Get back to the office! But why?

I'm sure all the shiny new Red Wall Tory MPs will be fighting your corner gilly.

I wonder just what they will do

Our labour council will just keep on doing what it’s always done . Burying its head in the sand and looking after those in the town hall . Meanwhile shoving commercial rents and rates up and up to cover their costs .

^ Our region cannot survive on public sector jobs alone although I doubt there will be any cutbacks in the town hall^

What would be the advantage of 'cutting back' in the town hall, gillybob?

Or, what cut backs would you envisage and what would happen to the money 'saved'?

Nowhere can survive on public sector jobs alone, nor on private sector jobs alone. Each needs the other.

Also, if jobs are lost through cutbacks in the public sector, those put out of work will add to the cost of supporting everyone who isn't employed, and the taxes they paid won't be going into the pot.

And it could take even longer for public sector phones to be answered!

I didn’t think there was a longer time than never but hey ho .... good old civil servants . What would we do without them ?

My council is the same.
In or out of the office, notes are never made, nobody phones back, nothing gets done.

It’s really not good enough MissA . I have waited almost 2 weeks to speak to someone in licensing and have sent several emails too with no reply . Ditto someone in finance . These people are supposed to be working from home .

Two weeks! Two weeks!
We've been waiting nearly four years for some essential roadworks to be carried out!
I think they've all been at home for four years.

Ah, no, there's the difference, they're not civil servants.

Exactly! Local government employees aren't civil servants. In many cases, they're not even public service employees because so many services have now been outsourced.

gillybob Have you tried a letter to your local newspaper? I have no idea why nobody's responding, but it's clearly unacceptable and a letter to the local press can sometimes work wonders.

You obviously have an issue with public service employees, as you've criticised them so many times.

I hope you didn't vote Conservative in the hope that your public services would be improved. If you did, there's a real possibility you've been conned.

It's a myth that Council Tax pays for local services. Briefly, what happens is that most of it is paid to central government which then pays it back to councils, using a formula. Business rates are different and richer areas can usually raise more.

Some richer areas receive back far less than they pay, while the reverse is true in poorer areas, which have higher social needs and have fewer big houses, so they can't raise as much tax.

The Conservatives spoke about "levelling up" - without explaining what they meant. I think some people thought that there would be more money going to areas which needed it. In fact, the reverse is true. The grants to poorer areas have been cut, while the richer areas are paying less - they are the ones who have "levelled up".

The situation is likely to become worse when poorer areas lose EU grants.

Of course, poorer areas tend to have Labour councils, which are now being forced to make cuts to local services and are taking the blame for the cuts. In reality, they have less money as a result of central government decisions.

Some London boroughs have always been an exception because they have been able to raise income from parking charges, etc. and have been able to keep Council Tax low.

There is already some evidence that working from home is benefiting small towns, which has to be a good thing, as the economy needs rebalancing. The biggest losers so far in terms of money spent are London, Manchester and Oxford. Some of the places which are witnessing an increase in local spending are Middlesbrough, Burnley, Wakefield, Barnsley and Blackburn. This could, of course, change when people are made redundant as furlough schemes end. The biggest single group of losers are the owners of commercial property, which is why the government wants to shame people to go back to office working.

People who work in private industry have issues with local and government service providers because they realise that if their business were as inefficient as those providers they would never survive.

However, with local council and government, there are no other competitive services for the public to turn to, therefore they can be as inefficient as they wish without any come back or repercussions.

Simple as that.

Sweeping generalisation.

What a load of nonsense.

Furret

Sweeping generalisation.

Sweeping generalisation, but true.

I do not blame the workers who directly carry out the work such as road repair, waste collection etc as they are nearly always employed by private companies that are subcontracted to the local council or government.

I lay the provision of those poor services firmly at the feet of those directly employed by the councils and government who organise and are supposed to oversee the provision of services.

Very often they are on very large salaries but provide very little in the way of efficiency in the services they are responsible for.

Call centres ensure that the general public never gets to speak to such persons and therefore hold them to account.

What a load of half cut nonsense. You have no idea.

Furret

What a load of half cut nonsense. You have no idea.

Well, Furret please explain to me were "I have no idea" instead of providing meaningless one line post?????

I like the way we can write off an entire sector but apparently we all have to go back to the office to save private companies such starbucks , pret etc, most of which are dreadful companies but apparently we have to support them whilst calling the public sector every name under the sun. Brilliant strategy.

