Don’t councils understand that prevention is cheaper than fixing

They use funds earmarked by govt for useless building schemes/cycle lanes/stuff nobody wants or uses and then plead poverty.

the answer there is in what you posted. Central government puts out very specific pots of money with very narrow criteria. If local authorities bid for that money it has to used for that very specific criteria. They can’t get it and spend it on whatever is most needed however much they might want too

I'm thick as pigshit, so what? Doesn't mean that councils are doing a good job.

For all your superior insight and intellect, you have failed to point out any of these nuances and complexities or even punctuate your post adequately.

There were facts amidst my hyperbolic nonsense, no doubt you will enlighten us in due course as to why they are not facts.

When you post hyperbolic nonsense like this you just come across as ignorant and not very bright

Things are far more nuanced and complex than that

I temped at a Local Authority for a few months once. Coming in from the private sector, it was quite the eye opener. There is a lack of flexibility and everything is in silos, with scrutiny and oversight so things can't just be shuffled around. Budgets are closely guarded and there's a lot of internal politics.

Britain seems to have invented the idea of Middlemen. A entire parasitic layer of society who's first question to any suggestion or proposal is "What's in it for me ?"

Only when that produces a non-zero answer will anything ever happen.

And in cases where they didn't exist - nationalised industries spring to mind - they had to be (re)introduced. Muck like rewilding. That's why we ended up with a plethora of "energy companies" none of which actually made a single watt.

The paradigm of a successful UK company is one that can take the money at one end, and immediately dump the liability onto the next in an unbroken circle. Local authorities have almost perfected this. Birmingham City Council may be the first to have made countless billions disappear (they may as well have burned fivers for the return they got) and have managed to still stiff the taxpayer to pay for it.

The water companies really are poor seconds in this race.

Depends who it's costing, remember. It's clearly not costing the department responsible for fixing it a penny.

The fucking Romans knew how to do water management. It was one of the lesser sung engineering feats that allowed them to seriously colonize Europe.

Even medieval monks knew how to build pools, slipways, culverts and ditches to manage water. As well as not to build on fucking flood plains.

True, not the council, but a community hall run by charity. Mate of a mate is rather flakey and gone awol with many £££s intended for new windows and half a roof. Trying insurance claim. It’s all a bit of a disaster, bigger company would of meant higher price but they could of completed the job and there would of been comeback rather than a quickly bankrupt, dissolved ltd company.

@Tumbleweed101 HA money waste drives me bonkers! My kitchen is so old the doors come off in my hands regularly, the skeletons that the doors attach to are rotten but just keep getting told no money but they have money to build lots of new houses that the old tenants will never get a look in. Told to keep reporting the repairs but then they want to come and do repairs when we are at work with little flexibility to come at other times 🤷‍♀️

I live in a HA property and when I moved in the oil boiler was already ancient. I think I called them out three or four times each winter where it would stop working. They added new parts each time until it was almost a jumbled mess.

They replaced it about 6 years ago, I'd been here around 14 years by then! I haven't had to call them out since as it works brilliantly and my oil consumption has massively reduced as it is more efficient.

Where I am there is a bridge that had a small landslip over 18 months ago, temporary traffic lights have now been there for 18months, question how much that is costing per week

Well there is nothing stopping you from working for a council if you think that you could do better. It is very easy to criticise other people.

Quite. Not to mention the level of outrage when local authorities start haemorrhaging millions of £s when the new “better to use my mate who does a great deal” procurement arrangements suddenly start to look a bit flaky and unresilient on a scale never seen before

I remain genuinely boggled that ppl have so little understand of local authority procurement, the processes suppliers have to go through and the standards companies are required to meet not to mention the sheer volume of things local authorities buy or commission from social care provision to bus services to road repairs to house building to stationery. It is literally millions and millions of pounds

its all publicly available on their websites

its not withheld. The point is it might not be cost effective for Mr Local to have the necessary level of cover. But Mr National will already hold it as will deal with more of the bigger projects already. Economy by scale..,

It’s not withheld. They just don’t have that level of insurance. And if they do they’re probably not going to do the great deal on the project and still make the margins they want

Dredging rivers is bad for wildlife. Council have put in a lot of upstream interventions on the hills near here.
Gravel and stone gardens,fake grass should be banned to reduce flooding and save council tax hikes

Surely you tell them they need the right kind of insurance? I mean that kind of information shouldn't be withheld? It makes far more sense to buy local if you can I remember the council of the town that invented carpet buying carpets for their offices from POLAND instead of down the road they were very much delayed and people took the piss they weren't even any cheaper than the local ones sales executive said we could have done them a deal had this been about cost (they also fitted an expensive eco heating system that didn't work properly) this was a very much touted "eco building" and no-one considered that the air miles might be an issue from an eco point of view

No thoughts given

How would we know if the drains are never cleared? Same as how do we know dredging rivers "won't make a difference" unless we actually do it? (It's been done in my area on one small section and it made a difference)

Procurement within local authorities, with public money on infrastructure like schools isn't as simple as getting a local bloody builder to quote. There are all sorts of strategies, they will have a social value charter, the contractor will need the right levels of insurance, to comply with risk management, etc etc etc.

Getting local builders in might seem clever but is not the win you might think it is when you scale up to the millions and millions spent by councils across the country

It's been that way forever.

When I was on a student union committee, at uni, if the budget wasn't spent at the end of the year, it was reduced next year.

Accountancy trumps utility - it's a civil service commandment.

Nope. Climate change means more rain, unless drains are upgraded even clear drains can't cope.

Water should be trapped upstream, on hills. Presently there aren't enough trees and it runs off rapidly.

Only if he were being reckless.