NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY
Proposed options for “savings” include the permanent removal of Saturday funerals, a rise in waste uplift charges and the review of historic leases.
A total of £615,500 of savings were agreed with £564,000 of this being management adjustments.
Management adjustments are simply cuts by another name.
Uplift fees will change from £29.48 for up to ten items to £40 for five items.
Uplifts will be things like old furniture and bed mattresses which can be a common sight on back greens in the most deprived areas.
Legal fees are also being revised for those purchasing or leasing property which could see a rise to align with private sector charges generating £25,000 in council savings.
That means that if poor families are seeking to buy a house in the middle of the current “housing emergency,” they will have to meet increased charges with money they probably don’t have and will need to get into debt to finance.
Saturday funerals will be permanently cut in plans that would affect cemeteries and churchyards across West Dunbartonshire, which means mourners will have to take a day off to work to attend the funerals of their friends and relatives.
Most people in the current cost of living crisis cannot afford to lose the wages that a day off work would bring them.
The introduction of pitch hire in parks and greenspaces for events that could include food stalls or small-scale entertainment events could generate up to £8000 for the council.
Maybed they should dip into the pie stall at Dumbarton FC’s Rock Stadium for a few bob towards councillors’ wages and expenses?
Last I heard the Provost and the Council leader were pulling down a cool £50,000 a year.
The purchase of five gritters will cease the previous hiring of the vehicles and will provide a net year saving of £171,000.
Now that’s a fair amount of money but a good chunk of that could be saved on taxi fares from the Vale hospital to the RAH for folk who fall and twist their ankles on ice at times of the year when the weather is like it is at the moment.
Increasing the promotion of West Dunbartonshire as a good area for filming could earn the council £8000 in the hire of buildings and locations for people like Ken Loach who do documentaries such as the award-winning Cathy Come Home.
We have plenty of case studies here for homelessness and black dampness and the Council have gobe to a great deal of trouible and significant cause to quantify it.
Which means we will know how much of this curse is causing the blight in our social housing although we don’t yet have the plans or the money to get rid of it.
Council mobile phone provisions have been reduced and a new contract with Vodafone will save the council £23,000.
Perhaps they could make use of saome of the ones they are about to confiscate from pupils in our schools?
I wonder if that includes the amount of money they save by refusing to answer questions on the telephone from The Dumbarton Democrat.
Or organising futile competitions such as ACHIEVE for finding the person on their staff who is managing to achieve excellence in what they are doing….
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A Happy, Healthy and Peaceful Christmas to all our readers.