City of Teesside Deal Signed Today?

[fred c]

We have to presume that the various boroughs will have to also amalgamate the various council departments, finance, housing, social services etc etc etc, that would lead me to think job losses are highly likely.

Will TeesValley for instance have 6 CEO`s, 6 Borough Solicitors, 6 Finance Chiefs, I have no idea how many people work for the other authorites but HBC has over 4000 staff, i can`t see that being allowed to continue by the elected mayor, that fact alone makes me realise that Calamity & His Little Mob are only in it for what they can get out of it...... and B****x to the rest of us.

[steveL]

In my experience, whenever such changes take place, it's a case of 'think more, never less'.

When Cleveland County was set up way back in 1974, the old role of Town Clerk was done away with completely. The view of the Tory Government at the time was that these larger authorities would have budgets comparable to medium sized private companies and so their structure and remuneration packages should reflect this. As a result, the role of Chief Executive was created along with numerous Directors. Salary bands comparable with the private sector were established and, by and large, a lot of people did very well out of it when the higher salaries within local authorities rocketed.

Twenty two years later in 1996, Cleveland County was scrapped and broken back up into 4 Unitary Authorities but this time each would have its own Chief Executive and Directors and because the Job Titles remained the same - so did the salaries. These were halcyon days for those in the upper echelons of local authorities. The shortage of existing Directors meant that large numbers of Heads of Department found themselves promoted to positions well above their competence level.

I can also remember that when the Poll Tax was introduced, additional staff were recruited to cope with the change only for yet more additional staff to be recruited when the Poll Tax was replaced with Council Tax. In HBC's case, it was also thought necessary to extent the frontage of the Civic Centre to accommodate the numbers, only to be extended again at a cost of £1.1m to accommodate the trendy new 'Contact Centre'.

Remembering that this whole thing started with comparisons being made with the Private Sector, we had, at the end of it all, a perfect example of how the culture of the public sector operates in a way which is nothing like the Private Sector.

In the private sector, rationalisations are very common after structural change; in the Public Sector, things just get bigger.     

[fred c]

It was on Look North tonight....... And surprise surprise, Hartlepool never got a mention... Carl (I forgot to Post the Letter) Richardson was in the back row of the photo lineup.

[steveL]

"Mr Osborne travelled to the region to sign devolution agreements for the North-East in Gateshead and the Tees Valley in Stockton, offering both areas directly elected mayors with powers over employment and skills, transport and planning from 2017"

So about the same time the new local plan will be finished, responsibility for planning will pass to a Teesside city elected Mayor and Cabinet full of unelected Quangocrats and 'local entrepreneurs'. Well at least there won't be a need for back-door meetings at Wynyard anymore when the same people can find themselves in the Cabinet.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13893308.Deal_or_no_deal__Chancellor_and_council_leaders_disagree_over_devolution_process/?ref=rss

[steveL]

The Spin machine is going into over-drive but this is still worth a read:

http://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/info/100004/council_and_democracy/1968/q_and_a__devolution

[Inspector Knacker]

The ground for our future role as a backwater dormitory town appears to have been prepared forr sone time.
Even the pathetic interchange starts to make sense now. Interchanges are just basically places where buees dump their passengers to travel out of town on trains to where the jobs and services you use are.
I noticed some old faces from Cleveland on the TV feature.

[crisstw]

The Spin machine is going into over-drive but this is still worth a read:

http://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/info/100004/council_and_democracy/1968/q_and_a__devolution

There's a few parts in that doc that are quite interesting:

6. Will we be able to have a referendum on whether we want a Mayor or not?
No, there is a requirement under devolution legislation to have an elected Mayor.

No mention of having a referendum on actually joining this authority ? bunch of crooks!

12. What happens next?
All the five local authority Leaders and Mayor are signed up to the deal in principle, but it is subject to formal consent by each council. Meetings will take place shortly. The target date for having an elected Mayor and devolving the powers is May 2017.

Do they mean Middlesbrough's currently elected Mayor or have they already agreed a Mayor ... If it's Boro's current Mayor then we can assume that this is a press release from Boro Council.