Not Delivering Best Value for five years should worry us all.

A recent advert for a new head of the internal audit partnership between North Tyneside Council and Northumberland County Council shows that although Northumberland Conservatives working on the ‘Little Britain’ model of politics keep denying they are a £1Bn Council, the advert for this very necessary post shows that the revenue budget of the County Council is circa £800M and when the capital spend and repayments on long term borrowing are added in the outturn is well over £1Bn.

The job, although not unique in Local Government is probably the least attractive career move available at this moment in time for a sum that can be got for doing similar work in much smaller, better organised Councils with far more protection from bullying and where you may return home from work in the evenings feeling you have achieved something for the effort you put in.

Not wanting to dampen anyone's spirits further who feels they have something to offer the County of Northumberland but the record of not being able to show any support whatsoever to officers and where Councillors put their own reports into the public domain to belittle their workforce, ignoring any sort of audit trail leaning towards the truth begins to show why staff turnover is ridiculously high, why the Council has not been able to deliver Best Value and had it accounts ‘qualified’ (thats posh accountants speak for failed) for the last 4 years and is being politically swamped in a ‘weed war’ from both its opposition Councillors and its Parishes, (Northumberland is fully parished) who once believed they were enhancing services and protecting local jobs now finding that unless your Parish is Tory led your being double charged, with many parishes paying more than half of their precept in environmental payments for work that's being done within other parish boundaries than their own.

The basis for that accusation can be simply seen in areas such as Blyth with its forests of street weeds and unkempt shrubberies who paid over £600,000 to enhance environmental services during the last financial year and its neighbour, Tory led Cramlington who kicked Northumberland Local Services out of much of its works program yet the work left with its own Tory led County Council is far superior to that of the Parish of Blyth with only half the cash being spent to have that work completed in a similar sized geographical area.

The weed and litter wars will continue to drag on until a change of administration takes place at County Hall or until the Council and its internal audit partnership begins to get a grip of why delivering Best Value for residents is essential and equity for cash spent is spread across all Parishes within the whole County.

https://www.northeastjobs.org.uk/default.aspx?page=jobdetail&module=jobs-userjobdetails&jid=213772&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Reporting Litter and Street Problems
https://fixmystreet.com/

Nasties show nothing but contempt for Ashington!

The spin surrounding the potential reopening of the Ashington Blyth and Tyne line to passengers when coupled with the national disaster for the north and Midlands of the new Tory tax increases has helped illustrate how badly the Tory led Northumberland County Council and the Government have treated areas sitting in the top 10% of deprived areas nationally over the last decade.

 (if the government ever releases the cash to develop and reopen this rail line with most red wall projects frozen by the Treasury, local nasties now hope that a trimming of the £36Bn new Tory 'red wall' tax may find its way towards fulfilling at least one manifesto promise to the people of Northumberland!). 

If it goes ahead, Ashington will be the only town in Northumberland to get a station smack bang in the middle of its town centre to whisk its population to better employment in the Tyne and Wear conurbation as the proposed rail line reopening will share two stations with the well used Tyneside Metro system.

An application recently went through planning at the County Council to develop its town centre car park in readiness for any 'Royal' nod from Boris Johnson to get this 50year wait to reopen this line to passengers started. 

Immediately, the euphoria this news would develop in and around Ashington had cold water poured all over it when the leading Tory Richard Wearmouth, told the press that he would be placing punitive parking charges just in case people from his home town of Morpeth four miles away used Ashingtons car parks and travelled via this line to Newcastle, effectively destroying any opportunity for growth for the traders of Ashington to retain business on its high street that may been gained through an increase in footfall that a set of free to use car parks near a station brings.

This is another in a series of attacks on Ashingtons population by Councillor Wearmouths mob of nasty party Tories. Now historical newspaper articles show that in 2017, under his top dog control of regional Tory policy, he removed the Council's 'core strategy' document to ensure a Government backed garden village project on land next to his now disgraced mate Councillor Peter Jackson's land became stymied and stopped. Councillor Jackson backed by Councillor Wearmouth  said his new team would "produce a new Local Plan in three months", almost six years since there's still no new plan. But the problem for Ashington folk is that a 'core strategy' is a link to all Council policy including the policy to protect deprived areas. Without that policy in place Ashington and towns with similar problems are simply neglected by their Council. Residents pay all and get nowt.

Another blatant attack on Ashington was to stop the Labour Party plan to build a £32m town centre Council office block to bring 800 jobs to support trade on Ashington high street an element of their deprived area policy. with other workers spread into all of the counties market towns. 

The nasties stopped that job, paying millions in compensation to the development contractor and decided to modernise an aging almost empty out of town building designed to house 6000 workers in Morpeth. That project has run for five and a half years and cost the ratepayer  £53m.* It is expected the trimmed by the Tories workforce that will be housed in their new 'Palace of dreams' will number about 500, plenty of space for staff to dodge the alleged nasty bullies you may think.

*figures provided by a defected Tory from the fracture group to the press.

Council Meeting getting very close to Thunderbird?

That's the string puppets and not the wine!

Wednesday 1 Sep 2021 saw Northumberland County Council meeting back on its home turf in Morpeth. This being the first meeting since the lifting of Covid restrictions it was expected that a good turnout would be had, particularly as the public agenda papers showed that the Council would hear a major private matter at the end of their televised debate.

Expectations from this current administration are in our eyes at the murky reporting desk very low indeed and the turnout from those who could probably walk or cycle to the meeting in the style of BoJo’s trips to Westminster was abysmal and without the shadow of a doubt limited to a single Morpeth mobber, the bespectacled Councillor Benyon.

The Leadership of the Council were tackled well through the series of questions from opposition Councillors and tried their usual chest stuck out answer to a question from their own ranks with their faces full of smiles particularly from the Leader of Council himself, the man on the platform made from loose scree, Councillor Sanderson and those viewing were able to see the strings being worked in fine Thunderbird fashion by Councilor Wearmouths foot.

Working the strings, the puppet master must have tired quickly as his failure to answer a single basic question on ‘Local Government Finance’ pitched to his front leg by the independent member from Stocksfield, Councillor Dale, showed how lightweight the current Leader Team is. We would have expected a better attempt from Councillors Oliver and Jackson at making something up even if it was unbelievable, but along with the remainder of their mob were noticeable by their absence.

The meeting then bumbled along until it came to Motion No1 with Labours Leader, Scott Dickinson pounding away about equality matters and women's rights, the LibDems letting themselves down as their Leader, the man who called his home town a dump, Jeff Reid from Blyth disgracefully tried to set the Council back 40yrs and harped on about the cost, when it came to the vote he was deserted by his team who must have been ashamed of his stand which was not expected from a LibDem.He needs to read the Lords report on women's equality from his own Party!

But the big problem facing Northumberland County Council, that of security of confidential papers was yet again damaged and the reputation of the Council left hanging in tatters by a thread through the number of Tories from Castle Morpeth who stayed away after they had been sent the confidential papers for the meeting. But reading social media pages from known Tories, they accused Labour of leaking the information into the news-ether as allegedly the Labour whips had a similar problem with their team during the non-televised part of the meeting when a number of their new Councillors disgracefully deserted the Labour Group after the Council went into a confidential session finding something more important to do elsewhere.

So we at Murky have to ask whose leaking the info to weaken the Council or are they all at it?