"it has not worked out well. The few water companies that have remained publicly listed enterprises haven’t fared too badly, but the ones subsequently bought by private equity – including Thames Water – have been pillaged to destruction. Stripped down to the last lightbulb by rapacious financiers, they increasingly cut corners and are today in all kinds of trouble."
Warner, Telegraph
Is the Telegraph slowly growing towards an understanding of the nature of vulture capitalists?
Worth noting that the recruitment contract winner in Kent is “Connect2Kent” which is owned by Kent County Council.
This is accounting, not scandal.
I'm still interested in seeing the full story when it comes out.
If it is purely for recruitment, that is a very large number. Kent staff turnover (according to their website) is somewhere around 10-15% annually. Recruitment costs are around 10-15% of first year salary.
Yusuf says the total number amounts to "22% of their annual payroll". It's a four year contract, so the annualised cost is actually 5.5% of annual payroll.
If it is purely recruitment, then the cost shouldn't be much more than 1.5% ?
The Twitter thread is interesting. Reform quote £375m whilst linking to a tender worth £500m. Those are theoretical capped maximums of course - you pay per job not a fixed fee.
And what is the contract? Paying a recruitment agency to take all of the operational decisions about staffing temp contracts off the council - an arms length shield against jobs for the boys claims.
But let’s not pay out £lots to the private sector. We’re such a massive employer that we create our own agency solely to recruit for our needs.
So what is this scandal? Let’s assume for a second that the sum actually was £375m. Paid by Kent County Council to Connect2Kent - which is Commercial Services Kent Ltd which is owned by Global Commercial Services Group Ltd which is owned by Kent County Council.
So KCC would be paying £375m to KCC. The money never leaves the building.
And a lot of liability and hassle is shifted off the council's direct payroll into a separate company that probably makes a lot of sense.
In fact I wonder if it's not different from our council where HR and similar is done by a separate company that has ran it for both Darlo and Stockton councils for over 30 years because the extra scale makes sense.
There was promotion of them several years ago, and it's actually a mechanism that was on very early cycles - dating back initially to 1840 or so. For your standard cyclist, it is thought less smooth/inefficient as a general view - but can potentially be useful, as the chap suggests, for people with some movement limitations. I think the thinking around walking/wheeling-cycling have changed even in the last 3 or 4 years so that the conversation would now appreciate it more even in cycling circles - there is a recognition of common needs around pedestrians and cyclists. That's the junction I try to sit at.
A partly similar thing is that there are things around like adult balance bikes as a mobility aid, which is the same principle as kids balance bikes', or the Dandy Horse from early 19C times (German@ Laufmaschine).
There is a three wheeled one called the Alinker, which is like a 3 wheeled rollator with a seat, or a 3-wheeled sit down scooter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRieNPiR18
My photo a Swedish treadle bicycle form 1925:
As someone new to cycling as a 'sport', it seems extremely faddy. For years narrow tyres at high pressures were seen as being the best for speed; now, wider tyres at less pressure are seen as being faster. Rim brakes were overtaken by the now-dominant disc brakes; but I've seen people recently claim rim brakes are generally better for everything but very hilly rides. Tubeless are best! No! Tubes are best, but only TPU tubes (*)! Things sold at massive cost to save you a few watts and make you go half a km/h faster turn out not to be quite as good as promised, or even have negative benefit.
I'm currently looking for a time-trial / triathlon bike, and above (say) £2000 the gains really seem ultra-marginal for the increased prices. I've deliberately lost weight this year, as losing weight seems a more efficient way of improving speed...
(*) One guy at a recent gravel race had both tubeless and tubes; he had a tubeless setup with a tube within, so if he got a puncture the tubeless sealant could not deal with, he would just inflate the tube...
Wider tyres at lower pressure would have more contact area with the road service, and therefore a higher coefficient of friction - requiring more energy to push the bike.
That said, they may be practically better because very narrow tyres at very high pressure may not be as safe at high speed or in rain or in corners, leading cyclists to bleed off some speed to avoid crashes, whereas fatter tyres do not, so it all depends on how they're used.
There is some (potentially pseudo-) science about this, that states that fatter, lower-pressure tyres are faster due to the way they handle the road and things like reduced sidewall deformation. And the article below states that the move towards much stiffer carbon frames has been a significant driver, along with other info. Worth a read if you want more info, as it is slightly counter-intuitive.
Having said that, I daresay the trend in a decade will be towards narrower, higher-pressure tyres...
The trend for gravel bikes - Edinburgh is full of Caminos - means you have lots of people commuting on tyres that aren't optimal for commuting, imo. The comfort you get from the volume is great, but you have lower surface area due to the aggressive tread.
