Police knocking criminals off mopeds

Sure Start - RIP

It's interesting that a post about a police tactic has resulted in a discussion about funding for public services. It does amaze me that there are still people who believe that the cuts to services were ever necessary and fail to recognise that such things have always been part of Conservative beliefs.
Cutting services does not impact on the rich as much as it does on other levels of society. Whilst the very poor and others disaffected turn to crime and/or drugs and/or drink targeting primarily the slightly better off middle classes, the very rich continue to enjoy a protected and sheltered life.
I understand why the young people involved in moped crime are doing it. I believe that proper funding and services would help to stop some crime (remember Sure Start?). I think if there were enough police on the streets nudging wouldn't be necessary. Sadly in the present economic climate it is.

And I was trying to say tbat it’s the organisations that bring in outside expertise - sorry for not being clear.

I corrected it to outside expertise.

" Outside parties " in other words agencies yet another expense ? Why not do the job themselves if they're so high up in their said positions as consultants ?

What's your answer if what they're supposed to be doing,falls flat ? The in-fighting in this particular council this last couple of years has seen 3 seniors leave top jobs. You've only to look at the state of some of their properties to guess where the money is going.The public aren't stupid !

Why isn't more money going to the emergency services ?
They must have felt heartily sick when they read about this lot.

Expertise obvs

Consultants have a role in organisation both public and private if they are properly used and the projects on which they are engaged to work are well set up. They bring in outside exparties not available within the organisation, a fresh eye and experience of other ways of working but the paying organisation doesn’t have to ‘employ’ them and just contracts for x amount of days. No employer responsibilities of NI, pensions, holidays, sick pay. I’ve worked with consultants of all types of usefulness ( as I have with employees) and to condemn them all out of hand is utter nonsense. I’ve seen parts of organisations transformed by good consultants in a way that would never have happened from within as what often needs challenging is the culture and tbat is quite a challenge if attempted from within.

This council also props-up other councils around the country too. Why ? I don't know because it can't even attend to its own area. " They've never got the money ". I wonder what would happen if I didn't pay my council tax because " I didn't have it ?"

Same as a manager Fennel, but with a costly high-falutin' title.
What do they do ? They earn £900 a day in children's management. We probably have the highest rate of children in care in the country-----so that works doesn't it ? I must say.
Four other high-earners-------business services ? £800 a day.

£772 a day for social care improvement.
Strategic lead improvement in children's services.
Office project manager £770 a day.

I'm sure I've missed one out.

If you call yourself a " consultant " you demand high pay !

I think that EV is grinding a personal axe there, Fennel...

Tory voters don't like to admit that cuts in services are a direct result of government spending cuts; they like to have someone/something else to blame.

Fennel Consultants are brought in to find ways to for an “establishment” in this case council, to run more efficiently and save money.

What are council consultants? Never heard of them. What do they do?

MaizieD - a point I have made on many threads! Deaf ears and all that.

The cuts were and are unnecessary. We are reaping the backlash from all this.

The "I'm OK Jack" approach to public spending, and the adherence to privatisation dogma is destroying our public services. The word "service" has vanished from the government's thinking.

We cannot ignore the social problems in our midst and then hope to have social cohesion and a peaceful low-crime society.

It's when you read about council consultants pocketing £900 a day for 14 days,which is an estimated £245,000 from the public purse,does anyone realise that they're being shafted.
This is just one council in the country. We pay council tax towards the upkeep of policing our areas and if it's all going in the above direction it's no wonder that council coffers are empty,roads in need of maintaining,street lamps out,weeds growing all over pavements------plus police shortages.
Where's the incentive for the police to do their job when some fat-cat is " stealing " what could be,further wages for more officers ?

In this particular council consultants have cost £2.6m in 2 years !
The Labour council are forever pleading poverty in this area-------can anyone see why ? Afterall it has to pay its " consultants " £1,000 a day first and foremost. Consultants ? Managers ? Any need for both ?

Then again Labour has always been of the mentality in the " jobs for the boys " association ! At least if the Tories had been voted in they'd have put paid to the " non-jobs " and got rid of leeches like this.

