Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Don't blame us - we're only in charge

Local press are covering the Annual Residents Survey this afternoon - you can see the story here - and the local SNP/Lib-Dem Administration are clearly trying to pin the blame for some truly appalling 'satisfaction with the Council' statistics on the trams, and the trams alone.

... now, even long-term supporters of the project would accept that the ongoing construction of the route is hardly endearing the public to trams at the present moment - but to try and avoid all political responsibility for some shocking figures by blaming one project just won't wash.

Please do have a look at the figures in the report - second table on page 5 of Appendix 1 is truly shocking ... satisfaction rates with the Council have dropped by nearly 20% in just 2-years; and dissatisfaction rates have gone up by over 15%

But it's okay really - the trams are to blame, nothing else - and the following list of post-May 2007 policy successes has nothing whatsoever to do with the current appalling ratings for the City of Edinburgh Council:

  • attempting to close 22 Schools and 4 Community Centres, immediately after new Administration took power in 2007
  • attempting to ‘gag’ school deputations at Council Meetings during this process
  • failing to establish a properly funded school building programme to aide any such school closure process
  • increasing the cost of school meals by 10p – an inflation-busting 6% rise
  • removing the hot meals service from 14 of the 18 Council Nursery Schools in the city
  • removing kitchen staff (and hot-food preparation) from 6 Primary Schools in the city
  • removing the offer of a hot meal on a Friday lunchtime from all Secondary Schools in the city
  • thus all (obviously!) damaging the uptake of healthy and nutritious school meals across Edinburgh
  • cutting devolved school budgets by 1.5% in their first budget – some £870,000 removed from schools
  • cutting £966,000 from the ‘SureStart’ programme in their first budget
  • signed a Single Outcome Agreement, thus accepting the Council should deliver SNP Government manifesto commitments with no additional resources being provided to do so
  • have thus failed to reduce class sizes significantly
  • have thus failed to commission any new school buildings
  • have thus failed to increase Nursery hours provision significantly
  • closed down several Community Newspapers across the capital, which were locally popular and key sources of community information
  • have closed down a raft of successful local community projects – latest example being ‘Instep’ at Castlebrae Community High School
  • totally mismanaged the Fairer Scotland Fund implementation, particularly in the North of Edinburgh
  • re-introduced old desks and chairs to Council meetings at a cost of over £112,000 – nearly £2,000 for each Councillors desk and chair
  • spending over £1,600 on introducing ‘traffic-lights’ into the Council Chamber to help the Lord Provost do his job
  • trying to spend £1.3million on ‘ceremonial flags’ for the city
  • trying to introduce ‘ceremonial robes’ back into the Council, indicating it would distinguish elected Members from the ‘Hoi Polloi

... and we're not even half-way through the current Council term yet :-((

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How much public money is being spent by TIE on Tram propoganda videos ?
Estimated £500-1000 per day for a video company to do this sort of work and doing videos like this one dont come cheap. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edinburgh-Trams/108054517028#/video/video.php?v=136819648771

Is this good value for money when the project is already overspending ?

The company making these videos were out at the West End only yesterday.

TIE even have a site on Facebook. Is this a good use of time and how much does it cost to maintain this presence.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edinburgh-Trams/108054517028

Andrew said...

Anonymous

Fair point - but don't forget that TIE are currently run by the SNP/Lib-Dem Council, so I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make?

Andrew

Anonymous said...

Should this blatant misuse of Public Funds not be challenged by the opposition then?

Are we not paying TIE to manage the trams project ? If so the why are TIE making propoganda videos to prop up the SNP/LibDem's viewpoint?

If the trams project is fully mandated by the people then why do we need the videos to pursuade the people that the trams are so wonderful ?

I really think this chap is laughing at the whole idea of the tram project

http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/img/content/media_collection/212874a9e9f876c200.JPG

Andrew said...

Anonymous

Apologies - I'd misread the angle you were coming from ...

... I will indeed try and get an answer to your general query and post the answer here and/or feel free to e-mail me at:

andrew.burns@edinburgh.gov.uk

- with your contact details.

Andrew

Anonymous said...

It's worse than you suggest. The increase & decrease you quote are in percentage *points*, the percentage change is far more dramatic (I think there's been a 76% increase in dissatisfaction and a 32% decrease in the approval rating, if my sums are right!)

Andrew said...

Anonymous

Thanks for the comment ...

... and yes, you're entirely correct and those are indeed the actual percentage changes :-(

Andrew

Andrew said...

Anonymous1

I've checked up on the monies being spent on tram videos etc. and am informed that the videos are actually being done at the request of (and with part funding from) West End (and other) traders who are very keen for them to continue and for the area/s affected by tram-works to be clearly promoted as very much 'open for business' ...

... hope that's of some help?

Andrew