones, transportation and office expenses.

That being the case, several of Tameside's councillors must be putting in quite a lot of mileage and been constantly on the phone’ to rack up £35.000 every year  in expenses! That’s a fiver short of £100 per day, 365 days a year!

Poor things, they must must be worn out!

Then we have council leaders calling for us to engage in ‘The Big Conversation’ but as far as I understand, communication is a two-way street, therefore without two way dialogue, there can no ‘Big Conversation’ and in fact there has been little or no dialog or democracy in our council since the cabinet system was introduced.

If you study it, you can immediately see how it is a benefit to the officials as a type of empowerment, but to the detriment of the electorate; it’s also a disadvantage to many of the council’s own councillors who would like to say more if they were given the chance.

Under the cabinet system; a system that was introduced by the last council leader; reminiscent of Yoda; the wise one, pontificating to his underlings, which in reality, renders those who are not in the cabinet with no real power to change, or influence what the select few have decided, or do - regardless of their roles on scrutiny committees, special panels or other groups.

In fact; as an example of just how undemocratic and unnecessarily costly this system is; cannot be better illustrated than the fact that when a certain councillor asked for information regarding a council decision, it is alleged that they were told to submit a FOI request. (The cost of an average FOI request is approx £293.00 each)

In essence, for those councillors who are not active within the inner-cabinet, their roll is almost perfunctory, never the less; they are still roles that attract additional, unwarranted, and unnecessary ‘Special Responsibility Allowances!’ So, apart from the chosen 'few', most of the remaining councillors may as well go home and put their feet up until the next election, when they can be wheeled out again to bolster Labours standing.

Governing by this system; and judging by a number of recent decisions, they might as well hand the entire running of Tameside council over to their friends at Tesco's. We would at least then have the benefit of a superbly run organisation doing what the council was really intended to do – i.e. sweep the streets, mend the potholes, improve the standard of our schools, empty the bins on the day they say they’re going to empty them and look after council tax payers by running all the social services properly. Above all, we need openness and honesty.

You might think this is typical of Tameside, but it’s happening in councils up and down the country. They too have to make tough decisions- should they cut all the daft jobs- the outreach units, diversity officers and traveller liaison groups? Should they get rid of all the staff on long term 'sick' as well as all the spare 'managers', 'facilitators' and 'team leaders'? Or should they spend less on expensive and pointless 'training', new slogans and rebranding consultants?

No, no, no. Don't be silly! It's much easier to stop filling in the potholes, close the towns libraries and shut down all the swimming pools.

And if we object, we have to put up with clipped remarks from a narrow-minded collection of career councillors who saddle us with ever increasing burdens of red tape and bureaucracy; policy and layers and layers of management, hidden behind hyperbole, semantics and half-baked schemes.

Increasingly, and to our detriment, these members of the inner sanctum now seem compelled to get involved in projects that are far beyond their capabilities, which merely allow senior officers to earn lots of money, whilst producing nothing. An example of this style of management is best illustrated by the news regarding the loss of M&S from Ashton town centre. That, together with the continuous building of out of town retail outlets and giant supermarkets, has demonstrated how to kill our high streets, town centres and markets. All too often, presumably through a total lack of market intelligence, the last thing they encourage is 'extra business' and street vitality, which is after all what promotes the heavy foot fall which brings in the wealth; which in turn enables more taxes to be collected, and hopefully, spent wisely.

Let’s be honest; as recent readers letters show, they can’t even operate a comprehensive parking plan for the disabled, or dream up a colour coded refuse collection scheme that operate equally throughout the borough!

They say they are listening, but this council sees criticism as being confrontational. So rather than embrace, accept or act on it, they will do everything in their power to make critics seem irrational and their suggestions or analysis, made to appear absurd. This behaviour is typical of quasi-politicians who have come to imitate their Westminster counterparts by saying one thing whilst practicing another.

 As I mentioned, the council has spent thousands on launching and operating their ‘Big Conversation’ yet should one try to contact their local councillor with a question or complaint; they simply ignore your letters! They have become as popular with the public as is our bankers!

I’m beginning to think that political parties should be banned from Local Government. Constituents should vote for the person who they reckon will look after their interests - not be faced with a system where party whips can enforce a vote because it is either Labour/Tory/Lib Dem policy.