What you really want is high-volume slicks. If the Marathon Plus came with a tan sidewall...
Worth noting that the recruitment contract winner in Kent is “Connect2Kent” which is owned by Kent County Council.
This is accounting, not scandal.
I'm still interested in seeing the full story when it comes out.
If it is purely for recruitment, that is a very large number. Kent staff turnover (according to their website) is somewhere around 10-15% annually. Recruitment costs are around 10-15% of first year salary.
Yusuf says the total number amounts to "22% of their annual payroll". It's a four year contract, so the annualised cost is actually 5.5% of annual payroll.
If it is purely recruitment, then the cost shouldn't be much more than 1.5% ?
The Twitter thread is interesting. Reform quote £375m whilst linking to a tender worth £500m. Those are theoretical capped maximums of course - you pay per job not a fixed fee.
And what is the contract? Paying a recruitment agency to take all of the operational decisions about staffing temp contracts off the council - an arms length shield against jobs for the boys claims.
But let’s not pay out £lots to the private sector. We’re such a massive employer that we create our own agency solely to recruit for our needs.
So what is this scandal? Let’s assume for a second that the sum actually was £375m. Paid by Kent County Council to Connect2Kent - which is Commercial Services Kent Ltd which is owned by Global Commercial Services Group Ltd which is owned by Kent County Council.
So KCC would be paying £375m to KCC. The money never leaves the building.
And a lot of liability and hassle is shifted off the council's direct payroll into a separate company that probably makes a lot of sense.
In fact I wonder if it's not different from our council where HR and similar is done by a separate company that has ran it for both Darlo and Stockton councils for over 30 years because the extra scale makes sense.
One of many lessons from Musk's DOGE was some twenty year old software hack with a laptop taking a ten minute look at a list of figures without any input from the agency in question does not produce sensible costing decisions.
"it has not worked out well. The few water companies that have remained publicly listed enterprises haven’t fared too badly, but the ones subsequently bought by private equity – including Thames Water – have been pillaged to destruction. Stripped down to the last lightbulb by rapacious financiers, they increasingly cut corners and are today in all kinds of trouble."
because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
citation needed
Evidence on the intelligence of politicians
1) Over the last couple of days, we have been discussing the existence of a Scottish Assembly person of such a level of stupidity, that concerns about care in the community are justified. 2) Liz Truss 3) People in politics thought that Dominic Cummings was a genius 4) People in politics thought that Gordon Brown would go down well with the voters 5) Liz Truss 6) Liz Truss 7) Woking Council managed to loose a Kazzilion on property. In the midst of the longest sustained property boom in U.K. history. 8) : 10,041) Liz Truss
There is considerable scope for some truly egregious--> corrupt contracts to now see the light of day with all these council changes.
Labour can see these council changes come down the pike withi a year. They'd be very wise to start cleaning house. Might even help them keep some seats.
Except I think this is a full marketplace where the £350m is mainly being spent on paying the workers supplied via the contract.
The fact it's Mr Yusuf is not being 100% clear tells me that I don't think he's understands what he has found...
My guess he understands all too well, but is happy to score a point and is not particularly concerned with the truth. Yusuf used to run an upscale staffing agency so he should have a good idea how this stuff works. The question is what the new Kent Council is going to do about it. Presumably these staff are doing a required job.
By claiming to have found vast amounts of money that could be saved they're then obliging themselves to either spend it on something else or cut taxes.
Does anyone expect that to happen ?
Either way, it comes to around 3% of their total annual revenue budget.
So if even if it's all fraud (which seems implausible), it won't massively shift the dial.
If he's basically misleading everyone as the figure includes wage costs, then whatever difference they make on this alone will be close to imperceptible.
None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up.
If it is fraud on that scale, I'll be quite surprised. And it will be a huge story.
Not doing something because it is “only 3%” is part of the reason why there is chronic overspending in government
Did I suggest that ?
"None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up."
Evidently not.
The point was that it's very likely that most of this money is spent on wages. Managing it better might save 0.3% - which would be a decent amount of money, but not any kind yf magic bullet, which is what Reform seemed to suggest.
Can you provide evidence that the figure includes wage costs please?
the truth will out in the next few days: my money is on the sum including agency staff costs, because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
Furthermore, suppose something bad has happened.
If it's actual fraud, go to the police.
If it's incompetence, move on to finding how to unwind the contract to save the money.
Either way, you don't do a breathless post on social media. Trouble is that DOGE-UK, like its stateside friend, is based on the theory that everyone who isn't DOGE is relatively completely stupid.
When, in reality, the supporters of DOGE / DOGE UK seem completely stupid.
Or in the US, take the gullible along for a ride; enriching their friends whilst impoverishing their supporters.
