WASTE

I don't know about you, but I don't really like to waste stuff, be it food, money, time, etc. Val and I are quite similar in this respect, if we cook a meal and have some left over we will either freeze that or have it the next day, and we try to keep ourselves busy in the day (maybe a little too busy at times). I suppose for me, when I look at waste and I look at our society it really irks me at how wasteful we are. A study into food last year and the amount; we, the supermarkets, restaurants, small shops and other businesses threw away came up with a figure of somewhere in the region of 20 million tonnes thrown out never to be touched. The report put this down to sell by dates, buy one get one free and paranoia over food poisoning (health and safety). This is one issue, if we then take a look at some other areas we will see that this is an epidemic running through our whole society. What I am going to do is list a number of areas in which either the government or local authorities waste our money (remember, this is your money). Some of the figures are a couple of years old as it is very difficult to get up to date figures from the government, this has more to do with red tape than anything else. I will start off with a big one.

QUANGOS (Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental organisations) Figures from the TaxPayers' Alliance show that the total cost of these organisations in 2009 was nearly £90 billion. More than 250 cheif executives of Quangos earned £150,000 or more in 2008-09.

Regional Fire controls are currently sitting empty costing £40 000 a day, that is £14.6 million a year, and these have been sitting empty for years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The Government decided to go ahead with Regional Controls without speaking to those who operate them, they set an original budget of £1 billion, they have so far overspent by £400 million and the cost is still rising.

The NHS currently costs us over £101 billion every year, think about this, the NHS is the largest employer in Europe and the 4th largest in the world. Surely if we are putting this amount of money into it we should have the best health service in the world. As you can imagine because of bad management, bad practice and a focus on Government targets we have a huge amount of money wasted.

The EU elected its' first President, he is paid £320 000 a year, he has new offices and staff which we are all paying for.

The EU Parliament In Strasbourg sits empty for 40 weeks a year whilst the rest of the year MEPs' meet in Brussels, this costs us over £400 million pounds.

The Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council (which has one of the smallest populations of any county in England) is paid £217,000 a year, more than the Prime Minister.

The Government spent £400 million on 'cost control' for the Olympic Games (I know you couldn't make this up).

Hull City Council in 2008 spent £300 000 on the design of a new logo that looks like a cog, then decided that the old logo was in fact better so continued to use the 3 crowns logo.

Bournemouth City Council spent £6 million on a coastal erosion prevention scheme, which involved the placement of stones onto the beach. They have since removed them at the cost of £165,ooo in order to gain back the lost tourism.

In September 2009 Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service awarded it's Chief a %15 pay rise (£14, 500) even though this country was in the depth of a recession, the Chief then announced his retirement 6 weeks later. He has retired on a final pension salary scheme.

The chief of Suffolk Fire and Rescue announced in February 2010 that he was to get a £6000 pay rise even though fire fighters won't get a pay rise in 2010. Suffolk Fire and Rescue are currently looking to get rid of 22 front line wholetime fire fighters (It does amaze me how insensitive this really is, considering the financial situation this country is in).

Hounslow Council last year spent £120 000 on Ethnic Alcohol Counselling (whatever that is).

The European Central Bank found that if the UK's public spending were as efficient as that of the US, or Japan, the Government could spend 16% less than it currently does, while still producing the same level of public services. The Government spent in 2007-08 about £590 billion on public services, this suggests public spending could be slashed by £94 billion without any deterioration in public services.

I could go on and on, unfortunately this is a tiny drop in the vast ocean of waste that you the taxpayer fund. In any organisation you are going to get waste, whether down to mismanagement or fraud but isn't it about time that these people who are in charge are held to account for this. I feel angry about this and I believe there are a lot of people out there who feel the same. This country is in a mess financially and unfortunately this is having an affect upon front line services.
Let me end with this. as most of you know I work for the Fire service and I see and hear on a day to day basis about waste. I will give 2 examples here: Firstly in 2005 Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service ordered a new appliance, a combined aerial rescue pump (CARP) to replace it's Turntable ladder (100 ft specialised ladder), this cost Suffolk taxpayers £500 000 and has never been used because the chassis that suffolk ordered was to small for the aerial ladder and cab. Suffolk have now got a chassis which is never going to be used and we still have the old Turntable ladder and no one has been held to account for this. Secondly since 1997 the amount of management within the fire service has increased by 40 percent and wholetime fire fighters have been cut by 3.5 percent and all fire and rescue services are going to make even more cuts.
I think enough said!!