Nottingham City Council shoots itself in the foot (again)4

Andrew Allison Grassroots

It is now common knowledge Nottingham City Council is the only council in England not to publish spending above £500 online. It also paid for posters to be printed like the one in the photograph, which in itself was a complete waste of money. Now its business acumen is under question again.

They should have cut the posters

The one thing this council does not understand is the free market. If it did, it would not have made this schoolboy error. In an attempt to increase taxes by the back door, it has decided to increase charges for private hire licences in the city.

Many private hire companies are now thinking about voting with their feet, and registering their cars with other authorities, where the fees are cheaper and the service is better. As the owner of one firm said:

“Fees have gone up and they have gone up quite a lot. We objected to that but it fell on deaf ears. We do not think we are getting value for money, as there’s been no increase in the service”

So once again Nottingham City Council has shot itself in the foot. Not only does it waste taxpayers’ money, and refuses to publish spending above £500 to see what we get for our cash, it also manages to lose more money by increasing fees by an unreasonable amount.

If there are any supporters in Nottingham who would like to campaign for us, please contact me. This is one council we need to look at carefully. Taxpayers are not getting a fair deal, and this needs to change.

Andrew Allison

Andrew is the National Grassroots Coordinator, and helps our activists across the country organise campaigns on local issues.

Follow @andrew_allison

Anon

Nottingham City are also wasting Tax payers money again:
launched today: http://portfoliocreative.org/
What did that cost?
We will never knnow as NCC refuse to release spending figures still
Dominic Miller

Portfolio is about the public sector sharing resources and collaborating to save millions of pounds per year on the procurement of marketing creative. Nottingham City Council are demonstrating an initiative in creating a tool for local authorities to buy, sell and share their marketing campaigns with each other. Campaigns are sold at a fraction of the cost of the original design and offer savings over 50% to other public sector authorities.
Stephan Richeux

It is utter nonsense to suggest that an increase in taxi licensing fees is an increase in taxes by the back door. If you want to talk about the free market, this increase is simply about the increasing costs of things like CRB checks, DVLA fees and MOTs. This is the first – and fairly modest increase – in taxi licence prices for four years and will ensure the service is self-funding - unless the Taxpayers Alliance would prefer it to make a loss? There have in fact been corresponding improvements such as introducing new IT systems to speed up the process. We deal with half of all licences in the county, since, not surprisingly, most journeys take place here. This amounts to over 2,300 taxis – comparable with other large cities, as are our licensing prices. It’s important the process is carried out thoroughly as it is there to ensure that drivers and their vehicles meet our exacting standards and therefore that the travelling public is safe. Although the free market may mean some smaller taxi operators decide to register elsewhere, we aren’t concerned about most taxi operators doing so as it’s unlikely to pay off for them, so we don’t anticipate losing significant income from any such moves.
Oh, and on the issue of publishing accounts over £500, I challenge anyone to look at the accounts other councils have published and honestly say that they add to their understanding of what the council is spending money on and why.
Jack

Nottingham City Council has just been re-elected with the overwhelming support of local people. I understand that so called Taxpayers Alliance held a national demonstration in London a few weeks back. How many people turned up? 30? 40?