It goes beyond that. Look at the politicians - MTG as an example. Or Matt Vickers having his arse handed to him by Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight.
It isn’t just that the voters are kept dumb - the politicians are morons. They don’t even understand what they are being told to say, so how do we expect the low-information voters they are trying to manipulate to know any better?
It's not quite that. Even the dumbest elected politician will be smarter than the dumbest voter. And some of these people, JD Vance or Dom Cummings, say, are clearly bright and well-educated.
I reckon the trouble is a kind of unwisdom that all people are prone to; having a worldview as a pair of spectacles that define the way that you interpret everything you see. Intelligent, knowledgeable people are more at risk, because they can better do the necessary mental contortions. Doublethink requires a lot of mental effort.
A lot of people of the Cummings/Musk worldview hero-worship Richard Feynman, and in many ways, fair enough. But as the great man said,
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
All this assumes Yusuf was fooled. I don't assume that. He used to run a very successful staffing agency and should have enough background knowledge to assess this arrangement properly.
My guess is Reform makes a big play of sorting out councils they take over with their version of DOGE. Somebody turned up this contract and Yusuf said, we can run with that. The whole thing is for show.
There was promotion of them several years ago, and it's actually a mechanism that was on very early cycles - dating back initially to 1840 or so. For your standard cyclist, it is thought less smooth/inefficient as a general view - but can potentially be useful, as the chap suggests, for people with some movement limitations. I think the thinking around walking/wheeling-cycling have changed even in the last 3 or 4 years so that the conversation would now appreciate it more even in cycling circles - there is a recognition of common needs around pedestrians and cyclists. That's the junction I try to sit at.
A partly similar thing is that there are things around like adult balance bikes as a mobility aid, which is the same principle as kids balance bikes', or the Dandy Horse from early 19C times (German@ Laufmaschine).
There is a three wheeled one called the Alinker, which is like a 3 wheeled rollator with a seat, or a 3-wheeled sit down scooter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRieNPiR18
My photo a Swedish treadle bicycle form 1925:
As someone new to cycling as a 'sport', it seems extremely faddy. For years narrow tyres at high pressures were seen as being the best for speed; now, wider tyres at less pressure are seen as being faster. Rim brakes were overtaken by the now-dominant disc brakes; but I've seen people recently claim rim brakes are generally better for everything but very hilly rides. Tubeless are best! No! Tubes are best, but only TPU tubes (*)! Things sold at massive cost to save you a few watts and make you go half a km/h faster turn out not to be quite as good as promised, or even have negative benefit.
I'm currently looking for a time-trial / triathlon bike, and above (say) £2000 the gains really seem ultra-marginal for the increased prices. I've deliberately lost weight this year, as losing weight seems a more efficient way of improving speed...
(*) One guy at a recent gravel race had both tubeless and tubes; he had a tubeless setup with a tube within, so if he got a puncture the tubeless sealant could not deal with, he would just inflate the tube...
Wider tyres at lower pressure would have more contact area with the road service, and therefore a higher coefficient of friction - requiring more energy to push the bike.
That said, they may be practically better because very narrow tyres at very high pressure may not be as safe at high speed or in rain or in corners, leading cyclists to bleed off some speed to avoid crashes, whereas fatter tyres do not, so it all depends on how they're used.
There is some (potentially pseudo-) science about this, that states that fatter, lower-pressure tyres are faster due to the way they handle the road and things like reduced sidewall deformation. And the article below states that the move towards much stiffer carbon frames has been a significant driver, along with other info. Worth a read if you want more info, as it is slightly counter-intuitive.
Having said that, I daresay the trend in a decade will be towards narrower, higher-pressure tyres...
The trend for gravel bikes - Edinburgh is full of Caminos - means you have lots of people commuting on tyres that aren't optimal for commuting, imo. The comfort you get from the volume is great, but you have lower surface area due to the aggressive tread.
What you really want is high-volume slicks. If the Marathon Plus came with a tan sidewall...
I tend to go by size (as large as possible) for a better ride, weight (ie low), puncture protection, and reputation for not being a drag (ie "fast", rolling resistance if on a nerd site).
For the last few years that has been Marathon Supreme. But I only have a couple left in stock, so it may be up for a change before long if I get back to doing some distance.
I'm not honestly sure whether I could even get a Marathon Plus off the Brompton. Since it has Marathon Pluses on it, at some point I will find out .
Worth noting that the recruitment contract winner in Kent is “Connect2Kent” which is owned by Kent County Council.
This is accounting, not scandal.
I'm still interested in seeing the full story when it comes out.
If it is purely for recruitment, that is a very large number. Kent staff turnover (according to their website) is somewhere around 10-15% annually. Recruitment costs are around 10-15% of first year salary.
