6 ms·

I think a key part of the 'poor' feeling in day to day experience comes from councils' inability to do maintenance, things like pot holes, children's play equip

I think a key part of the 'poor' feeling in day to day experience comes from councils' inability to do maintenance, things like pot holes, children's play equipment, public toilet, general upkeep on public spaces and services like libraries. In the grand scheme of things this isn't too expensive but it's been cut to the bone due to way local government funding works. This is explored in the article: > in large part because they’re mandated to write blank cheques for social care with no support or strategy from central government. Individual cases in Central Bedfordshire are now costing up to £750,000 per year, a quarter of the entire libraries and leisure budget and an amount that is rising rapidly with no apparent ceiling. As I wrote previously, “In a single year, residential care costs for children have increased by £2,000 per child… per week,” taking the average cost for a single case from ~£200,000 to ~£300,000 per child per year, again with little explanation as to where the money is going or how this is even possible. > Similarly, “school transport costs have increased by over 100% - from £9m to £20m - in just 4 years” - that’s driven by an unexplained rise in the number of SEND pupils eligible for support and it amounts to roughly the same as - deep breath - the transport, roads, parking, libraries, leisure, housing benefit, public protection and safety budgets combined. Central Bedfordshire Council is not an outlier here - collectively, council overspends on SEND services are set to hit £2bn in the next year, risking further bankruptcies. Again this is not about pitting children against libraries, but asking if we seriously believe we’re addressing either of these things well? Local councils have to pay the very large bills for social care and supporting SEND children but have basically little control over how it's spent or levers to help control the bills. Fixing this so councils can once again spend relative minor amounts of money improving the public realm could go a long way to improving day to day experience. Definitely some other large structural problems (see the huge costs of HS2) but it would provide a noticeable improvement in people's lives and potentially isn't too hard for a government willing to make some bold changes around taxation, local government funding and providing proper national strategy and funding on social care.

