Date: Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:01 pm. By: John Beardmore
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-23 07:22:41 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-22 23:14:15 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-22 18:07:56 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said:
Your view of what they are paid to do seems to be about 10 years out of date. No it isn't. I pay an ever increasing amount of money in council tax each year as does everybody else in the district. Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, so there is no reason for the supplier (i.e. the LA) to reduce it. None the less, the statutory duties of LAs have changed, and there is widespread public support for recycling in may quarters.
Not among the sentient. It might be OK if something were actually achieved in terms of the total lifetime impact of the items being thrown away. The trouble is that only partial views are taken and the true economic and environmental impacts not taken into account.
Actually, local authorities do quite a bit of life cycle analysis to try and get this stuff right.
While they don't / can't because it's hard to get the data and interpret the results, they may be better informed than you think.
This is always assuming that items genuinely are recycled as claimed and not just thrown in with the rest of the landfill. I still see instances of refuse collectors throwing what naive people have separated into their recycling bins in the back of the truck with the rest of the rubbish.
Or even landfilling green waste because they don't have the facility to process it. Bu bad examples don't mean that there is never a benefit, or that it's not beneficial in the general case.
Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, but the service they are required to give is no longer the same.
That's pure marketing nonsense.
Well no - it's umpteen changes in the law.
Convince people that they no longer need something that you don't want to provide or to achieve some PC positioning. You may be impressed with that - I'm not. It should be exposed for what it is.
As I see it, UK local authorities were happily filling up old holes in the ground with all our crap, when along came the EU, who in a bold attempt to solve a problem we didn't have, (but the likes of Greece did !), and imposed a range of waste directives which have subsequently found their way into UK law. To blame the LAs as though they we proactive agents if change is slightly missing who and what is driving this change.
I know it's huge fun to rant and demean them, but your view of what they are paid to do still seems to be about 10 years out of date.
It's not fun at all. Actually it's rather serious because large amounts of money are being wasted by these people and there are not too many mechanisms to redress it other than exposure and bringing suitable pressure to bear when needed. When one has to resort to taking issues to the chief executive of the LA because of incompetence in his departments covered by people hiding behind statutes (e.g. "I can't do this because the law doesn't empower me to do it"), and middle management want to sit out a quiet life until their retirement; one becomes of the opinion that the organisation is long overdue for some wholesale sackings.
Well you may be right that there a lot of incompetents in LAs, but that law has changed, and that does have consequences.
That isn't ranting about something - it's a statement of reality.
They are paid to provide a service. That's it. The measure is whether or not they are doing it.
I'll give you an example. My local authority used to collect bins etc. from anywhere at the front of the property. I in common with many of my neighbours have quite a long drive - mine longer than most. A couple of years ago, the LA wrote saying that they were changing the policy such that bins had to be placed at the edge of the property at the road. I didn't have a particular problem with that, other than the fact that they lied about the reason. The story was that it was for "health and safety" reasons - one of the great things to hide behind when you don't want to do something. Nobody really believed it, but several contacted the head of the department who assured us that this was the reason. We went one level up and spoke to an empty suit who wasn't interested; so following that it was letters to the chief exec. cc. to the MP and the local press. In the end, there was an admission that it was for cost reasons. When they had accepted contractor bids for the collection contract, they found that they could save money by the bin men not having to walk up drives to people's houses. That was the truth of the situation.
I would have had no problem with this apart from two things:
1) They lied about the reasons. In writing. Several times
2) They didn't ask their customers before implementing this whether they wanted collections conducted in this way.
:)
OK - now we're getting somewhere - but this is still nothing to do with your original claims about recycling.
One day, and probably not in public, get me to tell you about Brightstar in Derby.
With nonsense like this going on, I have a very hard time trusting anything they say about recycling arrangements.
You don't have to trust them. The EU directives and UK legislation are all on the web.
There may be *some* value in doing *some* recycling, but when the package and reasons are tainted with this and the PC arguments of "being seen to do the right thing", people become disillusioned with the whole thing.
Elected members have an incentive to be seen to do the right thing, but statutory compliance is perhaps the bigger driver once you get past the political speech writers.
If they want to reduce that for cost reasons, then fine, but then take that element out of the council tax, and I'll make my own arrangements with a private contractor. I think there's more to it than saving money. Such as an excuse to hire more jobsworths for the gravy train. Such as a desire, and externally imposed requirement, to deliver better environmental performance, yet all your criticism of those to whom council tax is paid suggests that you are criticising LAs. Yet the framework in which they operate, and the targets imposed on them largely come from central government and indeed the EU.
They do have the ability to implement things in different ways, but choose to lie and cheat. I wasn't singling out LAs for special treatment. The disease goes all the way to the top.
Well, you did refer to council tax and say
"Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, so there is no reason for the supplier (i.e. the LA) to reduce it".
