This week there are 500 government jobs on offer as you can see from the table opposite. It all has to be paid for, all the above average salaries, gold plated pensions, car allowances, benefits, paid holiday and even, as we found out in Cheltenham and North Tyneside, paid leave to take up voluntary activities. How generous we all must be to pay for such profligacy…
The tip of the iceberg this week, as our non-job of the week, comes from Croydon Council:
“On Board Civil Enforcement Officer
£21,672 - £22,977
Are you a good with people? Do you have a customer focused attitude? Are you a team player? Do you have experience of parking and wants to work for a forward thinking local authority? If so, this job is for you!
Croydon’s Parking Services are currently in the process of reorganising the whole business unit and this role is critical to contributing in taking the Service to the next level of its transformational strategy.
As an On Board Civil Enforcement Officer, you will to carry out the enforcement of vehicle’s contravening the Traffic Management Act 2004 (TMA 2004) to ensure that the contravening vehicles are properly removed or immobilised. You will monitor car parking and, if necessary, issue penalty charge notices to vehicles contravening the parking controls in force.
You will have previous experience of dealing with the public in a calm and tactful manner and you enjoy working on your own initiative. This post involves working outside in all weathers. Full training will be given and a uniform provided.
For an informal discussion about this post please contact Jose Garcia on 0208 726 6000 (Ext. 88278).”
I wasn’t sure from the job title what this exactly was, but on further investigation at the Croydon council website, I found out there’s a spending spree on – traffic wardens! These are also known as Mobile Revenue Collection Units if you're up on your local government gobbledegook.
Government has a culture of using its charges and fines as a way to build revenue. The more yellow lines there are within a borough, the higher its revenue stream. Whether or not the lines need to be there isn’t considered. You park outside a school or too close to a zebra crossing – yeah, open your wallet, you deserve to be punished for posing a risk to pedestrian safety. But why on earth quiet side streets and other roads are given parking zones where you’re permitted to park for only certain hours dictated by the government remains a mystery. But then again, the traffic warden game has been turned from a deterrent force into a cash-collecting agency. Shame.
The leader of Croydon council is councillor Mike Fisher and it’s perhaps worth asking him whether a recession is a good time to be using taxpayers’ money on more fine wardens in Croydon.