pjc50 2y ago
The unfunded mandate system for councils is extremely stupid. Local democracy has long been bad in the UK, but mandating policy centrally and then letting that destroy any connection between local taxation and local budgeting is even worse.
- gchadwick 2y ago
  It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues). Of course the actual place continues to exist so the local authority will continue to exist in another form, this time with fewer major capital assets and they're paying rents to the people who now own them instead. As pointed out in the article you could see this happen when something entirely out of the authorities control (e.g. spending on SEND children due to the massive increase in eligible children in Central Bedfordshire's case) causes it too.
  - Muromec 2y ago
    >It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues). Which may be perceived as a actual goal of this mandate if you have enough of tinfoil in your hat.
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      Given that the UK is promoting corporate-owned no-democracy "enterprise zones" it's not tinfoil hat at all. It's the standard neoliberal playbook - defund and cripple public services, complain they're not working, then insist the only solution is for-profit privatisation because it's "more efficient". The result is that all utilities and much of the infrastructure are being run down for profit, and have to be regularly bailed out by central government at vast expense. Which is fine, because this creates a transfer of wealth from tax payers to the already wealthy. The aristocracy literally cannot imagine a country which isn't run for their personal benefit. And the consequence is that many of the areas in the UK are now poorer than anywhere in Europe, or even the US deep south.
      - sarchertech 2y ago
varispeed 2y ago
> "In a single year, residential care costs for children have increased by £2,000 per child… per week" and child is being looked after by barely qualified minimum wage worker (often actually paid below minimum wage if you add unpaid overtime and foreign workers not knowing the laws), meanwhile owners of care services live opulent lifestyles in places like Dubai. UK services market is not free, which is part of the problem.
HPsquared 2y ago
Somehow, this isn't called corruption.
- pjc50 2y ago
  It would be nice to have someone to point the finger at; SERCO? What evidence do we have?
varispeed 2y ago
> general upkeep on public spaces and services like libraries This is also a cultural issue. In large cities, people often don't feel as being part of the community and they don't take pride in their surroundings. They put rubbish everywhere, vandalise. There is little done to change that. They see neighbour has nice flowers in the garden? Instead of admiring, they will cut them off.
- pastage 2y ago
  In the cities I have been to this is not my experience, at least in South America and the Nordics. The wear and tear of lots of people means you need to design things differently in well visisted areas, but there a square meter sees more people in a day than you get in a year in small villages.
- tiahura 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - sofixa 2y ago
    That's a dumb racist dogwhistle, Marrakesh and Kandy are very homogenous yet quite filthy. The common denominator is education and poverty, not skin colour or religion or whatever you imagine it to be.
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      Conversely New Zealand cities ime are extremely clean (kids running around barefoot?) despite having sizable minority populations.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      If you’re trying to make a point against racism, don’t bring up Morocco. It’s a “no go” zone for anyone who pays attention.
      - sofixa 2y ago
prawn 2y ago
For anyone else unaware: SEND = "Special educational needs and disabilities"
- andybak 2y ago
  Thank you. I'm in the UK and I've never heard this before.
RobinL 2y ago
To make matters worse, there's also litte evidence that the increases in spending on SEND provision have led to better outcomes. I can't help feeling like this is a vicious cycle - the lack of community facilities is causing greater isolation, causing a rise in health needs and so on.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  Sounds like whoever receives the SEND money has a lot of political power.
anon291 2y ago
For some reason Britain's migrant population is disproportionately reliant on government services. This is a common talking point in American politics, but doesn't seem a common one in English politics, but in England the data is pretty incontrivertible, whereas in America it's a bit harder to ascertain. This is because America's alleged welfare queens are undocumented, whereas Britain's are there legally and the government actually has very good data on which groups are a net boon and which are a net draw on the economy. I'm not a Brit and I could care less at the end of the day, but it does seem kind of bonkers to me to be importing people while your own country suffers.
- deanc 2y ago
  It is absolutely untrue that this isn’t a talking point. It’s all the far right and tabloid newspapers talk about.
  - anon291 2y ago
    Fair enough. I don't see it on BBC or any of the british sources I read, and you'd think it'd be a pretty neutral topic, since the data is published by the central govt.
    - deanc 2y ago
      Well the BBC mostly are reporting and have to be very careful what they say due to neutrality laws governing them. However, tune in to Question Time and you will hear these voices.
    - nvarsj 2y ago
      It’s probably the main reason Tories got obliterated the last election. After it came out we had 1m net immigration (up from prior 500k which had already 2x’d the normal 250k net).
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    This is part of the problem. The venues that mention this are labeled "far right". The other ones try to ignore the issue because they want to pretend it isn't happening. But it shouldn't be a "far right" discussion. Everyone should be in on it because the consequences are so significant.
mike_hearn 2y ago
There's bad policy in other areas. Councils are going bankrupt due to court cases and equity laws that say any gender pay gap is the result of discrimination. Therefore they were found guilty because they are paying e.g. bin men or sewage workers more than mostly female jobs like nurses and librarians. They obviously have to do this because those jobs are dangerous and unpleasant so if you paid the same as other jobs nobody would want to do them. But the courts disagreed and now the councils have to pay huge sums out in equal pay lawsuits that they can't afford. All this is a direct result of bad, ideological law making combined with a biased judiciary that interprets it in bad, ideological ways. Unfortunately it's the ideology Labour is in thrall too and they're in power for several years at minimum and maybe much longer if the right stays split, so the state of Britain's infrastructure will continue to sharply decline.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > Councils are going bankrupt due to court cases and equity laws that say any gender pay gap is the result of discrimination. Where can I read about this?
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    This summary is OK: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_d7ff3a8f-9cf7-4ff3-837a-0bbb71aee66e https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_d7ff3a8f-9cf7-4ff3-837a-0bbb... Although Grok thinks the problem lies in "deep rooted inequalities", whereas I'd say it's pretty normal for jobs like bin men to be paid more than cleaners. It's one of the most dangerous jobs you can do, due to the frequency with which they get hit by cars.
    - pseudalopex 2y ago
      Grok does not think. The summary did not support your claim court cases and equity laws said any gender pay gap was the result of discrimination. It said the plaintiffs argued successfully they were paid less for work of equal value. It was not clear cleaning and refuse collection were determined equal value. The summary mentioned also contract clauses. It sounds like the real issue is you disagree with the value of work calculated for some jobs.

pjc50 2y ago

The unfunded mandate system for councils is extremely stupid. Local democracy has long been bad in the UK, but mandating policy centrally and then letting that destroy any connection between local taxation and local budgeting is even worse.

gchadwick 2y ago
It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues). Of course the actual place continues to exist so the local authority will continue to exist in another form, this time with fewer major capital assets and they're paying rents to the people who now own them instead. As pointed out in the article you could see this happen when something entirely out of the authorities control (e.g. spending on SEND children due to the massive increase in eligible children in Central Bedfordshire's case) causes it too.
- Muromec 2y ago
  >It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues). Which may be perceived as a actual goal of this mandate if you have enough of tinfoil in your hat.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    Given that the UK is promoting corporate-owned no-democracy "enterprise zones" it's not tinfoil hat at all. It's the standard neoliberal playbook - defund and cripple public services, complain they're not working, then insist the only solution is for-profit privatisation because it's "more efficient". The result is that all utilities and much of the infrastructure are being run down for profit, and have to be regularly bailed out by central government at vast expense. Which is fine, because this creates a transfer of wealth from tax payers to the already wealthy. The aristocracy literally cannot imagine a country which isn't run for their personal benefit. And the consequence is that many of the areas in the UK are now poorer than anywhere in Europe, or even the US deep south.
    - sarchertech 2y ago

varispeed 2y ago

> "In a single year, residential care costs for children have increased by £2,000 per child… per week" and child is being looked after by barely qualified minimum wage worker (often actually paid below minimum wage if you add unpaid overtime and foreign workers not knowing the laws), meanwhile owners of care services live opulent lifestyles in places like Dubai. UK services market is not free, which is part of the problem.

