New Year Resoluitions?, Thinking ahead for 2013 - Let's abolish the Councils Options

[On the edge]

Time after time in these threads, the reason for not taking action, doing things or even bad administration is put down to the fact that the Councils have very little real power. Everything they touch is severely constrained by legislation or central diktat.

So then, do we really need some 50 WBC councillors plus an extremely well paid full time executive team of 17, not including their personal assistants or departmental staffs, to run this centrally defined almost impossible to change function? Notwithstanding today's economic conditions, this seems to be a very expensive and unnecessary luxury. What do the Councillors actually do that could not just as easily and probably far more efficiently, be done by half a dozen?

This situation is even worse when seen against the rest of our local administration. The Parish Councils have even less power and even less responsibility. Yet in West Berkshire, there are over 50. That does not include Residents Associations, Neighbourhood Action Groups or Police
Commissioners. Take just one parish, Newbury and there are some 20 plus councillors plus a dozen paid staff.

If we are honest about it, the work involved is hardly complex or dynamic. That's not to say most of the work does not need to be done, rather we need to eliminate the over expensive and unproductive executive layers. Arguably, in a geography the size of West Berkshire a single local administrative function is more than sufficient and that still only generate sufficient work for half a dozen councillors.

So then, New Year Resolution - loose some financial weight; lets have one council and six councillors.