Yusuf says the total number amounts to "22% of their annual payroll". It's a four year contract, so the annualised cost is actually 5.5% of annual payroll.
If it is purely recruitment, then the cost shouldn't be much more than 1.5% ?
The Twitter thread is interesting. Reform quote £375m whilst linking to a tender worth £500m. Those are theoretical capped maximums of course - you pay per job not a fixed fee.
And what is the contract? Paying a recruitment agency to take all of the operational decisions about staffing temp contracts off the council - an arms length shield against jobs for the boys claims.
But let’s not pay out £lots to the private sector. We’re such a massive employer that we create our own agency solely to recruit for our needs.
So what is this scandal? Let’s assume for a second that the sum actually was £375m. Paid by Kent County Council to Connect2Kent - which is Commercial Services Kent Ltd which is owned by Global Commercial Services Group Ltd which is owned by Kent County Council.
So KCC would be paying £375m to KCC. The money never leaves the building.
And a lot of liability and hassle is shifted off the council's direct payroll into a separate company that probably makes a lot of sense.
In fact I wonder if it's not different from our council where HR and similar is done by a separate company that has ran it for both Darlo and Stockton councils for over 30 years because the extra scale makes sense.
One lesson from the American FAR system of contracting is that you should really watch out when multiple layers of companies start being built up. They take overheads and profits at every levels.
When people talk about transferring liability and hassle… someone is *charging* for the flip side of that.
"it has not worked out well. The few water companies that have remained publicly listed enterprises haven’t fared too badly, but the ones subsequently bought by private equity – including Thames Water – have been pillaged to destruction. Stripped down to the last lightbulb by rapacious financiers, they increasingly cut corners and are today in all kinds of trouble."
Warner, Telegraph
That's why there's a water regulator.
Clearly doesn't work in that case.
Clearly not.
I wonder if there was a deeper problem though.
During the 2000s any foreign takeover of a UK business was hailed by Gordon Brown as 'investment' even when it was obviously a prelude to asset stripping and transferring the wealth abroad.
Perhaps that mentality also dominated the various regulators when it came to foreign takeovers, especially by foreign private equity, of UK utility businesses.
because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
citation needed
Evidence on the intelligence of politicians
1) Over the last couple of days, we have been discussing the existence of a Scottish Assembly person of such a level of stupidity, that concerns about care in the community are justified. 2) Liz Truss 3) People in politics thought that Dominic Cummings was a genius 4) People in politics thought that Gordon Brown would go down well with the voters 5) Liz Truss 6) Liz Truss 7) Woking Council managed to loose a Kazzilion on property. In the midst of the longest sustained property boom in U.K. history. 8) : 10,041) Liz Truss
I think you're confusing intelligence and judgement when the two are often no more than very loosely correlated.
There is considerable scope for some truly egregious--> corrupt contracts to now see the light of day with all these council changes.
Labour can see these council changes come down the pike withi a year. They'd be very wise to start cleaning house. Might even help them keep some seats.
Except I think this is a full marketplace where the £350m is mainly being spent on paying the workers supplied via the contract.
The fact it's Mr Yusuf is not being 100% clear tells me that I don't think he's understands what he has found...
My guess he understands all too well, but is happy to score a point and is not particularly concerned with the truth. Yusuf used to run an upscale staffing agency so he should have a good idea how this stuff works. The question is what the new Kent Council is going to do about it. Presumably these staff are doing a required job.
By claiming to have found vast amounts of money that could be saved they're then obliging themselves to either spend it on something else or cut taxes.
Does anyone expect that to happen ?
Either way, it comes to around 3% of their total annual revenue budget.
So if even if it's all fraud (which seems implausible), it won't massively shift the dial.
If he's basically misleading everyone as the figure includes wage costs, then whatever difference they make on this alone will be close to imperceptible.
None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up.
If it is fraud on that scale, I'll be quite surprised. And it will be a huge story.
Not doing something because it is “only 3%” is part of the reason why there is chronic overspending in government
Did I suggest that ?
"None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up."
Evidently not.
The point was that it's very likely that most of this money is spent on wages. Managing it better might save 0.3% - which would be a decent amount of money, but not any kind yf magic bullet, which is what Reform seemed to suggest.
Can you provide evidence that the figure includes wage costs please?
the truth will out in the next few days: my money is on the sum including agency staff costs, because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
Furthermore, suppose something bad has happened.
If it's actual fraud, go to the police.
If it's incompetence, move on to finding how to unwind the contract to save the money.
Either way, you don't do a breathless post on social media. Trouble is that DOGE-UK, like its stateside friend, is based on the theory that everyone who isn't DOGE is relatively completely stupid.
