Forum Topic

The Hounslow Plan

LBH don't seem to have really got the hang of introducing this plan at all, especially the last two pledges.   This is what was promised after they swept back into power in May 2010.   Just seems like a load a' words!  All mouth, no do - we're all up to our necks in muck and rubbish. Hounslow PlanFollowing the May 2010 elections the new administration set out five key pledges to residents over the next four years:    Action on crime with 100 uniformed officers on the streets and CCTV in crime hotspots    Extra cash for schools to improve standards and new school places to give parents a better choice    A new partnership with local businesses and housing associations to create jobs and build 2500 affordable homes to rent or buy    A 24/7 team of Grimebusters to tackle graffiti, litter, and dumped rubbish, and a directdial phone number for immediate action    A fresh war on waste and a council tax cut for all residentsThe council’s most important document, the Hounslow Plan, is the administration's priorities for the next four years and the way in which the executive wants the authority to develop, ensuring value-for-money, high performance and quality services.This document is currently being worked on and will be published here shortly.Contact usPolicy & Performance UnitLondon Borough of HounslowCivic CentreLampton RoadHounslowTW3 4DNTel: 020 8583 2964Email: ppu@hounslow.gov.ukA to Z of Services »

Trudie Fuller ● 4034d23 Comments

So the Councils don't actually have the powers that many people feel that they do have to raise Council Tax - and have to save money because of those government cuts.  I understood there were to be more cuts.  It doesn't feel as if there has been enough work done on whether these cuts will work or the further consequences of them.  There seems to be an awful lot of boat burning going on.For the Councils to be able to save money we need to be making the best use of the recycling and waste services that are provided.  Take a look at other Councils. Their services with regards to recycling and waste are similar. Many of them also have more enforcement and quite a few London Councils have compulsory recycling. WE will all find it easier if we make less waste AND we'll save money. Try putting your bin on a diet:    We have to reduce our waste so that the Councils don't end up having to pay for so much to be disposed of legally.  If you feel that there is too much packaging still - don't buy it - or leave it at the shop for them to deal with.  You should be complaining to the manufacturer, the shop, and the government for not having stricter regulations.  Why should the Councils have to spend so much time and money picking up the bill for dealing with too much packaging?  What about the vulnerable and less able?  Isn't it more valuable to our community for them to spend more more time and money there?http://therubbishdiet.blogspot.co.uk/p/rubbish-diet-challenge.html

Philippa Bond ● 4028d

"English councils have to hold a referendum if they want to put council tax up by more than 2%.Council tax benefit was formerly administered nationally, costing taxpayers £4.3 billion in 2011/12 as five million people claimed support.From April 2013, responsibility was transferred to 326 local authorities in England, with the Government providing funding of £3.7 billion - a cut of £414 million, or 10% of the predicted total budget if the scheme had remained unchanged.Dozens of English councils are poised to infuriate ministers by raising council tax just short of the threshold that would trigger a referendum."

Steve Taylor ● 4031d

"For that matter, how is it "fair" that my children get a worse education in Hounslow than they would if I lived a few miles away in Richmond?"Hounslow's schools are among some of the best in London, so I really don't know how you have arrived at that conclusion, and have been for a number of years. The fact is that both the Met. and the Fire Brigade are public services and the brigade certainly benefits from a precept from the council tax paid, and before we had a London mayor we had local councillors from all boroughs represented on the LFCDA which ran the Fire services. Gove may have had good intentions but they were guided by ideology not a desire for the best for ALL children. He could equally as well used the atrocious amount of money handed over to his precious 'free schools' and shared it between all schools, as it is there is very little fairness in what he did. Giving our dosh to mates like the odious Toby Young just because he didn't want his offspring mixing with the rabble smacks of snobbery, and the desire for favouring some above others.I didn't say local authorities were perfect - show me any large organisation that is, but Hounslow as an education authority were excellent, and you are talking rubbish if you really think that they'd have turned a blind eye to anything untoward. The problem in Birmingham seems to me to have been a case of the usual tripe about 'respecting cultural norms' and being afraid of being labelled 'racists'. Let's face it that is not confined to councils. This government are so wrong to believe the mantra, private good, public bad, there is still, just about, a different ethos in public services, it is not about the most profit for the least service. Do you really imagine that the utilities are better since privatisation?

