Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by B26354 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:31 am
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/media/2011/05/22
What was it Mallon was saying about protestors on thew streets in the face of evil tory cuts ?
Well it seems Middlesbrough Council has no end of monmey to spend - yet we are told, especially by Labour councillors that the cuts are evil
If this is what Middlesbrough can afford it would seem we have been lied to
What a suprise that would be
HOW much does it cost to change a lightbulb? Well, it seems more than £1,000 for one North council.
That’s the amount dim bosses at the cash-strapped local authority forked out for an art expert to jet into the region twice – to help put up then take down this string of lights at a modern art show.
Middlesbrough Council – which made £6.8m in cuts and savings earlier this year – paid £532 for an “art courier” to spend one day and night on Teesside last March to help install the Felix Gonzalez-Torres show at the town’s mima gallery – and £142 of that was for “refreshments”.The same expert returned four months later, at the end of mima’s A Certain Distance, Endless Light exhibition, “to oversee condition checking and de-installing” of a piece of art called Untitled – a string of dozens of lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling.
That two-day trip cost the public purse £529.80, meaning £1,060 was spent on the courier’s two trips.
And just seven months later Middlesbrough Council announced plans to make £52,700 of savings by slashing working hours at the Central Square-based gallery.
Charlotte Linacre, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “It’s increasingly difficult for local authorities to plead poverty with a straight face when they’re prepared to spend so frivolously.”
Mike Hill, regional organiser for UNISON, added: “’UNISON has consistently asked employers to review all unnecessary expenditure and waste in order to achieve efficiency savings and off set job losses and reductions in Terms and Conditions of service. This includes the use of expensive consultants, external contractors and unnecessary travel costs both within and outside the UK. In some areas we are winning the argument, but it is clear that in others the employer needs to look a little closer to home.”
The bill forms part of a whopping £316,919 spent in two years by North councils on overseas trips in which council executives have journeyed all over the globe for conferences and meetings. The Sunday Sun acquired details of all trips paid for by 11 North authorities in 2009 and 2010, using the Freedom of Information Act.
As well as spending £1,060 on flights, hotel stays and refreshments for the art courier, Middlesbrough spent £342.96 on a flight home to Prague for a “service user”.
And artistic forays abroad accounted for £7,158 of the £23,494 spent on overseas travel by Middlesbrough – 30% of the whole amount.
That includes £3,144.82 on a nine-day trip to New York for two officers for ‘acquisition and collection development’, and a further £400 on sending an officer to Dublin “to make relationships with Dublin based galleries”.
Cuts what cuts ??
B26354
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by LOOPYLOO » Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:06 am
A Middlesbrough Council spokesman said: “Over the next four years we have to make savings of £50m. We have estimated that will result in the loss of between 400 and 500 posts.
“We will do everything in our power to avoid compulsory redundancies.”
A spokesman ??? Nobody prepared to be quoted on this news ??? We will do everything in our power ??? Really ??
Doesnt look like it does it
LOOPYLOO
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by Backdraft » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:28 am
Maybe now we are seeing why MBC want to bring in an outside management company for mima.
If this happened, would such close scrutiny of expenditure still be possible under FOI? Or would it just be a case of paying someone to carry the can for their frivolity?
Backdraft
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by daveb » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:29 am
of course there are no cuts.
backdraft can't see them.
they don't affect him.
so they don't exist.
pull up the ladder; backdraft is already on the lifeboat.
daveb
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by witchfynder » Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:06 pm
daveb wrote:of course there are no cuts.
backdraft can't see them.
they don't affect him.
so they don't exist.
pull up the ladder; backdraft is already on the lifeboat.
I think that Dave is quite upset that he has been shown up as a liar by Backdraft. We all knew it anyway but it was nice of Backdraft to prove it.
Dont vote! It just encourages the b.astards!
witchfynder
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by Backdraft » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:04 pm
daveb wrote:of course there are no cuts.
backdraft can't see them.
they don't affect him.
so they don't exist.
And if readers would care to take a look on the thread concerned, they'll see that I never said " they don't exist' either. I said that their impact was unnoticable. And I've quantified that by concurring in part with a quote from vft, of all people. So, more lies from Whitbys resident answer to Citizen Smith.
Now please, let's keep this thread clear of a debate being carried on elsewhere. One thread off-topic is quite enough.
Backdraft
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by B26354 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:17 pm
Backdraft wrote:Maybe now we are seeing why MBC want to bring in an outside management company for mima.
If this happened, would such close scrutiny of expenditure still be possible under FOI? Or would it just be a case of paying someone to carry the can for their frivolity?
They may try, but if MIMA still receives arts council funding the they'll be on a hiding to nothing just as they will be if public money is still funnelled to MIMA through a private company.
