Don’t councils understand that prevention is cheaper than fixing

[Cornercandy]

Councils are struggling with money for the past few years. So why do they cut back things like cleaning drains which are clogged up with dead leaves, sediment and rubbish? When the cost of getting road fixed, planning diversions, hiring of temp traffic lights etc is more money?

Where I live there are two roads which are flooded and closed - never have been before. Yet drove past these roads a few days back and they were absolutely clogged up.

I know where I live there have been two Amber warnings for rain this week. If drains were cleared, the roads wouldn’t be flooded enough to close entirely.

Hillarious · Today 09:43

+ + It's because the councils have no overall plans and are run by clueless but very greedy idiots. They are not audited properly by central govt. They use funds earmarked by govt for useless building schemes/cycle lanes/stuff nobody wants or uses and then plead poverty. + +

A misunderstanding of local government here.

It seems to have been written by a Daily Mail work experience person...

😂

I am a contractor and work in both public and private sector.

@TheGreatIndoors what a horrible judgemently post.

Yes Councils know this.
But this is the cumulative effect of austerity.
Less money to spend and critically less staff to organise and deliver the work. You cannot cut reactive work, so you have to cut or reduce your forward planning.
Budgets are often linked to policy which is why you might see spending on something you think is perverse.
Infrastructure projects often require a bidding cycle and you are usually competing for that money against other councils.
There's been a gradual pruning of roles and flattening out of structures and in many areas services are very thinly spread.

I bet you're natural 'charm' has made you an excellent sprinter.

I work alongside direct employees and don’t agree with your judgment.

I work for the LA and this sort of thing drives me bonkers. Cutbacks mean the drivers of the street sweeping machine are often used for driving the small tipper trucks emptying dog waste bins and public litter bins, sorting flytipping at recycling sites. The visual things that people complain about not being done. There’s no push to properly utilise man hours though. They can be finished a bin route by 1pm some days and then rather than flip them around and get x, y, z maintenance jobs done on a rolling basis you have three blokes for every bin lorry hanging around whinging that it’s not job and done. They are paid till five.

My council is tied in to expensive leasing and maintenance costs of the sweeper trucks as well so it makes it even more painful that they are not being used. Someone had to drive one round a yard recently as the tracker hadn’t moved for six months they thought it might be broken. It was not.

@TheGreatIndoors I hope in the future none of your family or friends (bet with a vicious personality like yours, you don't have any) work for the local government.
God help if you need to get social services to help you. Or you want to use the library.

Why don't you go back into the hole you have crawled out from.

Most councils are doing their best with inadequate funding that will not cover the basics. As a country we keep voting politicians in to keep taxes low and then wonder why public services fail

I do like the idea of more community responsibility. Give volunteers local responsibility for clearing drains of leaves. I’d do it. Anything that is centralised becomes so expensive.
We have a thriving litter picking volunteer group in my town. The council provide bags and pickers. Win win.

Because in a world where every department has it's own budget, the value of one departments savings aren't offset against the cost to another.

If you can save £500,000 no clearing leaves up, the your department doesn't give two shits if the department that has to deal with floods etc has to spend a few million extra,

Welcome to the world of corporate finance. Where saving £100 a year on streetlighting is a "win" despite the extra costs in crime and RTAs.

Been that way since forever, so you won't change it.

Many of the blockages that cause immediate flash flooding are caused by debris that's carried in the floodwater. Tree branches, bins, builders plastic etc. are picked up by swelling tides of water and lodge against sewer gratings, blocking the water's progress. It's not simply a question of "the council didn't clear the drains" although that can be in play too.

If you have an expensive item to replace or fix, you take money from another account.

That's not how it works 😂

All the things you mention are a failure of infrastructure.

Sounds fair to me - obviously they wouldn't pay council tax though.

I would never be friends with someone who worked (it's all relative I suppose) for the local council. Unless I wanted to visit them in their grey house and hear about their 2 week all inclusive holiday to Spain.

Perhaps if YOU used your local library more you'd learn not to end sentences with prepositions.

We complained a lot one year that the drains were never cleaned the council showed us that it was in the budget and yes they were absolutely cleaned pictures of a tree growing in a drain proved them wrong they say thats new we say it's five foot how is this new? They say there is no drain there to clean we prove there is they say its not on our land that's private property 🤔 we prove it is on there land and the only reason it looks like that is because they haven't maintained it and underneath the overgrowth there is also a path they come out remove the tree don't bother actually cleaning the drain or the path because that wasn't the job he was sent to do and off he goes again

This was in 2020? (Or 21) the drain still has not been cleaned the path is still not cleared I've no clue where this drain cleaning budget is being spent

Rain in my area is not unprecedented we were fine when we had drains that work now not so much

In our unitary authority we have two types of services;
Statutory -Ones councils legally must provide such as adult social care and children services, very basic services such as bin collection.

Non-Statutory - Everything else, parks maintenance, recreation (pools, gyms),

You can Google for the full break down, but in essence, the first years of austerity councils cut their highest outgoings (staff costs), everything got outsourced so you'd have a better grip on defunding services. Then everything that was Non-Statutory got cut to the bare bones, statutory was then reviewed (often using expensive consultancy firms) and huge "efficiency savings" were made.

Now, the bones of services have been broken, the marrow sucked out, statutory roles i.e antisocial behaviour now have a single officer holding that responsibility as part of their wider role when it used to have a team supporting.

Central government grant no longer covers the basics, it's now supposed to come from business rates (which are set by central gov) or local council tax - which has been capped by how much it can increase. This has meant reserves (if councils had any) have been swallowed by a mix of inflation, high energy costs and other pressures such as increase in social care costs.

Gully clearing and road markings are at the bottom of a very long laundry list of must do's.

Our new labour council have removed the fairly small portion of council funding for local food banks, all set up and funded by local organisations and volunteers. Half of them have closed now having run successfully for years. Plenty of money to create a bus lane on a narrow road that nobody wants.

That’s so sad

If it's any solace - all the officers I know hate the huge capital finance projects, it's like buying a huge flat screen tv while the roof is leaking.

But are you going to turn down a free flat screen? (capital finance project for infrastructure), no, not if it's fulfilling a strategic aim and providing employment.

And god knows if the local paper saw the council turned down money for road "improvement" there would be hell to pay.

Our county council is so strapped for cash, they are doing the absolute minimum and just hoping it will be ok.

I'm a parish councillor and we've done our own manual pothole survey, a manual check of drains and gullies, and we send out volunteer crews to cut back hedges so speed limit and School - Slow signs are visible. We nag farmers & landowners of their legal obligations to keep watercourses clear because the county council no longer has the resource to do it.

We're only raising queries with the county council over issues that are absolutely essential/dangerous and we cannot solve with volunteer teams.

Money is very tight this winter in local govt, which I realise is no comfort to those whose homes are flooded.

Alot of food banks were supported with Covid fund money, once that ran out its back to voluntary sector or finding other small grant funding.

Food banks should never, ever have been needed. That they are now an integral part of welfare system is a symptom of the wider shit show of short term interventions which need a long term funded strategy.