I attended a briefing event for Council managers recently, where I talked about my five priorities for 2013:
1. Vision – what should we as a council continue to do, and what are we doing well, and what should we stop doing? I’m sure there are lots of thoughts on this!
2. Education – we must improve educational standards, and we are.
3. Fair and Equal Pay – we want to make sure people at the Council are being paid a consistent, fair amount.
4. Property – as you can imagine, we have a lot of property throughout the city, and a discussion taking place is if we can consolidate some of the buildings, which in turn will give us a cost saving. We’re also looking at if we need to build more homes.
5. Keeping an emphasis on jobs – I know we need to invest in our own stock, and also need a push to increase jobs in the city to get people working. This is something being worked on with the help of the regeneration fund.
Now that the budget has been set, these five areas will be my focus for the year ahead. At least until the next round of government cuts, that is!
Speaking of budget setting…
Capital vs revenue – wondering what the difference is?Revenue is spending on day-to-day items to run services, such as staffing, supplies and purchase of services from a variety of external providers.
Revenue is financed through things such as council tax, business rates and government funding
Revenue expenditure is generally reoccurring spend which needs to be accounted for year on year.
Capital is spending on significant assets that will have a life of many years, such as new buildings and roads.
Capital is financed from places like specific capital grants or from borrowing, which is paid for gradually over time from the revenue budget.
All admirable goals, how often does the council check that all jobs advertised are compliant with Fair and Equal pay?
I ask as the homes section has started advertising for Apprenticeships with NO job prospect at the end, Subverting the point of an apprenticeship, which is to be able to train staff in role and then move them to full pay upon completion of their training. This is so that the company/council does not have to pay extra on top of wages to train.
What the homes section does is bypass the Fair and Equal pay you strive for. As without the second part of the apprenticeship (a full paid job) it is merely a way to break the National Minimum wage.