HPsquared 2y ago

Somehow, this isn't called corruption.

pjc50 2y ago
It would be nice to have someone to point the finger at; SERCO? What evidence do we have?

varispeed 2y ago

> general upkeep on public spaces and services like libraries This is also a cultural issue. In large cities, people often don't feel as being part of the community and they don't take pride in their surroundings. They put rubbish everywhere, vandalise. There is little done to change that. They see neighbour has nice flowers in the garden? Instead of admiring, they will cut them off.

pastage 2y ago
In the cities I have been to this is not my experience, at least in South America and the Nordics. The wear and tear of lots of people means you need to design things differently in well visisted areas, but there a square meter sees more people in a day than you get in a year in small villages.
tiahura 2y ago
[flagged]
- sofixa 2y ago
  That's a dumb racist dogwhistle, Marrakesh and Kandy are very homogenous yet quite filthy. The common denominator is education and poverty, not skin colour or religion or whatever you imagine it to be.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    Conversely New Zealand cities ime are extremely clean (kids running around barefoot?) despite having sizable minority populations.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    If you’re trying to make a point against racism, don’t bring up Morocco. It’s a “no go” zone for anyone who pays attention.
    - sofixa 2y ago

prawn 2y ago

For anyone else unaware: SEND = "Special educational needs and disabilities"

andybak 2y ago
Thank you. I'm in the UK and I've never heard this before.

RobinL 2y ago

To make matters worse, there's also litte evidence that the increases in spending on SEND provision have led to better outcomes. I can't help feeling like this is a vicious cycle - the lack of community facilities is causing greater isolation, causing a rise in health needs and so on.

BurningFrog 2y ago
Sounds like whoever receives the SEND money has a lot of political power.

anon291 2y ago

For some reason Britain's migrant population is disproportionately reliant on government services. This is a common talking point in American politics, but doesn't seem a common one in English politics, but in England the data is pretty incontrivertible, whereas in America it's a bit harder to ascertain. This is because America's alleged welfare queens are undocumented, whereas Britain's are there legally and the government actually has very good data on which groups are a net boon and which are a net draw on the economy. I'm not a Brit and I could care less at the end of the day, but it does seem kind of bonkers to me to be importing people while your own country suffers.

deanc 2y ago
It is absolutely untrue that this isn’t a talking point. It’s all the far right and tabloid newspapers talk about.
- anon291 2y ago
  Fair enough. I don't see it on BBC or any of the british sources I read, and you'd think it'd be a pretty neutral topic, since the data is published by the central govt.
  - deanc 2y ago
    Well the BBC mostly are reporting and have to be very careful what they say due to neutrality laws governing them. However, tune in to Question Time and you will hear these voices.
  - nvarsj 2y ago
    It’s probably the main reason Tories got obliterated the last election. After it came out we had 1m net immigration (up from prior 500k which had already 2x’d the normal 250k net).
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  This is part of the problem. The venues that mention this are labeled "far right". The other ones try to ignore the issue because they want to pretend it isn't happening. But it shouldn't be a "far right" discussion. Everyone should be in on it because the consequences are so significant.

mike_hearn 2y ago

There's bad policy in other areas. Councils are going bankrupt due to court cases and equity laws that say any gender pay gap is the result of discrimination. Therefore they were found guilty because they are paying e.g. bin men or sewage workers more than mostly female jobs like nurses and librarians. They obviously have to do this because those jobs are dangerous and unpleasant so if you paid the same as other jobs nobody would want to do them. But the courts disagreed and now the councils have to pay huge sums out in equal pay lawsuits that they can't afford. All this is a direct result of bad, ideological law making combined with a biased judiciary that interprets it in bad, ideological ways. Unfortunately it's the ideology Labour is in thrall too and they're in power for several years at minimum and maybe much longer if the right stays split, so the state of Britain's infrastructure will continue to sharply decline.

pseudalopex 2y ago
> Councils are going bankrupt due to court cases and equity laws that say any gender pay gap is the result of discrimination. Where can I read about this?
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  This summary is OK: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_d7ff3a8f-9cf7-4ff3-837a-0bbb71aee66e https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_d7ff3a8f-9cf7-4ff3-837a-0bbb... Although Grok thinks the problem lies in "deep rooted inequalities", whereas I'd say it's pretty normal for jobs like bin men to be paid more than cleaners. It's one of the most dangerous jobs you can do, due to the frequency with which they get hit by cars.
  - pseudalopex 2y ago
    Grok does not think. The summary did not support your claim court cases and equity laws said any gender pay gap was the result of discrimination. It said the plaintiffs argued successfully they were paid less for work of equal value. It was not clear cleaning and refuse collection were determined equal value. The summary mentioned also contract clauses. It sounds like the real issue is you disagree with the value of work calculated for some jobs.