Advice to CCC re making savings

Mark James has said that the council need to make savings of some ridiculous amount. Perhaps he should look at getting rid of all the "directors" of services including his own post, at a rough guess that must surely save a million quid a year. I'm not sure that the present executive board provides any true value for money either and then there are the toothless scrutiny committees.

The next to go would be any office space that the council rent rather than own, followed swiftly by its vanity publishing effort that gets shoved down our throats whether we want it or not. Maybe they ought to call in the various loans that have been given to lame ducks and get the development companies to pay proper amounts for land released at peppercorn rents.

I wonder how much money is wasted on software and computing but huge amounts could be saved by using open source software; a lot of cities and regions in Europe have migrated to Linux on servers and desktops for annual savings of millions of pounds, several US government departments have done the same.

The one thing they shouldn't do is close public toilets in busy seaside villages, Pendine, Laugharne, Llansteffan and Ferryside to name but a few, or else the piles of ordure will put off the very welcome visitors who use the local businesses!

yet another Meldrew moment

In this weeks Journal and other places on the web Mark James is unapologetic over the Ombudsman's condemnation of the council and offers the advice that it would have been better to keep them in  a B&B. I am shocked that a so called "civil servant" should be so uncivil!

This is the man who blithely shifts in imaginary funds from next years budget to cover a shortfall in the financing of a local care home.

This is a man who wishes to cow council tax payers and lobbyists by threatening to sue for costs against any protest by any group.

This is a man who dismisses constituents concerns as being unworthy of mention in a full council meeting, is he as dismissive to everyone?

Time is coming when somebody who can actually do something might notice how this man blights our reputation here in Carmarthenshire!

As the honourable Victor said "I don't believe it"

Super Olympics

I am just returned from a day (Thursday 9th) in the Olympic stadium; the experience of the whole thing was amazing, on arrival we were whisked through security and someone spotted I was using two walking sticks and escorted us to a golf buggy to take us to near the stadium and when I got out a young man (thank you Mark) appeared with a wheelchair and zoomed us to ticket resolution who changed our tickets for up in the gods to much more accessible places just above the 100 meters start line; he also kept popping back to see if I needed help to get around.

We saw women's high jump heats, decathlon discus and pole vault and last but not least the 4x400 heats. There was a fantastic buzz all the time but when the GB sprint team was announced the buzz turned to a roar which seemed to get louder through each leg of the race, no wonder they qualified.

The sun shone brightly and food and drink was consumed and by 2pm we were thoroughly cooked and ready to go home, when Mark reappeared and whisked us back to the golf buggy shuttle to get back to the gate.

The stadium is brilliant and all the volunteers and other people seemed all to have taken happy pills, it could have been grating but wasn't. All the service personnel were absolutely great and the place was heaving with people, the only free space was around the heavily armoured and armed policemen although they were smiling and sweating heavily under their burden.

After a glorious few sunny days in London we have returned to situation normal and teaming rain, oh joy!

Faecal matter

I am sort of amused and horrified at the same time about the "Dog fouling costs £2m per year" headline in the local paper. I and five others spent last Monday wallowing through two ledgers that Carmarthenshire call their accounts and couldn't find out very much because of the way the information was presented, yet the chief executive was able to magic up the £2,000,000 figure in seconds. So Mr. James could you please tell me how you got the figures, as it was not easily apparent in the ledgers we were given?

Indeed our scrutiny of the books was frustrating, as we were only given fragmented books and could not have purchase ledger totals or a trial balance against which to work. How the council runs its business seems to me to be a whole lot of obfuscation and recharging, twas enough to make an old idiot's head spin.

So do they have something to hide?? In my humble opinion they certainly do!

The system is messed up.

I have been reading Polly Toynbee's piece about Cameron's big cut idea and I agree with everything she says and I would like to point especially to the comment by NorthMiner.

That Tesco, Morrisons et al make huge profits while staff are kept on minimal contracts and live mostly by working tax credits, the system is messed up.

Jimmy Carr pays 1% tax on a 3.3 million pound income and he was just one of the thousand on that particular scheme. News International, Vodaphone et al have elaborate tax avoidance schemes while people in the lowest tax bracket pay disproportionately more, the system is messed up. 

Politicians get paid a good wage and usually for two homes as well, families on benefits face being moved from their own neighbourhoods to distant "cheaper ones", the system is messed up.

Affordable housing is out of the reach of most of the lower paid and is snapped up by buy to rent schemes that bolster pensions of already well provided for people, the system is messed up.

MPs and civil servants will retire to index linked pension, the lowest earners will live in penury, the system is messed up.

I can't write any more, the system is messed up!

Learning to feed

The juvenile is now pecking at the fat balls for itself, with mum

There is also a cute pic of a tree rat eating fallen bird feed

Mother love

 On the bird table in the rain a woodpecker feeding a juvenile from the fat balls, so lucky to have the camera to hand and the batteries not spent

A right little punk with that distinctive red cap which doesn't show up if looking from the back
— in Llanybri, United Kingdom.