Vanessa Smith ● 4032d

"Well, if you think private 'care' companies are really the best people to trust with our elderly you must be mad."Well, I don't think that at all.You seem to be saying that there are only two choices for providing services: - private companies with little regulation or oversight - local councilsBut surely there are other possibilities?The Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade are neither of those things - and seem to mostly do a good job. Transport for London seem to provide pretty good public transport compared to many parts of the country. Funnily enough, Hounslow Council aren't involved with any of these.I agree with you that handing taxpayers money over to academies and free schools and hoping for the best is unwise.I also agree that Gove was misguided and perhaps out of his depth - and as a result failed to improve education; making an enemy of everyone within the organisations you want to change (and the press too) is not a winning strategy for making things better!However, the impression I got of Gove was that despite his faults he did genuinely want to see better education for all our children.For me, the best path to a fairer, more equal society would be to make sure that every child gets a good education no matter where they're born or who their parents are.Sadly, I'm not sure that leaving it to local authorities is going to achieve that. Wasn't the Birmingham debacle made possible due to incompetence on the part of the local council?The "friendly and supportive relationship with the local education authority" you suggest can easily become a cosy relationship where no-one is prepared to rock the boat and do the difficult things needed to make sure every child gets a good education. What makes you so sure that we can  trust Hounslow Council to get that right?For that matter, how is it "fair" that my children get a worse education in Hounslow than they would if I lived a few miles away in Richmond?

Kyle Smith ● 4032d

By how much can the Council raise Council Tax before they lose money from the Government?

Philippa Bond ● 4032d

"Come to think of it, why is Hounslow Council involved with "big" services like education or care anyway? Is this some relic of Victorian times when in pre-email, pre-phone, pre-car days it was necessary to keep administration very local?"Well, if you think private 'care' companies are really the best people to trust with our elderly you must be mad. Do you see the news or read the papers? Have you seen the appalling treatment dished out to the most vulnerable in some of these places staffed by poorly paid and poorly trained morons?Similarly with education, this last few weeks we have seen Gove's dream of all these academies unravelling big style, £2m going walkies at Haberdashers Askes, the Trojan Horse debacle in Birmingham. It all sounded soooo good didn't it? The reality is that there has to be some sort of regulation and control, personally I think all that's happened is that schools have lost their pretty friendly and supportive relationship with the local education authority and got instead the Secretary of State - who is neither! Now we see the folly, somewhere there has to be a closer relationship, to oversee what goes on, and who are better placed and more experienced than the local councils? As with housing - councils for all their faults make much, much better landlords than housing associations, they must be allowed to build on a far larger scale than happens now.Councils also have far better and larger purchasing power than individual companies.

Vanessa Smith ● 4033d

We shouted it Bob, the residents did know, but such is the level of modern political engagement that this kind of thing seems to be deemed acceptable nowadays.  Nobody is shocked any more.  There are times when one needs to recognise these things rather than forever trying to push against the tide.  It's not the kind of thing I want to be involved in so my answer now is to leave it to those who do.

Phil Andrews ● 4033d

Because something is gotten away with we should certainly NOT move on - we should shout it from the rooftops so the residents know exactly what goes on at our council.It's a shambles.

Bob Crongle ● 4033d

Yes, it was a trick.  But one which was gotten away with so I guess we need to move on.

Phil Andrews ● 4033d

Ah - "action on crime with 100 uniformed officers on the streets".Sounds to the man or woman on the Brentford omnibus as if it means extra police ... but didn't it actually turn out to mean they gave 100 council employees (street cleaners or traffic wardens perhaps) new uniforms ... ?

