Council must look at waste (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Council must look at waste

COUN Martin declared he is satisfied that moving money within the civic purse is "just good practise," whereas Coun Small suggests it reflects a sense of poor fiscal management by the current administration.

One view is creative accounting while the other is sour grapes.

In September Swindon Borough Council said it was going to write off bad debts of £3m as this ugly amount of uncollected money was "spoiling the performance assessment" that is failing to collect the money made the officers and councillors look bad.

Too right it made them look bad it also made them look incompetent and worse, it made them look indifferent to the needs of the people who do pay their taxes and who do pay their bills.

This council stands accused of fiscal incompetence, as did its predecessor.

Too often councillors bleat about the lack of money available to them, perhaps the real issue is the amount of waste after all just look at the amount they have spent on reviews restructures, terminations and the payments to advertise for directorate jobs.

This council should get real and look more carefully at how it spends money.

D Morgan

Swindon