It seems that the siren voice of the call back to the office is being largely ignored by both employers and employees.

Perhaps the government that oh so strong bastion of free trade should read its own text books and understand that the individual will make her own rational decision.

In this case it is to protect herself from overcrowded travel, and enclosed spaces where the ability to socially distance is compromised.
The employer does not want to have the headache of providing socially distancing working when it can be so easily carried out in the workers home. Neither does it want sick staff from either Covid or the usual seasonal illnesses.
Employers are also waking up to the fact that productivity is up and sickness down.

I haven’t read500 posts so I may be repeating Someone’s else’s point so I apologise in advance but home should be the sanctity where you get away from work I have family members who do very stressful jobs normally face to face with extremely vulnerable people who now have to video call them from their make shift office in their bedroom the only room in the house not in general use And the one room where they should be able to relax and forget the worlds problems
Another less important point but who is paying their electricity and broadband bills ?

If it's a good employer, there are schemes arranged to mitigate that expense bluebelle.

And it's certainly cheaper than commuting.

BlueBelle

I haven’t read500 posts so I may be repeating Someone’s else’s point so I apologise in advance but home should be the sanctity where you get away from work I have family members who do very stressful jobs normally face to face with extremely vulnerable people who now have to video call them from their make shift office in their bedroom the only room in the house not in general use And the one room where they should be able to relax and forget the worlds problems
Another less important point but who is paying their electricity and broadband bills ?

They should have the choice. My lot do. Not a single person has opted to return to the office.

Everyone is happy as they are.

Ok so you d be happy to bring massive problems into your house and bedroom ??? you think that’s good for both worker and client galaxy
A total overgeneralisation , not everyone lives in London or a big city many people live within a mile of their jobs and my point was more about the actually working conditions which you glazed over to concentrate on the commuter problem which doesn’t really come into the equation if you are working from a small to medium sized town

PROF Chris Whitty is hampering the Government’s return to work message because ministers fear he could resign if too many people return to the workplace at once.

So many mixed messages.

☹️

I think many councils (my own included ) need a huge overhaul . They would be bust if they were run like a proper business and the way they allocate and spend money is crazy (to put it politely) . We are one of the poorest boroughs in the country with some of the highest paid executives (and more than enough of them too) . They increase council tax and business rates at every opportunity and cut back on essential services .

All of this whilst spending £millions on luxury (and I mean luxury on steroids) refurbishments to the town hall and offices. £millions of tax payers money spent on new state of the art heating system, new windows, new boardroom tables, chairs, new luxury pile carpets throughout and bespoke carpentry . Not to mention the state of the art coffee machines in every meeting room, new chandeliers, bathrooms with showers ..... I could go on and on. Wonderful if we had the cash to splash but at the same time they are closing play parks and old people’s day centres to save money. Our rubbish collections are cut to the bone and heaven forbid you need to speak to someone urgently .

My LA rented factory is a shambles . They had the cheek to put the rent up by 20% last year despite the fact that they are not keeping to their side of the contract and carrying out essential repairs . I have had to pay to fix the roller shutters myself at great expense too or else we wouldn’t have had insurance cover . I have had to pay to install a new water heater .We have several holes in the main roof and we have been in the unit for over 20 years and they have done nothing whatsoever . They are supposed to paint every 5 years and haven’t painted once in 20 years. I have to laugh when every so often they send a valued to measure up ( just incase it has grown) which is usually about a month prior to rent increases.

And now with Covid all the office staff are “working” from home . It’s an absolute joke.

It will be this week and even more so next week before we really begin to see the extent to which employers will be demanding their employees return to work.

Many companies have "held off" of a full or even a partial return to their offices due to many employees having child care problems etc. However, as the schools return fully over the remainder of this week and next, employers are preparing to insist that staff return to office-based roles.

The above in attending fully their places of work is no more than essential and very many manual workers have done throughout the crisis.

It may well become in private business efficiency over cost-saving and in the commercial world those who are efficient and can also control cost will win out in that battle.

Not having your staff going off walking the dog, or going for a jog, deciding to go on a shopping trip or take shower as does tend to happen with those working from home, does make a large difference to the performance of a company where employees have to collaborate with each other.

Anyway in the interests of the efficiency and good working of our business me and my wife are now off to our offices. ??