£91/2 Million in Handshakes no wonder you can't get your gran looked after

 

With Northumberland's Conservative Councillors suffering badly from neurotic self doubt with some of those sitting on the 'secret cabinet' probably also in malaise from chronic PTSD caught via open contact with some of their Leader's Councillor Glen Sanderson's dire decision making, as the latest report to hit them directly in the face has been issued by their own Government.

For a council who likes to ignore the plight of the majority of its residents and plough on tarmacing lightly used rural roads and beautifying County Hall in Morpeth with most of its available cash, the news that since 2017 they have paid off 572 members of their workforce spending £9.5m doing it.

Complaints regarding the lack of input from a Council bolstered by setting one of the highest Council tax rates in the UK whilst being heavily criticised when unable to deliver social services help to the elderly, ignoring the problems families have when contact is required from children's services and losing the faith of developers and builders when hiding behind a disastrous local plan which dumps housing numbers in areas of low profit and virtually bans new build across 96% of the County, with much needed social housing being almost nipped in the bud since May 2017 when austerity Jackson took the reins over from  Labour stating that "County Hall only needs a lick of paint" was that a valid reason to stop an excellent Council House building program?.

The Staffing situation has also been exacerbated by the rush of experienced people into the Civil Service, care workers moving over to the NHS to stabilize their future employment following the council's split with its health partner and professional officers leaving for higher graded posts in other local authorities not being replaced.

An open indicator to this negligence is the site 'fix my street' which is swamped with essential undone work that pre 2017 was regularly undertaken and satisfactorily completed but which is now ignored as the spend on the massive costs set against the Council when losing planning appeals as well as such luxuries such as County Hall in Morpeth and unfinished project investment like Britvolt which has drained the pot and left workers with little choice, either to accept redundancy or seek employment elsewhere.

Those that remain are under immense pressure to perform from Councillors who have been labeled bullies by a number of former staff and the deteriorating conditions which lean towards bullying are now set in stone through regular informal secret cabinets being held and inner wars between different groups of Conservatives with the ultra-right now in charge at a time when moderate thinking is required to resolve the myriad of problems dragging this administration through the mire.