Bloody Council!

[bobby47]

You'd think that ordering Stationary from a local firm would be bloody easy for the Council wouldn't you. I mean, you employ someone who, every so bloody often phones the local company up and says, 'send me a box of your finest A4 paper my dear good man' and the local company says,'Yes, we'll deliver it. That'll be ten pounds thank you very much'.

And until very bloody recently,this was the way in which this paper eating bureaucratic beast of burden the Council acquired their paper. They'd phone up, the local firm would say, 'hoorah! More paper for the Council to eat through and ten bloody quid from our pile of wealth was taken and paid for the endless piles of paper this parasitic beast consumes each and everyday of the week.

Well, not anymore! No bloody Sir'ee. They've outsourced that little head scratching excercise. Now, the Council employee phones the little local firm to be told, 'We cannot deal with you directly. You must phone the company who now deal with the Stationary, tell them you want a box of paper, they'll phone us up, place the rotten order and they'll say how much it'll cost you, when it'll be delivered and that's all you now need to know.

Course, the sting in the tail is, because the agent acting for the Council likes a lump of bloody sugar that box of A4 paper that we once paid ten quid for,now costs us fifteen bloody quid. The local firm still get their ten quid, the Council still get their bloody paper but now, because of an outsourcing firm that may be Balfour Beatty, they get five quid for arranging the transaction.

It makes you want to hurl phlegm. A curse on this Council!

[flamboyant]

It gets better!

 

I saw somewhere someone asking about the public realm contract, well I think this might be it but not sure!

 

https://beta.herefordshire.gov.uk/media/7848222/Hereford_Service_Information_final_14_May_2013_V1_00_c_FOI_Version.pdf

[stupidfrustration]

Ahhhhhhh bobby - I fully understand what you are saying here.

 

It frustrates me that this happens and sadly it's not just paper is it.

[Ubique]

This requires somebody from the Council to give reasons why they have done this AND tell us cynical posters how much cheaper this procedure is .

( Not holding my breath , again )

[twowheelsgood]

Its endemic in the so called 'public' sector - was on a site today in Hereford where Welsh Water were working  - they needed 1.5 tonnes of stone to fill a hole - easy, pop down to Rotherwas, load up a couple of bags, job done. Except. They can't do that - they have to drive to Cardiff - pick up stone from the stone + 50% man and drive back. Its bloody madness, every knows its madness, but the only ones that can stop it are those profiting from it (one way or another).

[twowheelsgood]

Of course the council was part of a stationery buying group, West Mercia Supplies, with Worcestershire, Shropshire and Telford, but they sold the business in 2011 for £6.74m, only to see it resold a week later for £11m. Honestly, the lunatics are taking our money, throwing it away and running the asylum.

[bobby47]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Councillors of all political colours agreed to sit down together to form a steering group and seriously plan a return to Direct Services.

Problematic? Of course it is and our fiscally knackered County would certainly find it hard to ignore the sums of money now required to put this all back together, but we did it before and we could do it again. We could do it and others would most certainly follow.

Our Council is run by incompetent bungling idiots who've absolutely no idea on how to negotiate large contracts that involve the private sector. All these Council Directors were once spat out by the private sector and its this handicap of corporate incompetence that has become so costly to us all.

This could be done. With a little political will and a strong realisation that we can't continue like this we could turn the clock back, create our own jobs, provide direct services and save ourselves millions.

Somebody will do it one day. It's inevitable. Some Council will step forward, grasp the stinging nettle and do the unimaginable. Return to Direct Services.

When TwoWheels alludes to the 'asylum and the madness of it all', they ain't just words. It's completely true and we've gotta do something to help ourselves and stop this legal form of theft and criminal deception that's proven so costly to our fragile economy and our future economic prosperity.

I want some forward thinking Councillor to pick up the baton, run with this idea and through force of their personality and a drive to see this be openly discussed, I want something to be done to fire the imaginations of our communities who just might think this notion makes more sense than the current mad economic doctrine that we are all now following.