The Taxpayers’ Alliance’s lack of research beggars belief; it couldn’t be that the TPA are just a bunch of ideological zealots?
It was a classic Taxpayers’ Alliance story. The headline “Binmen get iPads to save on paper” ran across this morning’s Metro front page. The article detailed how supposedly-profiligate Bury Council was spending £9,000 on the Apple tablets so bin lorries could log details of collections.
The TPA weighed in:
“It beggars belief that a council making huge savings can find this money to splash out on iPads.
“Residents want bin services that are reliable and efficient, not council staff monitoring what they’re throwing out.”
The Daily Mail even lifted the “beggars belief” line for its own headline, topping off a fine day’s work for the TPA.
What actually beggars belief is the so-called alliance failed to do its research properly before commenting on something it knew very little about.
The initiative will actually save Bury Council money, the iPads just being a new form of efficiency-through-mechanisation. A spokesman for the council told Left Foot Forward the changes have the capacity to save the council more than £150,000 per year.
He added:
“This system should ensure that the number of missed collections is reduced to an absolute minimum, because any problems are reported in immediately to our Customer Contact Centre [rather than afterwards, meaning that houses would need to be revisited]. We collect from 83,000 houses each week.
“In the last financial year, we received 4,228 reports of missed bins – we estimate that it would cost £40 to revisit each house, equivalent to nearly £170,000 a year, so this new system should make hefty savings.
“Bury Council is consistently ranked as one of the country’s most cost-effective and efficient councils, and this initiative has been developed in-house in order to keep down costs.”
Honestly, one might jump to the conclusion that the TPA were not really interested in value for money for taxpayers, but on an ideological adventure to undermine public services and the public sector – in this case Bury Council’s directly-provided bin collection services.
92 Responses to “Crazy Taxpayers’ Alliance attack on council that’s *saving* money”
nonny mouse
>>And why should the binman be expected to fork out of his own salary for your satisfaction?
No, I’m asking that he use something he already carries (everybody has a mobile phone these days) in order to help save jobs. Failing that, you can buy/lease some really cheap phones with texting ability.
Saving money is not just about cutting the deficit, it is about protecting as many jobs as we can. Maybe you don’t care about saving jobs, but I do.
splem
@13
>>No, I’m asking that he use something he already carries (everybody has a mobile phone these days) in order to help save jobs. Failing that, you can buy/lease some really cheap phones with texting ability.
But data entered on an ipad will be instantly tabulated and spreadsheeted. If you just called the numbers in over the phone, you’d need someone to write them up manually, saving no money.
The instant tabulation lets them deal with problems on the spot, saving labour, and as everyone pointed, salaries are the real expense, not one off equipment purchases. Annual salary = tens of thousands, ipad = not.
But this proves the TPA’s ideological state hating puritanism. BBC directors are “fatcats”if they earn more than the average wage – never mind if they earned it. What’s the head of ITV paid for a much inferior service? Is it… vastly more with stock options too? Capitalist waste versus socialist efficiency.
We’ve seen the same with PFI, and Lansley’s privatisation will make it worse. New Labour gave us all those suits because they wanted to run the NHS like a business. Now think how much those “overpaid admins” are going to get when their jobs are privatised and they get stock options.
Steve Bishop
They do need to check their route for missed rubbish. However they choose to do it, The Metro, Daily Heil and the TPA are three lots of poisen rubbish that they could and should have dumped.
Sandwell Green Party
Crazy Taxpayers’ Alliance attack on council that’s *saving* money: http://t.co/D4LnAD0 by @DanielElton @OtherTPA
Craig of Dirty
@ns_mehdihasan @pollytoynbee @wdjstraw @psbook Crazy Taxpayers’ Alliance attack on council that’s *saving* money: http://t.co/IvsO7wl