Government Cuts

[swampy]

Given that the news today has been full of stories about local councils and central government needing to cut up to 10% of their budgets (15 milllion quid in Pompey), what services would you put against the wall and what would you prioritise to keep ?

I'd get rid of community safety wardens to start with, I cant see what they do, and they are less use than PCSOs' which is saying something...
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"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Hunter S Thompson
"Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death..." Hunter S Thompson

[Kickstart]

Hi

DVLA, at least the whole bit that deals with VED and SORN (just put a penny or 2 on petrol).

Motorway Wombles.

Get rid of those driving constant changes in school curriculums.

All the best

Keith
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[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Constant changes to employment legislation.

Must be plenty of waste throughout the civil service, could probably cut a fair bit without affecting jobs too much.

Traffic Wombles.

Those solar powered road signs.

Stop road "improvements" for now. Concentrate on resurfacing rather than redesigning perfectly functioning junctions.
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[tatters]

The £9bn+ international development fund can be scraped for a start, its bloody outrageous it exsits in the first place let alone the current and past goverment ring-fencing it from cuts.
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[swampy]

What about local rather than central services ?

i.e Bin men, social workers, lord mayors Jag, that sort of thang...
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"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Hunter S Thompson
"Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death..." Hunter S Thompson

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

[Itchy]

[bazza]

All council jobs/departments whose descriptions contain one or more of the following words:

Outreach
Diversity
Sustainability
Equality
Biodiversity
Ethnic
Action
Multi-cultural
Awareness
Traveller
Regeneration
Gender
Compliance
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[dodgydog]

[The Wobbly Orange]

I hope that the defence budget is comparatively softly hit. Our forces are struggling enough as it is. Carriers unfit for purpose and delays to replacements. The destroyer fleet cut in half. The Nimrod MRA4 over budget to such an extent the order was cut by 60%

It is unfortunate that due to Afghanistan other areas of defence should suffer putting us in a weaker position for the war of tomorrow. Thankfully the overinflated welfare budget is being targeted first.
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People tell me I am lovely. How wrong they are!

[Ed Case]

[bazza]

[The Wobbly Orange]

Indeed it would have saved money in the long term and extended the lifetime of the ASW air force if a more modern airframe was used. It would have been a lot cheaper to fit the avionics into modified former airliners then shoehorning it into such a small aircraft.

Immediately you have cheaper maintenance costs due to simply having more space in the aircraft. You extend the lifetime. Only downside would have been a higher initial cost. Though with the clusterfuck of the MRA4 even this is probably no longer true. Even the wings didn't bloody fit!
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People tell me I am lovely. How wrong they are!

[Mister James]

They could've done the same with the Daring class destroyers - buying American Aegis hulls would've saved billions, and resulted in a more capable surface combatant. Our PAAMS radar may be great, but magazine size is woeful, the ships are under-armed, and half the shit doesn't work.
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>Soultrader Mister James, I bet you are a copper
>Bazza Wow. Eyes like a shithouse rat, you...

[colin1]

I'd get rid of all arts funding, and make our armed forces tiny.

We still have armed forces that do expeditionary work rather than defence work. This made sense when we had an empire, and admittedly did when it came to the falklands war, but otherwise, we should just have tiny defence force geared up to defend our nation, rather than invade others. Hardly any other countries gear up their army to do expeditionary work (invading other countries). It's practically just us and America, and I dont think we should be paying to help America out.

Admittedly we have a sizeable defence industry that has grown up off the back of our requirements that has expanded into supplying the world, and they could be affected, but the strong companies would still survive.

I'd change public sector pay scales, so they weren't agreed at a national level, and were negotiated locally, and individual by individual.

At the moment, public sector employees in the south often cant afford to buy their own home, while ones in the north live like kings, compared to non-public sector employees living in their area.

Much less sending people to prison, and much more tagging (ie people a prisoner in their own home).

Serious efforts made to stop paying subsidies to farmers, and lower import tarrifs on food from developing nations.

Relaxed rules on building housing in rural areas. Turn unproductive farmland into homes for people.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[Mister James]

[colin1]

If the tags dont keep the committed criminal at home, perhaps electric shock collar like you get for dogs might do the trick. I'm sure it would be possible to make something a lot more secure than home tagging is at the moment.

I heard on the radio this morning, that it costs more to keep a crim in jail for a year than it does to send a boy to Eton. If some of that funding was channelled into more effective tagging systems, I'm sure we could send less middle criminals to prison, so prisons dont have hard cases teaching the little uns to become proper hard cases.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[Kickstart]

[Mister James]

[Itchy]

[Mister James]

'ooman rights bruv, 'ooman rights!

I think it's right to maintain a certain level of civilisation behind bars; even if most of the scumbags don't deserve it, it helps maintain moral high ground - and we're all only a few beers and a tantrum away from doing porridge ourselves!

Like I said, I don't mind paying 40k to keep these people off the streets - you would not believe the money they cost us in the community.

Most of the costs - as in any organisation - are down to staffing costs.

30-40% of that money goes straight back to the government in NI and Income tax anyway, so it's actually not the money-pit that some would have you believe.
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>Soultrader Mister James, I bet you are a copper
>Bazza Wow. Eyes like a shithouse rat, you...

[Ste]

[Mister James]

I was about to click 'agree' until that last sentence Ste! Cunning!

I agree ref. council tax especially - because you do time but STILL owe the money when you come out!

The RSCPA seems to manage to get substantial convictions for animal cruelty offences (it prosecutes itself, rather than using the CPS) - all well and good, but they are ALWAYS higher than the sentences doled out for cruelty to humans! Lets concentrate on those first, eh?
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>Soultrader Mister James, I bet you are a copper
>Bazza Wow. Eyes like a shithouse rat, you...

[Skudd]

Prison does work....... takes someone who was into guns and riots etc, makes them into model humans......... look what it did for Nelson Mandela.
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[Harold_Shand]

I work for a council, we had a mass meeting today at very short notice, 350+ blokes in the car park, we're having to lose 1000 of 7000 jobs throughout the council. Front line services are stupidly stretched as it is, they are asking for volountry redundancies and for people to consider changing to part time or job share. Made for a very productive afternoon

It wouldn't be so bad, but thousands went last year due to our council merging with three other councils. As it is, if two people are off sick on the same day it fucks our whole gang up. They got rid of office stuff last time... where the fuck are these cuts going to be made?

I don't get it, putting people out of work to save money whilst bringing unemployment down??? There's a big scrap-heap ahead, and in the name of 'benefit cheats' there's going to be fuck all in the pot for us if we do get the boot.
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Harold_Shand's theory might be the best explanation.