My world is sometimes surreal ! Last week I was told by a leading Cabinet member that Deborah and I had the wrong end of the stick in claiming the Council has to make £6m worth of budget efficiencies this financial year. I was told not to worry (my little head ?), they had already been made as part of the 'sorting out' of the inherited previous year's budget.
Well I went away- not feeling re-assured, more puzzled. I dug out the Budget resolution agreed last February by this Council and noted that yes, this budget is predicated on £6m of efficiencies being in place - though where they were is another question.
However, the same resolution also had a Council Tax projection for the next 3 years. This shows that far from anyone being re-assured, the efficiencies required for this year amount to £4.3m, for next year £9.6m, and for March 2009 - just before the next elections - £13.7m. A massive total of £27.6 MILLION !
And I am supposed to be re-assured ???????????????
1 comment:
Have it on the highest authority that they’re going to sell County Hall and Seaclose, redevelop Sea Street, and meet in a marquee on one of Barry Abrahams’ fields; Housing services will be privatized, and run by Hoogstraten Services Inc (“Quality Services – Only British Thugs Employed”); Schools will be run by the Elim Pentecostal Church, from their shed at Coppins Bridge, in return for minor influence on the curriculum – it won’t matter, because God loves YOU!; and roads will just be allowed to crumble, thus saving on bus subsidies, ending coach travel, and, incidentally, stopping the working classes from moving about.
I think you’ll find this is all perfectly sensible when you come to think about it, and the model for local councils throughout the country. It will be marvellous for tourism, because people won’t need to go abroad anymore to see what a third world economy is really like; and our young people will be able to take advantage of the enormous opportunities opened up for prostitution and drug trafficking by the arrival of the international jet-set as they pour into Sutton International Airport at Sandown.
In preparation for this, I am investing in a smock and begging bowl: it is my duty to play my part in Isle of Wight regeneration by really throwing myself into the role of Village Idiot plc, and I hope our others are not going to be backward in coming forward in these days of exciting opportunity by any kind of curmudgeonly reluctance to seize the new future.
Aim high! Such is our creed (I have tried this, but there is a problem with splash-back......)
Post a Comment