When, in reality, the supporters of DOGE / DOGE UK seem completely stupid.
Or in the US, take the gullible along for a ride; enriching their friends whilst impoverishing their supporters.
It goes beyond that. Look at the politicians - MTG as an example. Or Matt Vickers having his arse handed to him by Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight.
It isn’t just that the voters are kept dumb - the politicians are morons. They don’t even understand what they are being told to say, so how do we expect the low-information voters they are trying to manipulate to know any better?
It's not quite that. Even the dumbest elected politician will be smarter than the dumbest voter. And some of these people, JD Vance or Dom Cummings, say, are clearly bright and well-educated.
I reckon the trouble is a kind of unwisdom that all people are prone to; having a worldview as a pair of spectacles that define the way that you interpret everything you see. Intelligent, knowledgeable people are more at risk, because they can better do the necessary mental contortions. Doublethink requires a lot of mental effort.
A lot of people of the Cummings/Musk worldview hero-worship Richard Feynman, and in many ways, fair enough. But as the great man said,
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
All this assumes Yusuf was fooled. I don't assume that. He used to run a very successful staffing agency and should have enough background knowledge to assess this arrangement properly.
My guess is Reform makes a big play of sorting out councils they take over with their version of DOGE. Somebody turned up this contract and Yusuf said, we can run with that. The whole thing is for show.
In the immortal words of a man who appears to be a towering political genius when compared to the current incumbent:
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
There is considerable scope for some truly egregious--> corrupt contracts to now see the light of day with all these council changes.
Labour can see these council changes come down the pike withi a year. They'd be very wise to start cleaning house. Might even help them keep some seats.
Except I think this is a full marketplace where the £350m is mainly being spent on paying the workers supplied via the contract.
The fact it's Mr Yusuf is not being 100% clear tells me that I don't think he's understands what he has found...
My guess he understands all too well, but is happy to score a point and is not particularly concerned with the truth. Yusuf used to run an upscale staffing agency so he should have a good idea how this stuff works. The question is what the new Kent Council is going to do about it. Presumably these staff are doing a required job.
By claiming to have found vast amounts of money that could be saved they're then obliging themselves to either spend it on something else or cut taxes.
Does anyone expect that to happen ?
Either way, it comes to around 3% of their total annual revenue budget.
So if even if it's all fraud (which seems implausible), it won't massively shift the dial.
If he's basically misleading everyone as the figure includes wage costs, then whatever difference they make on this alone will be close to imperceptible.
None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up.
If it is fraud on that scale, I'll be quite surprised. And it will be a huge story.
Not doing something because it is “only 3%” is part of the reason why there is chronic overspending in government
Did I suggest that ?
"None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up."
Evidently not.
The point was that it's very likely that most of this money is spent on wages. Managing it better might save 0.3% - which would be a decent amount of money, but not any kind yf magic bullet, which is what Reform seemed to suggest.
Can you provide evidence that the figure includes wage costs please?
the truth will out in the next few days: my money is on the sum including agency staff costs, because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
Furthermore, suppose something bad has happened.
If it's actual fraud, go to the police.
If it's incompetence, move on to finding how to unwind the contract to save the money.
Either way, you don't do a breathless post on social media. Trouble is that DOGE-UK, like its stateside friend, is based on the theory that everyone who isn't DOGE is relatively completely stupid.
When, in reality, the supporters of DOGE / DOGE UK seem completely stupid.
Or in the US, take the gullible along for a ride; enriching their friends whilst impoverishing their supporters.
It goes beyond that. Look at the politicians - MTG as an example. Or Matt Vickers having his arse handed to him by Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight.
It isn’t just that the voters are kept dumb - the politicians are morons. They don’t even understand what they are being told to say, so how do we expect the low-information voters they are trying to manipulate to know any better?
It's not quite that. Even the dumbest elected politician will be smarter than the dumbest voter. And some of these people, JD Vance or Dom Cummings, say, are clearly bright and well-educated.
I reckon the trouble is a kind of unwisdom that all people are prone to; having a worldview as a pair of spectacles that define the way that you interpret everything you see. Intelligent, knowledgeable people are more at risk, because they can better do the necessary mental contortions. Doublethink requires a lot of mental effort.
A lot of people of the Cummings/Musk worldview hero-worship Richard Feynman, and in many ways, fair enough. But as the great man said,
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
All this assumes Yusuf was fooled. I don't assume that. He used to run a very successful staffing agency and should have enough background knowledge to assess this arrangement properly.
My guess is Reform makes a big play of sorting out councils they take over with their version of DOGE. Somebody turned up this contract and Yusuf said, we can run with that. The whole thing is for show.