Kyle Smith ● 4033d

Hi Vanessa,For what it's worth, I for one would be happy to pay more council tax - if I believed that the council would spend it on doing a better job of providing core local services.By core local services I mean things that people expect them to provide and use day to day - such as:- fixing holes in roads- providing parks, libraries & public conveniences- taking away rubbish and keeping the streets cleanUnfortunately I simply don't believe that any of those services would improve in the slightest even if council tax went up 20%; the money would undoubtedly go on:- expensive consultants being paid 3x the normal rate for their job- pet programs whose effectiveness is conveniently hard to measure ("community outreach", leaflets about exercise, ...)- funding overly generous pensions for early retirees- hiring more administrators to send pointless emails to each other and make their boss feel more important- ill-thought out contracts with private service providers(I suspect the same applies equally whether this year's councillors are Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or UKIP; the problem is deeper than that!)Come to think of it, why is Hounslow Council involved with "big" services like education or care anyway? Is this some relic of Victorian times when in pre-email, pre-phone, pre-car days it was necessary to keep administration very local?In fact, do we really need to waste money on separate sets of admin staff in Hounslow, Ealing and Richmond? Can't most of this stuff be done at a regional / national level?Perhaps in fact we could all get much better services for the same amount of tax money paid if we cut councils out of it?Or we could keep the services the same and redistribute the savings from trimming back the council's wasteful spending to make society fairer if you prefer?Kyle.

Kyle Smith ● 4033d

Its also more frustrating when you compare the salaries of some Richmond officers against the overpaid Hounslow officers - yet Richmond is neat & tidy. Officers should take pride in their work.

Steve Taylor ● 4033d

I have no problem in a tax increase but do we want to throw more money at these people. In the private sector (banks excepted)  we all had to cut overheads, salaries,etc and we have to make it work. Shape up or ship out. Council employees have been overpaid for a long time. Just look at the packages some of Hounslows officers receive. It is quite ridiculous.

Steve Taylor ● 4033d

VanessaI believe you are right.  However it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that both major parties made low Council Tax a central platform of their respective local election campaigns in May.

Phil Andrews ● 4033d

Well you would seem to be in the minority given they won 49 seats in May, hardly a salutary beating. Councils are obviously finding it very difficult with the awful cuts and the fact is - for the umpteenth time - people want their council tax cut - then they must expect services to suffer. You cannot have it all ways, but if people think a few pennies saved is worth it then they shouldn't moan. Personally I think it is wrong to keep banging on about low taxes and cuts, whatever we want in this life we have to pay for, it is shameful the way the government propaganda machine has beguiled people into thinking that that's the right way. Governments don't have any other income but tax, if they don't have that we don't get services - simples. So what? Apparently so the theory goes, you are left with all that money to buy the services privately and more expensively and make the government's mates lots of Wonga doing it, do you really think that's the way to a fair society?

Vanessa Smith ● 4033d

Just be nice not to be governed by the bunch at the Civic Centre

Bob Crongle ● 4033d

So Chiswick wants to bog off and now Brentford - do you seriously think the 'posh' mob would entertain you for one minute? Dream on.

Vanessa Smith ● 4033d

Brentford should be cut off from Hounslow - we could join Richmond or Ealing, the "posh" councils, and leave Haanslow and their wannabbes to look after the slums.

Bob Crongle ● 4033d

correction to previous post - "both Councillors and LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS" as Vanessa has pointed out on another thread they are not Civil Servants!  What ever they're called - they're not up to the job or their bosses aren't or none of them are!

Trudie Fuller ● 4033d

Rubbish - literally - total waste to throw any more money at them.    The morons at Lampton house, both Councillors and civil servants who have been appointed to MANAGE have ALL been promoted above their abilities - they cannot manage.  THEY HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE - handling the vast budgets and knowing how to spend the moneys wisely and then ensuring that the personel are up to the mark and doing the work properly is a skilled job.  It's one that is completely beyond any of the people currently faffing about,  leaving us all buried under rubbish, while they ignore the problems or at best scratch their heads in bewilderment!

Trudie Fuller ● 4034d

The silly thing is Paul we are only talking pennies, similarly with the NHS a small increase in N.I. ring fenced just for health would make so much difference in funding.

Vanessa Smith ● 4034d

Could not agree moreWho really could not afford to pay 8p a week extra on their Council Tax which is all that this political stunt saves those of us who pay it?

Paul Fisher ● 4034d

Personally I'd say sod the council tax cut, let's pay a bit more and have respectable services.

Vanessa Smith ● 4034d