When local authorities run down and disappear who cleans up?

[megilleland]

When local authorities run down and disappear who cleans up? Is this the future trend - private sector compies hitting people over the head with fines.

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Tory-run council runs out of money to meet obligations

(extract from The Guardian)

A Conservative-run county council has signalled it is close to effective bankruptcy after admitting that “severe financial challenges†mean it is unable to meet its financial obligations in the current year.

Northamptonshire county council issued a section 114 notice on Friday afternoon imposing financial controls and banning expenditure on all services except for its statutory obligations to safeguard vulnerable people.

A section 114 notice is effectively an admission that a council does not have resources to meet current expenditure, that its financial reserves are depleted and that it has little confidence that it can bring spending under control in the near future. It is understood Northamptonshire is the first local authority to issue a section 114 notice for two decades.

 

From the BBC:

The council announced in December that it was looking to increase council tax by almost 5% as it sought to make savings of £34.3m. It was then revealed in January it was considering selling its new £53m headquarters, which officially opened in October. Last month, the government said an inspector would look into allegations of financial failings at the authority.

So here are our saviours! From the Daily Mail today:
 

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Britain's first 'private police force' has caught 400 criminals with a 100 per cent conviction rate after taking on cases regular officers are too busy to look at. It comes as police chiefs admit they do not have the money to investigate high- volume crimes such as shoplifting and stretched officers complain that they are at breaking point.

But critics fear the rise of private policing could lead to a two-tier system where only the wealthy get protection from criminals.

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh described the rise of private detectives as a staggering indictment of the state of policing.

Eventually there will be a two-tier system with the haves and the have-nots, and if you have money and live in a £20million house in Chelsea you can pay for private security, he said.
Critics fear the rise of private policing could lead to a two-tier system where only the wealthy get protection from criminals

My concern would be, where is the public scrutiny if it goes wrong? If they are allowed to go and do polices job for them, that is a dangerous status quo.

Last week official police figures revealed the largest recorded annual increase in crime for more than a decade, with surging levels of violence, sex attacks, knife and gun offences across the country.

Money to be made here:

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Fury as mum fined £600 and threatened with jail for putting cardboard box in WRONG BIN
 

Alison Mapletoft says she was warned she could be sent to jail and the outrageous threat reduced her eight-year-old daughter to tears.

Enforcement firm 3GS, who were hired by Brighton and Hove City Council, fined the 39-year-old after the bin blunder.

It seems the local authorities and the government don't want to create local jobs, but to employ a corporate body who will fine you and still leave the council to clean up the mess. Do we get a reduction in our council tax as a result of more outsourcing?