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/