Monday, June 18, 2007

Council tax funds pensions!!

DAILY MAIL

So now I'm beginning to understand just why some councils are moving to fortnightly bin collections - much of their (sorry, but shouldn't that be OUR?) allocated cash goes straight into 'gold-plated', index linked pensions. .... And they can still retire at 60 whilst the plan is that the rest of us will have to work until 68!

Wasn't council tax supposed to pay for essential services? I don't remember agreeing to help provide super pensions for the faceless bureaucrats who spend all day pen-pushing and inventing new and ever more meaningless targets. But I suppose they have to employ someone to decode the data collected from the "Chip 'n Bin" devices.

3 comments:

Emma said...

Welcome to our new, approved (or should that be new and improved) direct-to-blog contributor, Dave.

And he kicks off with a corker.

Plus how apt that this tallies so well with my question via Newsnight to Mr. Cameron in my blog - posted at almost the exact same time - about whether we get a refund for his proposed 'less' government.

I think it is pretty clear there are those (few left) not on the public payroll who not only don't fancy working 'til we drop to keep a bunch of guys whose votes have been bought (we stay in power, you get your cosy, guaranteed pension), but the numbers don't add up on it being physically possible even if we wanted to!

First. Against. The. Wall. When. The. Revolution. Comes.

ps: Dave - forget the link panel in the edit page. Just write the name you fancy linking from (Paper or Subject title) in tex, highlight it and then click on the chain-link icon in the nav bar above. This opens up a hyperlink feature to plonk in the URL you are directing to. Looks lots neater.

I have doen it for you here.

See, aren't I a nice editor:)

Anonymous said...

I don't remember agreeing to pay council staff's exorbitant wages either. Not only should they get no pension. They should work for free too.

Emma said...

See what happens when the Daily Mail gets cited... sheesh.

I have made clear before that I am not too keen on anything with the 'Anon' handle, and debated a while before approving this post.

Actually, I'm not so sure I don't detect more than a slight tweak going on there, which may be slightly deserved.

For the record, I have no problem with the principle of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. So long as there's a slight recognition that things have to be balanced across all levels of society. And, also, that stuff can change.

As with all things, the pendulum simply seems to have swung too far from one direction to another, and the balance is in danger of being upset. Which serves no one well.

Of course we need a fairly funded and supported public service to allow our society to function smoothly.

But when the process starts to take precedence over the product, and the needs of the system outweigh those of the people it is tasked to serve (and who fund it), then there are going to be 'issues'.

It is surely hard to reconcile or even justify some being required to dig ever deeper, and work ever longer, when others are not only seemingly exempt from this requirement, but whose demands (too easily allowed following a less than stout negotiation by those in theory paid to acheive an equitable balance) are in fact the main reason for it.

If you crush the person making the beans by piling too many onto their back to just count those they make, then pretty soon all will go hungry.