B26354
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by Backdraft » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:58 pm
Thanks for that. I was unsure whether private management would exempt them from FOI, which is why I asked.
So, any private management company put in charge of mima would just be an expensive scapegoat, then?
Backdraft
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by richie2007 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:27 pm
To me building the MIMA gallery is one of the few good things the council have done for Middlesbrough, in fact probably the only good thing! So i really can't understand why some on here continuosly knock it and seem obsessed with how it's funded. Are they just philistines with no appreciation of the arts and concerned only with what things cost? They seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
richie2007
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by Backdraft » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:39 pm
richie,
Middlesbrough had museums and art galleries long before mima came along. And for EVERY tax-payer to have to fund it regardless of their appreciation of art / usage of the gallery seems unfair to many. I suspect that, if mima were to try to be self-sufficient and start charging admission, we would see just how much the people, and how many of the people, truly value this facility.
The OP does throw up some items for concern, regardless of from whose accounts they are extracted. Such as
"Middlesbrough spent £342.96 on a flight home to Prague for a “service user”."
What is and, specifically, who is a 'service user'? The ambiguity in the title immediately raises suspicions, whether or not they are unfounded.
Backdraft
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by richie2007 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:48 pm
Just out of interest do the other museums and galleries recieve subsidies? I think subsidising the arts seems to be the norm rather than the exception all over the country.
richie2007
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by imagica » Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:52 pm
Backdraft wrote:
daveb wrote:of course there are no cuts.
backdraft can't see them.
they don't affect him.
so they don't exist.
And if readers would care to take a look on the thread concerned, they'll see that I never said " they don't exist' either. I said that their impact was unnoticable. And I've quantified that by concurring in part with a quote from vft, of all people. So, more lies from Whitbys resident answer to Citizen Smith.
Now please, let's keep this thread clear of a debate being carried on elsewhere. One thread off-topic is quite enough.
And those same readers may also notice that you said.....
Backdraft wrote:
And I wouldn't now give a monkeys if MBC cut the public transport subsidy as I'm self-sufficient......
In other words ''I'm alright, Jack, f*** everyone else.
Apologies for being off topic.
imagica
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by PredatorDrone » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:24 pm
Or put another way if you were the bus company owner you would provide a service irrespective
I reckon you would have a completely different viewpoint
Dont forget they are as Dave describes them - - -parasites and thus should not be allowed to show a profit on investment but happily run at a loss until they go bust - - pretty much like the last Labour government
"The EU is the old Soviet Union dressed in Western clothes"
(President Gorbachev)
Some People Never See The Light - 'til It Shines Through Bullet Holes
PredatorDrone
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by witchfynder » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:04 am
imagica wrote:
Backdraft wrote:
daveb wrote:of course there are no cuts.
backdraft can't see them.
they don't affect him.
so they don't exist.
And if readers would care to take a look on the thread concerned, they'll see that I never said " they don't exist' either. I said that their impact was unnoticable. And I've quantified that by concurring in part with a quote from vft, of all people. So, more lies from Whitbys resident answer to Citizen Smith.
Now please, let's keep this thread clear of a debate being carried on elsewhere. One thread off-topic is quite enough.
And those same readers may also notice that you said.....
Backdraft wrote:
And I wouldn't now give a monkeys if MBC cut the public transport subsidy as I'm self-sufficient......
In other words ''I'm alright, Jack, f*** everyone else.
Apologies for being off topic.
No in my personal view, it would be why should i fund your lifestyle choice? You chose not to work hard at school and now you must suffer the consequences.
I used that example on my nephew and it has certainly paid dividends. He was playing up at school so i drove him around Middlesbrough showing him the sink estates like Berwick Hills, Ormesby, Thorntree, Pallister Park etc and said quite clearly to him do you want a good life and a nice house in country or do you want this $hit existence (as i pointed out of the car window)?
A grade only student now.
Dont vote! It just encourages the b.astards!
witchfynder
Re: Middlesbrough Council lashing out the cash
by B26354 » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:56 am
Backdraft wrote:Thanks for that. I was unsure whether private management would exempt them from FOI, which is why I asked.
So, any private management company put in charge of mima would just be an expensive scapegoat, then?
If the private management company receives puiblic funding to maintain or operate a service, that service and its provisions including the use of the funding is subject to FOI, whilst the company's other interests/holdings/business would not be.
Bell originally suggested MPs expenses overseen by a private company - he claimed it would be a better option, the suspicion was to keep it out of the public gaze by taking MP's alloances and expenses out of the public view of FOI - once it was stated this would not be the case, I am sure co-incidentally , Bell dropped the idea
B26354