The problem Reform have is that they are creating these false narratives and will then be expected to deliver savings - £375m in the case of Kent County Council.
They can't make the savings because the money isn't there to save. So what do they do then?
Morning all. Britain Elects model has forecast the by election as follows (and they caveat by saying much less polling data than theyd have liked). They rate Reform beating Labour as possible but unlikely. Same for SNP not winning.
Morning all. Britain Elects model has forecast the by election as follows (and they caveat by saying much less polling data than theyd have liked). They rate Reform beating Labour as possible but unlikely. Same for SNP not winning.
SNP 34 Lab 28 Ref 23 Con 7 Green 3 LD 3 Others 2
Weirdly four out of the ten candidates are from the right (Ref, UKIP, SCons & Family Party) assuming you don’t count SLab and their invisible Orange Order candidate as such.
There is considerable scope for some truly egregious--> corrupt contracts to now see the light of day with all these council changes.
Labour can see these council changes come down the pike withi a year. They'd be very wise to start cleaning house. Might even help them keep some seats.
Except I think this is a full marketplace where the £350m is mainly being spent on paying the workers supplied via the contract.
The fact it's Mr Yusuf is not being 100% clear tells me that I don't think he's understands what he has found...
My guess he understands all too well, but is happy to score a point and is not particularly concerned with the truth. Yusuf used to run an upscale staffing agency so he should have a good idea how this stuff works. The question is what the new Kent Council is going to do about it. Presumably these staff are doing a required job.
By claiming to have found vast amounts of money that could be saved they're then obliging themselves to either spend it on something else or cut taxes.
Does anyone expect that to happen ?
Either way, it comes to around 3% of their total annual revenue budget.
So if even if it's all fraud (which seems implausible), it won't massively shift the dial.
If he's basically misleading everyone as the figure includes wage costs, then whatever difference they make on this alone will be close to imperceptible.
None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up.
If it is fraud on that scale, I'll be quite surprised. And it will be a huge story.
Not doing something because it is “only 3%” is part of the reason why there is chronic overspending in government
Did I suggest that ?
"None of that is an argument against better management - but you don't start to manage things better by making stuff up."
Evidently not.
The point was that it's very likely that most of this money is spent on wages. Managing it better might save 0.3% - which would be a decent amount of money, but not any kind yf magic bullet, which is what Reform seemed to suggest.
Can you provide evidence that the figure includes wage costs please?
the truth will out in the next few days: my money is on the sum including agency staff costs, because (simply) councils and councilors aren't completely stupid
Furthermore, suppose something bad has happened.
If it's actual fraud, go to the police.
If it's incompetence, move on to finding how to unwind the contract to save the money.
Either way, you don't do a breathless post on social media. Trouble is that DOGE-UK, like its stateside friend, is based on the theory that everyone who isn't DOGE is relatively completely stupid.
When, in reality, the supporters of DOGE / DOGE UK seem completely stupid.
Or in the US, take the gullible along for a ride; enriching their friends whilst impoverishing their supporters.
It goes beyond that. Look at the politicians - MTG as an example. Or Matt Vickers having his arse handed to him by Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight.
It isn’t just that the voters are kept dumb - the politicians are morons. They don’t even understand what they are being told to say, so how do we expect the low-information voters they are trying to manipulate to know any better?
It's not quite that. Even the dumbest elected politician will be smarter than the dumbest voter. And some of these people, JD Vance or Dom Cummings, say, are clearly bright and well-educated.
I reckon the trouble is a kind of unwisdom that all people are prone to; having a worldview as a pair of spectacles that define the way that you interpret everything you see. Intelligent, knowledgeable people are more at risk, because they can better do the necessary mental contortions. Doublethink requires a lot of mental effort.
A lot of people of the Cummings/Musk worldview hero-worship Richard Feynman, and in many ways, fair enough. But as the great man said,
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
All this assumes Yusuf was fooled. I don't assume that. He used to run a very successful staffing agency and should have enough background knowledge to assess this arrangement properly.
My guess is Reform makes a big play of sorting out councils they take over with their version of DOGE. Somebody turned up this contract and Yusuf said, we can run with that. The whole thing is for show.
The problem Reform have is that they are creating these false narratives and will then be expected to deliver savings - £375m in the case of Kent County Council.
They can't make the savings because the money isn't there to save. So what do they do then?
Say they have made savings anyway. The DOGE playbook
The chancellor has begun meeting groups of backbenchers to argue that the money, part of a £113bn investment in capital projects over the rest of the parliament including transport, homes and energy, would only have happened under Labour.
Just three Whitehall departments are still to agree their multi-year budgets with the Treasury before the spending review, the Guardian understands, with the home secretary, Yvette Cooper; the energy secretary, Ed Miliband; and the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, holding out...
