Council non-job's. Article in Sunday Times. did anyone else read it?

[JackBauer]

It starts of fairly innocently bemoaning taxpayers money going on what they see as council non-jobs
'They include trampoline coaches, skate park attendants, flower arrangers, a ?befriending co-ordinator? and a £15-an-hour yoga instructor. '

And then this
'One of the worst offending councils is Newcastle upon Tyne, which employs a dedicated ?breastfeeding peer support co-ordinator? ? separate from midwives who usually give mothers advice on how to feed ? and a ?composting supervisor? who earns a salary of up to £23,470 to run a facility that turns garden waste into compost. '

DH and I thought the inclusion of 'chewing gum removal labourer' showed particular dimness on the part of the author.
I mean, they use special equipment/chemicals to clean up chewing gum, so obviously you would have one person who is a specialist in that rather than giving the equipment to all the street sweeping teams. Or should they not be removing chewing gum at all?

and they don't just remove chewing gum, they pick up all forms of litter on the pavement and streets.

would this moron rather they not be there at all?

(Aside from the issue of bfing) It doesn't MATTER though, the purpose of the state is to provide work and one way of doing that is to make jobs which encourages the money to flooooow

It's GOOD - it's not a WASTE of tax-payers money, it's what tax-payers money is FOR!!

So, lets look at all these non-jobs (according to 2 male, presumably able-bodied, non-elderly journalists).

Breast feeding support

Children's toothcare, and a wide variety of activities desgined to keep children fit and healthy and off the streets.

Falls prevention and tea dances, aimed at keeping elderly people healthy and alert.

Befriending - presumably aimed at those with problems like depression or learning difficulties, to help keep them well and motivated in life.

Some positions to do with ceremonial and "appearances" - sword bearer, pianists, florists, drivers.

Recycling/composting

Personally, I'd be happy for them to scrap the "ceremony" ones, but all the rest look to me like the kinds of things we want councils to be providing! And maybe if they were in any of the categories of people being helped by any of these posts, they might understand a tiny bit more about life than they appear to at the moment.

They reckon the total cost of these so-called non-jobs is about £3m. Chicken feed. We're about to start paying our MPs £150 A DAY just for turning up!

It's bollocks.

Thing is, if they got rid of the 'non-jobs' then we'd be paying for those people's Income support/Job seekers'/health care when they get unfit and depressed because they are out of work

MUCH more expensive

alot of those jobs are probably not even funded by the council, but by other grants (sport england etc). daft article anyway.

also a lot of these jobs probably help generate money for the council - eg trampolining coach probably runs lessions which kids pay for, same as yoga teacher so therefore pay for themselves!

we have a befriender for ds1,not council but charity funded, its the only input we get from anyone and has already restored mine and dh's faith in humanity, at least until June when she goes home (StudenT)

The Times gets worse weekly.But if you like your papers on time anfd regular go for something not linked to NI or the miror shortly

Oh I agree that I don't think any of them are non-jobs, even the ceremonial ones are normally older people working a few hours a week for not much.
I am fairly immune to crappy journalism and just sneer and turn teh page but this actually made me swear out loud.

I agree, and it was the fact they singled out Newcastle [bristle] as being especially bad - citing breastfeeding support and composting as being particularly spectacular examples of non jobs. I mean wtf.

exactly jules.