There is no denying that working practices have changed. But Town Hall bosses should not indulge in foolish experiments at the expense of Council Taxpayers.
The way to motivate staff is to treat each of them as an individual, with flexibile conditions and a pay offer to reward success and hard work.
We should require Sutton Coldfield Town Council now to be given more control over local services and functions.
The problem for the Council is not that it is taxing too little. It is not that is has been unfairly treated. The difficulty is that it is spending too much.
Those paying the most as a percentage of income are not receiving better services than those paying the least. The burden is greater. The benefits are not.
As of 2021, 75 per cent of all councils have declared a climate emergency with varying target dates spawning an endless process of consultations. These projects and schemes all represent time and money that could be devoted to delivering services for residents at value.
We all know that a stable and supportive home environment is a fundamental building block for a happy and productive life.
We promised prudent financial management practices, focusing on reducing the debt the Council has amassed on wasteful vanity projects. We would keep Council Tax rises to the absolute minimum and invite private investment into our six towns.
When key performance data finally landed, the results were clear: relative to before the pandemic, most metrics got worse. Spending on agency staff, a key justification for the trial, went up, not down as was intended.
The pandemic forced us to work in a different way. Digitalisation has seen massive savings of £58 million.
We ran a data-driven campaign to identify our targets and ensure we could win. Our local team knows we would have made further gains if many Conservatives hadn’t decided to stay at home.
If a council is in trouble, then the more daylight on the matter the better – publishing accounts acts as that daylight. The first step to solving a problem is recognising it exists.
The Commissioners have restored good order. But they have failed to tackle profligate municipal spending and the high Council Tax burden on residents that results from it.
Conversations with them have shown time and again, that they are either oblivious to the scale and imminence of the threat, or they are ignoring it.
Our investigation into occupancy rates at council buildings found that offices were only around 40 per cent full.