That £15bn for trains and trams outside London looks very positive. A big chunk of it needs to be trams and light rail.
But there will be a few battles around groups such as Transport 2000 (whatever they are called now) trying to nick multiuser rail-trails back). We had an attempted mugging to grab the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire for a proposed railway, despite it being used by 300-600k people per annum. When I last heard it had been fought off, but I am not fully up to date - they will be back.
Rail Trails of course being ideal accessible (and safe family cycling) trails, like towpaths.
I can see RefUK Councils (and TBH others) falling for that one - oooh, big exciting machines - if they get around to doing any projects, and not being especially good at listening to different stakeholders. They like easy answers.
That's why he need the whole damn lot of Local Authority managed trails made into Public Rights of Way by statute. I have not won that one yet !
We have a similar upcoming battle in Edinburgh. The principle should always to put trams on roads, not paths, if the intention is to reduce car use. Learn the lesson from Dublin - they don't work as well if hidden away down an embankment.
For railways, I think it's harder to make that argument. 600,000 is a lot of people though, so you'd hope that alternative provision is put in place - the Australians manage to do this with new infrastructure, and so did HS2.
The trams work better on roads because that is where people are is an interesting argument. Nottingham has in general done this really well imo, but they already had "green corridors" in a number of places in the early 20c or 19C - I'm not sure of reasons why.
It's in the Peak National Park, which should help - so I think the Local Planning authority is the Peak Park itself.
It's one question around us till need to be developing decent networks of separated mobility tracks in a country with chaotic transport policy. Defending an existing network would be easier, but here we are.
And Equal Rights to transport services (including accessible trails) are presumably on the Farage list of things to destroy by killing the Equalities Act 2010. I'm not sure if they are on the DOLGE list of "inefficiencies".
Many locals do not actually like the Monsal Trail - or at least bits that are not *their* bit. The area is already very busy in summer, with sometimes massive traffic queues. The trail has just acted as a draw for more people to come, increasing the traffic problems.
Imagine if there was a nice railway line that could bring people up into the very heart of the Peak District from Sheffield, Manchester, or even London, as the Hope Valley line does for the area further north?
(I wasn't quite a local, even when I lived in Derbyshire.)
I think spending money on grabbing one of the few decent, used things, to destroy it, is perhaps a mistake.
I would argue the other way - imagine if there was an entire network of accessible paths - everywhere, with no barriers keeping disabled and other people out, rather than just the Monsal Trail.
Then there would be more visitors, great for the economy, and they would spread out more. Done reasonably, including access routes etc, and traffic would fall.
Being a little more ambitious, imagine if that were everywhere - mobility tracks, ideally separated, as alternatives to every A and B road in the country. That's one element of what I want to see, and the road length in England is only 80k miles for A and B roads.
One practical idea I do wonder about is if some of these proposals could use narrow gauge.
It is not one of the "few decent, used things". Nearby are two other, very long, active travel routes along disused railways - the Tissington Trail and the High Peak Trail. The entire area is crisscrossed with routes, including the Pennine Bridleway. The area has many routes for cyclists and walkers.
Also, unless they've opened the extension towards Matlock, the trail starts in the middle of nowhere and ends even more in the middle of nowhere. It is not like an active travel route in a city, used by commuters: it is a *destination*. People travel - by car - to use it.
It makes the transport situation far worse, not better.
No, narrow gauge would be f-all use. As you well know for cyclists, we need *networks*, not disjointed sections.
A couple of points. After a dig, I think the "Monsal Trail Extension" as you call it has been done, but not called that. The section to Matlock seems to have been opened in 2018.
There's a cycle route called the "White Peak Loop", which is 60 miles - currently beyond me for a day ride. One for you to try and report back on . It looks OK, but I have never seen a review. Impressive, but it does not look quite good enough to send two 12 years off on on their own (my first walking experience in the White Peak), and the standard for cycling infra is "for everyone from 8 to 80". Site: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/690964
On alternatives - I agree with you on active travel. At present these are day destinations mainly (unless approaching from say Manchester), whilst they need to be backbones within a dense everywhere-to everywhere active travel network, including eg the next village. Leisure active travel can only be a sub-network within utility active travel. "Drive somewhere and take your dog / granny / disabled relative for a walk" is not equality, and we need to remember that 40% of disabled adults do not have a driving license.
(Switching to trains / buses for a moment, these could help if they were universally accessible - but they are not and eg Network Rail and Bus Companies will only ever do the absolute legally required minimum, as 25 years of experience teaches.)
Something 5 or 10 miles away is not really nearby. Incidentally, the Tissington Trail is not accessible (I've done that one several times) - it is built to ~1990s standards and needs overhaul even to reach a basic level (barriers, gradients, crossings) before we even get to more tricky things like surface treatment. I'm not arguing for the entire paths network to be accessible, but those that are supposed to be accessible need to meet minimum standards.
From the "new railway" promoters, I get the impression that they are not looking for a win-win so far, and have a "where can we move them to so we can go back to how it was in 1960" mentality, arguing around things like "400k people using it is not very many" and so on. That won't work.
I'd be interested in @MustaphaMondeo 's comments on these former railways in the Peaks, if he has any.
It is not about a "go back to how it was in 1960" mentality.
It is about a vital connection in the network being rebuilt. One that would relieve pressure on the railways around Manchester and Sheffield, as well as give more routes/paths on the WCML. Worth it for the stone trains alone. The advantage to the country - and the Peak District - to having that route reopened for passengers and freight far outweighs the utility of people driving into the Peak District to use it, especially when there are many other trails.
The passenger usage of the line alone was seen as being potentially massive - ISTR a million additional journeys a year, if built to support a good timetable. And these studies were done at times when reopening railways was uncommon and frowned upon.
(Incidentally, one big reason given for the route's closure was the poor state of the Dove Holes Tunnel. Except that stretch of the route was kept open for stone trains, and the tunnel is still in use. Railway politics, eh?)
The *Stockport Viaduct is at capacity, carrying about 400 trains a day. (And the west coast main line). The putative Derby to Manchester line would have to use it too.
*Grade two* biggest brick structure in the uk.
I’ve seen railway engineer suggested cost of 1bn to open the Monsal trail and more to shift the national timetable to suit the changes. All somewhat awkward to finance / arrange if it isn’t possible to increase the current one train per hour allowed over the viaduct from Buxton.
East midland mayor was given 2 billion. For travel improvements. I think there are several candidates serving more stressed communities.
Comments
There's hope for them yet.
In fact I wonder if it's not different from our council where HR and similar is done by a separate company that has ran it for both Darlo and Stockton councils for over 30 years because the extra scale makes sense.
What you really want is high-volume slicks. If the Marathon Plus came with a tan sidewall...
1) Over the last couple of days, we have been discussing the existence of a Scottish Assembly person of such a level of stupidity, that concerns about care in the community are justified.
2) Liz Truss
3) People in politics thought that Dominic Cummings was a genius
4) People in politics thought that Gordon Brown would go down well with the voters
5) Liz Truss
6) Liz Truss
7) Woking Council managed to loose a Kazzilion on property. In the midst of the longest sustained property boom in U.K. history.
8)
:
10,041) Liz Truss
My guess is Reform makes a big play of sorting out councils they take over with their version of DOGE. Somebody turned up this contract and Yusuf said, we can run with that. The whole thing is for show.
For the last few years that has been Marathon Supreme. But I only have a couple left in stock, so it may be up for a change before long if I get back to doing some distance.
I'm not honestly sure whether I could even get a Marathon Plus off the Brompton. Since it has Marathon Pluses on it, at some point I will find out
When people talk about transferring liability and hassle… someone is *charging* for the flip side of that.
NEW: Tories finally repudiate Liz Truss saying they will “never again” risk the economy with unfunded tax cuts like those her mini-budget.
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride says: “The damage to our credibility is not so easily undone.”
https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/1930524397539930419
I wonder if there was a deeper problem though.
During the 2000s any foreign takeover of a UK business was hailed by Gordon Brown as 'investment' even when it was obviously a prelude to asset stripping and transferring the wealth abroad.
Perhaps that mentality also dominated the various regulators when it came to foreign takeovers, especially by foreign private equity, of UK utility businesses.
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
George W. Bush
Truss keeps quiet about this as she does the alt-right speaking circuit.
They can't make the savings because the money isn't there to save. So what do they do then?
Britain Elects model has forecast the by election as follows (and they caveat by saying much less polling data than theyd have liked). They rate Reform beating Labour as possible but unlikely. Same for SNP not winning.
SNP 34
Lab 28
Ref 23
Con 7
Green 3
LD 3
Others 2
The *Stockport Viaduct is at capacity, carrying about 400 trains a day. (And the west coast main line). The putative Derby to Manchester line would have to use it too.
*Grade two* biggest brick structure in the uk.
I’ve seen railway engineer suggested cost of 1bn to open the Monsal trail and more to shift the national timetable to suit the changes. All somewhat awkward to finance / arrange if it isn’t possible to increase the current one train per hour allowed over the viaduct from Buxton.
East midland mayor was given 2 billion. For travel improvements. I think there are several candidates serving more stressed communities.
I’m not expecting work to start anytime soon.