You'll have to forgive me for assuming that you were thinking about what you were writing about.
Basically, they are not adding any value, only cost. There is no reason or excuse for them to be in the supply chain. ...that you perceive...
It's hard to find evidence to support any other view given the way that they execute what they are supposed to do.
Well - you may have reason to assume this based on your experience.
My experience is different to yours, though the politicisation of the issue is unfortunate in that it stops LA officers speaking freely, and gives them a party line to follow.
It would be far more effective for there to be a free market in collection and disposal in the same way as there is in the energy sector. People who want to pay the lowest price can buy from a supplier who offers that. Those who want to go for more of a tree hugging operator and pay more because it gives them a warm fuzzy can do that, and people who want to buy a value add service where the supplier comes, sorts and disposes of the rubbish in groups or whatever can have that. I guess the point here is that LAs are obliged to implement recycling, and the minimum specification is not something they can alter. They will almost certainly then go through some sort of tendering process to get that service delivered at the lowest price. If you want to change the way this is done, it's a matter for central government.
Absolutely. I'm directing some efforts there as well. This does need to be exposed for the scam it is.
Well - I'm not sure that its a scam in that there is no obvious beneficiary of a fraud, but where the wrong thing is being done this should be fixed, and where the right thing is done badly, that should be fixed.
Of course, what *should* happen is that instead of spinning greenwashed rubbish and expecting people to be gullible enough to fall for it, there should be massive reductions in LA employees. Well again, that's your view. It seems to be a fairly widely held one from what I read in the local press It may be "widely held", but that doesn't make it 'well informed'.
That depends on the source of the information. When the source is people in LAs who simply don't tell the truth, one has to be on one's guard to separate the truth from the lies.
Absolutely, and if it would help if more than a handful of members of the public per LA took a serious interest in this stuff.
Does your LA have an 'environmental scrutiny group' ? They might find your experience very interesting.
and from talking to councillors. Councillors can speak with forked tongues. They can join in the chorus of every rant in the hope of re-election, and still vote to carry out the most deranged of statutory duties and local policies in council chamber.
I am fully aware of that and watch voting records on important issues very carefully.
Good !
People seem to be getting heartily sick of being talked down to, snowed with PC nonsense, attempts to pull the wool over their eyes and running their lives for them. Well yes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a benefit to recycling, or that fortnightly bin collections are not the least worst way to do it given the resources available, and the statutory framework in which LAs operate.
There *may* be *some* benefit to *some* recycling. At the point that I see honestly presented data with impartial and not greenwashed figures to support it, the matter can be taken seriously.
You should probably try looking at something like the Open University T860 course then.
Until that time, it is seriously discredited.
Oh dear ! This is so crap. You may regard it as discredited for whatever reasons you have, but to state
"it is seriously discredited"
as though there was some consensus is just bollocks.
It's a shame really because the few worthwhile environmental activities are then tarred with the brush of the easily discredited. Well possibly, and I'm not saying the situation is great or adequate, but so far you've given us hot air and opinion which amount to a counter proposal that I doubt would even be legal.
That depends. So often I have heard the excuse (phrase above) that "the law doesn't empower them to do something". If one asks the supplementary question of does it prevent them; then the answer is typically silence because either they don't know or they no full well that it doesn't prescribe particular methods of delivery of services.
Yes - this is a particularly poor aspect of LA culture.
Certainly there seems to be a culture of delivering no more than the LA has to on the off chance that if they ever do, people may want it again !
As such, you can't blame LAs for implementing a legal solution, and just how many "jobsworths for the gravy train" do you think this involves, and in which specific jobs ?
I can always criticise LAs. Finding people who are competent, efficient and willing to take responsibility for their actions is becoming as rare as rocking horse shit in these organisations.
Yes.
I'll give you another example which is in the process of being exposed. The highways department of my LA has been undertaking a task to look at modifications to improve traffic flows in the district. This is a well staffed department which should, on paper, be well able and qualified to carry out the exercise. Instead of this, they have hired a firm of consultants to do some of the exercise. When questioned about it, nobody was able to give an answer as to why this could not have been achieved in house - they weren't short of staff. Again, the chief exec. wasn't even aware of this and the expenditure is substantial. He is now.
:)
It is for these types of reason that there needs to be a massive cut back in the public sector at all levels and people put into gainful employment.
I'm not convinced. I think a culture more permissive to innovation is required, but there will always be a trade off between allowing innovation and learning from it even in failure, and scrutinising / penalising anything that might cause embarrassment to the council.
It seems to me that in the present culture, LA staff are in an environment where indolence isn't necessarily penalised, but innovation is regarded as somewhere between boat rocking and disciplinary offence.
I suspect this culture is handed down from the elected members who want a quiet risk free life, in which they can worry about inter party bickering, where they can manage voters expectations, rather than dealing with the details of managing change in their locale.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore