No wonder councils going broke

[winkie]

10 minutes ago, kzb said:

Good question.

I'd think that pension cost is included in the quoted figures.  That is because pension contributions are paid as part of salaries, and the salaries are the biggest expense in providing services.

The local authorities pension scheme is a "funded" DB scheme.  Pension contributions are paid into it from salaries, and the pension scheme fund pays the pensions.

Old article but according to this a third of council taxes might now go towards staff pensions.....what is the truth?.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3005730/Third-council-tax-spent-staff-pensions-warns-leading-council-finance-chief.html

[zugzwang]

3 hours ago, kzb said:

Social care workers have to drive between clients, so the 20mph limits reduce productivity in social care, one of the big worries on this discussion.

The more people commute by bike, the fewer vehicles there are on the road.

[kzb]

2 hours ago, winkie said:

Old article but according to this a third of council taxes might now go towards staff pensions.....what is the truth?.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3005730/Third-council-tax-spent-staff-pensions-warns-leading-council-finance-chief.html

I get the impression that you people think there is some one-third additional money not accounted for that has to be paid by taxpayers.

It doesn't work like that.  An employee has a salary.  A few per cent is deducted as a pension contribution, and the council adds another few per cent of salary on top as the employer pension contribution.  That all goes into an investment fund which pays the pensions.

Now over the past 2 or 3 decades, the contributions have had to be increased.  I can't find just now what is the employer contribution rate but I suspect it will be around 20% of the salary bill.  if you went back 20-30 years it would've been say 13%.  So yes it has gone up, but not astronomically so.

[kzb]

1 hour ago, zugzwang said:

The more people commute by bike, the fewer vehicles there are on the road.

That's a bit of a non-sequitur ?

If you mean fewer motor vehicles, well perhaps, but it means the social care workers are stuck behind all the bikes, reducing productivity still further than the 20mph limit alone.

They are put in a nightmare scenario, drive behind the bike at 12mph or risk a fine getting past the thing by going faster than 20mph.

[kzb]

https://www.lgcplus.com/finance/councils-consider-seeking-pension-contribution-rate-cuts-21-12-2023/

the Local Government Pension Scheme currently has up to £100bn more than it needs to fund its pension promises, and cutting contribution rates could allow a typical large council to “reasonably save at least £20m a year”.

the overall funding level for the LGPS in England and Wales improved from 98% in 2019 to 107% in 2022, and “subsequent market movements have led to some funds experiencing further improvements”.

So there you are @winkie, the local authority pension fund is £100bn in surplus, and councils could save money by cutting their contributions.

[Stewy]

6 hours ago, winkie said:

Is your labour cheap?

For my productivity, yes... 

[dpg50000]

2 hours ago, Stewy said:

For my productivity, yes... 

Posting troll comments on an internet forum is not productivity.

[zugzwang]

8 hours ago, kzb said:

That's a bit of a non-sequitur ?

If you mean fewer motor vehicles, well perhaps, but it means the social care workers are stuck behind all the bikes, reducing productivity still further than the 20mph limit alone.

They are put in a nightmare scenario, drive behind the bike at 12mph or risk a fine getting past the thing by going faster than 20mph.

 

It's traffic jams that slow drivers up not cyclists. Take cars off the road and the standing traffic magically disappears. Copenhagen, the most bike-friendly city in the world where more than 50% of daily commutes are done by bicycle, also has the fastest four-wheel commutes, the quietest and safest roads and the cleanest air of any city in Denmark.

[onlooker]

12 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

 

It's traffic jams that slow drivers up not cyclists. Take cars off the road and the standing traffic magically disappears. Copenhagen, the most bike-friendly city in the world where more than 50% of daily commutes are done by bicycle, also has the fastest four-wheel commutes, the quietest and safest roads and the cleanest air of any city in Denmark.

It is also very flat. Unlike a lot of UK towns and cities. We could of course all buy electric bikes to help with the hills, but then most would end up stolen.

[MancTom]

10 hours ago, kzb said:

That's a bit of a non-sequitur ?

If you mean fewer motor vehicles, well perhaps, but it means the social care workers are stuck behind all the bikes, reducing productivity still further than the 20mph limit alone.

They are put in a nightmare scenario, drive behind the bike at 12mph or risk a fine getting past the thing by going faster than 20mph.

how do social workers manage in Amsterdam? 

[kzb]

2 minutes ago, MancTom said:

how do social workers manage in Amsterdam? 

@zugzwang

Social workers?  I guess you mean carers.

If you look at adverts for visiting carer roles, you will see you need to have a driving licence (and often to own a car!).

This is because the job entails going round multiple properties per day, carting equipment with you.  If you don't drive don't bother applying.  You get 35p a mile for using your own car.

I don't know what they do in Amsterdam.  I did read that over-75's in the Netherlands can now be euthanized, maybe if you do that, you don't need travelling carers ?

[MARTINX9]

2 hours ago, zugzwang said:

 

It's traffic jams that slow drivers up not cyclists. Take cars off the road and the standing traffic magically disappears. Copenhagen, the most bike-friendly city in the world where more than 50% of daily commutes are done by bicycle, also has the fastest four-wheel commutes, the quietest and safest roads and the cleanest air of any city in Denmark.

In many urban areas roads have been narrowed and congestion/traffic jams created to build cycle lanes - except almost no cyclists ever use them. Buses also get held up on the narrow roads. More cars idling in traffic - more pollution and more unhealthy pedestrians.

Creating space for a small number of cyclists - is therefore actually creating traffic jams which work to the disadvantage of the far more numerous pedestrians, drivers and public transport users.

You can't easily change or widen the road network in cities - without knocking down properties and causing chaos. London's population is 15 times that of Copenhagen - and typically built in a different way over centuries. So it really isn't comparable.

[kzb]

16 minutes ago, MARTINX9 said:

In many urban areas roads have been narrowed and congestion/traffic jams created to build cycle lanes - except almost no cyclists ever use them.

There should be an honest appraisal of the CO2 emissions and pollution caused by cycle lanes and cycling.  I actually suspect the net effect of cycling, especially when taking into account the loss of road space, is to increase both of those.

It's also a class issue, with the well-off holier-than-thou cycle commuter and the poor person caring for old or handicapped people in their homes, and "white van" services being held up.  That is real productivity, not pretend productivity.

Back on topic, councils can find any amount of money to restrict road use for drivers, but no money for anything else.  I think we have the right to ask what is going on.

[kzb]

John Redwood had something to say about this yesterday:

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2024/03/19/municipal-roads-are-letting-us-down/

.....Council after Council has set about narrowing roads, removing lanes, creating artificial barriers and bollards to restrict flow, cutting  traffic light green phases on busy roads, changing kerbs and painted lines, creating more special zones. They often take out parking spaces and raise the charges, leading to more vehicles circulating looking in vain for a parking place. Many streetscapes now are a slalom course festooned with many menacing signs. Large sums are spent on aggressive kerbs,with b fancy blockwork for carriageways.

All this undermines business productivity, limiting the number of calls someone can fit in. It adds greatly to business costs and therefore to prices of services as the self employed and businesses need to recoup the increased cost of transport and parking.  It adds to the stress on drivers and can make roads and junctions less safe,.....

[TheResponsibleHouseBuyer]

5 minutes ago, kzb said:

John Redwood had something to say about this yesterday:

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2024/03/19/municipal-roads-are-letting-us-down/

.....Council after Council has set about narrowing roads, removing lanes, creating artificial barriers and bollards to restrict flow, cutting  traffic light green phases on busy roads, changing kerbs and painted lines, creating more special zones. They often take out parking spaces and raise the charges, leading to more vehicles circulating looking in vain for a parking place. Many streetscapes now are a slalom course festooned with many menacing signs. Large sums are spent on aggressive kerbs,with b fancy blockwork for carriageways.

All this undermines business productivity, limiting the number of calls someone can fit in. It adds greatly to business costs and therefore to prices of services as the self employed and businesses need to recoup the increased cost of transport and parking.  It adds to the stress on drivers and can make roads and junctions less safe,.....

Has a point. I'm no longer afraid of going on the roads expecting to get involved in an accident. I'm afraid i will drive down the wrong lane leading to a no through zone or bays littered with cameras ready to dish out a hefty fine and points on my licence.

[kzb]

2 hours ago, TheResponsibleHouseBuyer said:

Has a point. I'm no longer afraid of going on the roads expecting to get involved in an accident. I'm afraid i will drive down the wrong lane leading to a no through zone or bays littered with cameras ready to dish out a hefty fine and points on my licence.

The agenda is nothing to do with safety, it is about making driving as slow and unpleasant as possible.

This is why you won't see any proper independent analysis of the safety/pollution improvements of 20mph limits and all the other anti-driver measures.  Because that is not really what they want to achieve, and they don't actually achieve any improvements in those areas.  Publishing the real figures would expose the real agenda.

[kzb]

3 hours ago, MARTINX9 said:

London's population is 15 times that of Copenhagen - and typically built in a different way over centuries. So it really isn't comparable.

Copenhagen  seems quite close to Liverpool as a comparator city.

The populations are similar (metro area c. 1.3m, city region c. 2m)  and they are both coastal, i.e. they get the sea breezes.  As a small town boy, Liverpool is big town to me, but I also realise it is nowhere near London in size.

Wonder how the air pollution compares between Copenhagen and Liverpool UK?

Edited March 20 by kzb

[winkie]

Low traffic neighbourhoods...... nightmare, diverting traffic and noise and pollution into poorer roads.....takes three times longer, three times as much pollution to get anywhere.....better out of it, freedom, know when no longer wanted.