It's not as if any services have improved for all the obscene payments these consultants receive-----things have steadily got worse !

And the government only has the money we pay in taxes

This is just not true. The government is able to create as much money as it likes to fund public spending. Economists will tell you this over and over and over again but the general public has been fed this lie, that taxes fund spending, for so long that it refuses to lie down and die.

Cuts to public spending, which are causing very real and serious problems, are a political decision by a party which wishes to privatise as many public services as it possibly can. If you (speaking generally, not specifically to Nfk) voted tory you voted for this. Cuts are completely unnecessary.

A national budget is not the same as a household budget.

The reason we have a continuous gripe about underfunding is entirely down to government austerity polices. Our public services are being devastated. "all hands out begging for government money" - I for one am relieved to see that even Police Chiefs are now speaking out. We can't continue to cut, cut and cut some more and expect our public services to meet needs.
It's plain wrong for prisons, care homes, residential / foster care for children etc etc to be run on a profit making basis. We need to invest in good public services. It's our taxes as Nfk says and we can afford it. We can't afford not to as the rise in violent crime, decrease in length of life, child poverty and neglect etc etc, shows.

Listening to Radio Four seems to sometimes be one continuous gripe about underfunding. Police, roads,NHS, schools, arts, Social Services..... the list is endless. All hands out begging for government money. And the government only has the money we pay in taxes. Taxation does need to be raised slightly but only the Liberals had the courage to say so and look where it got them!

I also have heard on more than one occasion of firms (care homes, vegetable farmers, etc) employing people who work and are paid by agencies in other (eastern) EU countries where wages are considerably lower. They pay tax in the UK, but not National Insurance. (One care home paid all its staff including the chief exec this way.) Since the low paid don’t pay tax this is a big loop hole - assuming its true.

I'd like to point out that my post of Fri 30-Nov-18 18:53:25
was deleted at my own request, not because it broke guidelines as stated by the moderators.
I had to ask twice before it was deleted because it contained rather personal information, for no other reason.

GNHQ - this happened once before - are you aware that your mods at the weekends post the message that the post was deleted for breaking guidelines even if it was at the poster's request? This only seems to happen at weekends.

Yes you're right Jalimall the sociobiological theory that we are a product of both.

Nobody has a definitive answer to the 'nature or nurture' question.
It was always a source of debate
Both was the general consensus I think.

MissA absolutely right! 11.14.01 post ( top of the page)

I agree Jalima and think income tax should rise slightly, council tax is going to rise now to pay for more policing at least.

EllanVannin, you seem totally unable to look at this situation from anything other than your own hopeless, bigoted perspective.

Deprivation my eye. That's just another excuse for criminals to steal off others, an easy way out because half of them are unemployable anyway so are not in any hurry to look for work.

It's the life they choose----to drink themselves into oblivion, to take drugs,etc etc nobody holds a gun to their heads to do these things. It's of their choosing or they wouldn't do it.

There is help out there for them but they choose not to accept it. Doctors surgeries are full of leaflets on such matters and would be the first port of call to those willing to turn their lives around----they wouldn't be refused.

I've posted before that I think we need to pay more tax (not a popular view, probably). However, I'm sure no-one would disagree that those evading tax need to be made to face their responsibilities and laws enabling the rich or companies to avoid tax should be tightened up.

DH said this morning that he heard that some people in receipt of carers' allowance are being made to pay back money which they were paid by mistake if they were working as well! Thousands of state pensioners have been told that they have been overpaid too; I'm not sure if they will be asked to pay back the overpayments.
Scraping the barrel when there are other means for the government to bring in money is just not the right way to go about it.

There is a clear correlation between areas of deprivation and crime rates; and the prison population has a preponderance of people with untreated mental health problems, drug dependence, alcoholism, poor education, and deprived backgrounds.

There is a strong case to be made out for tackling these problems at source with resources for preventive work in housing, education, social care, drug withdrawal centres etc. The withering of all these services under austerity simply compounds the problems.

Unfortunately those making our laws and deciding spending priorities seem unaware of these needs and endlessly persist in underfunding in these areas.