[zugzwang]

8 hours ago, onlooker said:

It is also very flat. Unlike a lot of UK towns and cities. We could of course all buy electric bikes to help with the hills, but then most would end up stolen.

"Life! Don't talk to me about life."

[zugzwang]

6 hours ago, kzb said:

John Redwood had something to say about this yesterday:

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2024/03/19/municipal-roads-are-letting-us-down/

.....Council after Council has set about narrowing roads, removing lanes, creating artificial barriers and bollards to restrict flow, cutting  traffic light green phases on busy roads, changing kerbs and painted lines, creating more special zones. They often take out parking spaces and raise the charges, leading to more vehicles circulating looking in vain for a parking place. Many streetscapes now are a slalom course festooned with many menacing signs. Large sums are spent on aggressive kerbs,with b fancy blockwork for carriageways.

All this undermines business productivity, limiting the number of calls someone can fit in. It adds greatly to business costs and therefore to prices of services as the self employed and businesses need to recoup the increased cost of transport and parking.  It adds to the stress on drivers and can make roads and junctions less safe,.....

 

Undermine business productivity? Entire industries have been allowed to collapse and then been exported to the Far East by Deadwood and his chums! If you think there's too much traffic on our roads you should personally thank him for letting another twelve million immigrants settle here since 2010.

[zugzwang]

3 hours ago, winkie said:

Low traffic neighbourhoods...... nightmare, diverting traffic and noise and pollution into poorer roads.....takes three times longer, three times as much pollution to get anywhere.....better out of it, freedom, know when no longer wanted.

 

The govt's long awaited LTN review was published last week. Sunak and the Tory billionaire press hyped it up, hoping to expand their vile culture war agenda against another minority. What it revealed, however, was not what they were expecting.

 

https://lcc.org.uk/news/ltn-report-2024/

The central part of the new announcement is the long-awaited and much-talked-up ‘review’ of LTN schemes the government ordered. The government talked this up as if it was going to showcase all that is ‘wrong’ with LTNs. Except, leaked last week to The Guardian, then fully released now, it does the opposite.

Broadly, the findings for 99 LTNs delivered since the start of the pandemic revealed, that LTNs cut traffic volumes and pollution levels (although the results on boundary roads can be “mixed”), don’t impact emergency services response times (again, results for Disabled people are “mixed”), and do cut road danger and crime.

Less than 20 percent of those delivered during the pandemic have since been removed – marking the LTN schemes and indeed the ‘trial then consult’ approach as being successful in broad terms. And while many residents are unclear across the four LTN schemes surveyed in greater detail (near 60% of residents didn’t know there was an LTN), support among these people is generally twice the level of opposition.

It’s interesting too that proportions of support and opposition were broadly replicated across all ages and genders and for those who responded as Disabled or with a health condition. Interestingly, those who said they were business owners in the area were markedly more positive about the LTNs than the general responses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those opposed to the LTN were also more likely to not see issues with pollution and traffic as seriously.

[bomberbrown]

6 hours ago, TheResponsibleHouseBuyer said:

Has a point. I'm no longer afraid of going on the roads expecting to get involved in an accident. I'm afraid i will drive down the wrong lane leading to a no through zone or bays littered with cameras ready to dish out a hefty fine and points on my licence.

^ This!

[kzb]

35 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

 

Undermine business productivity? Entire industries have been allowed to collapse and then been exported to the Far East by Deadwood and his chums! If you think there's too much traffic on our roads you should personally thank him for letting another twelve million immigrants settle here since 2010.

If you read his blog, JR is clearly at odds with his own government on a vast number of issues.  One of them is immigration.

But I do agree that he was an important figure in the Thatcher government, which threw our industry under the bus.  Now he writes like that never happened.

[asd]

5 hours ago, winkie said:

Low traffic neighbourhoods...... nightmare, diverting traffic and noise and pollution into poorer roads.....takes three times longer, three times as much pollution to get anywhere.....better out of it, freedom, know when no longer wanted.

It's not just through traffic forced to use the main roads rather than drive through the ltn, it's also those who live inside the ltn who have to exit their sector and drive around the perimeter.

The first part has a people friendly rationale, streets for walking, kids can play less pollution.

The second part is a deliberate attempt to make driving anywhere less attractive. Social engineering usually by labour councils. Evil.

When they had the consultations only the first aim was discussed, the second aim has been divulged later as the real agenda.

[kzb]

2 hours ago, zugzwang said:

 

https://lcc.org.uk/news/ltn-report-2024/

What a load of cobblers.

If you ask people in a street if they want to stop traffic down that particular street, then of course they are going to say yes.

If you include the mobile carers, delivery drivers, plumbers, electricians etc you will get a different response.

Also the people desperately trying to get to work in time, so they don't get sacked, and so they pay the taxes to pay the pensions and benefits of the people in the street.

If you were to ask the people in the street we'll stop the traffic, but that also means we'll stop your benefits as a consequence, you might get a different response also.