onionbagblog

It’s all about cost cutting in the latest, um, cost cutting local council information free (ish) sheet this fortnight. Let’s skip straight away to the Letters page of Lambeth Life, and a penned effort from Charlie Hainsworth of SE24:

“I was impressed to see that in this time of economic constraint and belt tightening, my household’s copy of Lambeth Life cost only 5p to produce.”

Cripes.

I’m not sure if this is faint praise or taking the p*** from young Charlie.

Ella Cope, the esteemed Editor of the cost-cutting local council information free (ish) sheet, replies with some waffle penny-pinching stats, coming to the conclusion that yep, Lambeth Life costs “just over 5p per edition.”

Ella also confirms that the print run is 136,000 copies each fortnight, which by my back of a fag packet calculations makes that something like an annual Lambeth Life overhead of a cool £176,800.

It may not appear much in absolute terms, but in relative terms, that’s a hell of a lot of public money spunked up the wall to put across the voter friendly message of @LambethLabour. In absolute terms, it would keep seven people on the frontline payroll with an annual salary of £25k.

Ella continues:

“…our continuing aim is to be able to produce Lambeth Life for no cost at all to residents.”

Or maybe just don’t produce it at all then.

All of this cost-cutting sets the theme for what is a rip-roaring fortnightly read, which really should carry the strapline of: We’re Broke! Don’t Panic!

In a State of the Nation address, @lambeth_council Chief Executive Derrick Anderson leads on the front page with: Austerity Measures Hit Public Sector Jobs. It’s a softening up of the blow for what lies within. All this talk of austerity and you half expect spam sarnies to be served up at Lambeth Town Hall.

“Currently we know that there will be at least 400 fewer posts across the council in 2011, we will try to address the majority of these through deleting vacant posts and reducing the number of temporary staff working for the organisation.”

Cutting back on the £700 per hour Lambeth Living consultancy staff would be a good start. Speaking of which, there is something of a mixed message coming out of Lambeth Town Hall with regards temporary staff - 46 temporary contracts have apparently been handed out within Lambeth Living.

Whoops.

Let’s flick the page and look for something slightly more positive:

Co-op Commission Announced.

Cripes.

The #lambethcoop presser is then re-published (but only at the cost of an extra 5p per issue…) detailing how the Citizen’s Commission Co-op Commission has finally announced that not a single citizen has been invited to sit at the top table.

Brushing aside the woeful inadequacies in this bodge of a Third Way quango of Nu Labour wonks (WONKS) - what of the stated aims of #lambethcoop?

@cllrstevereed trots out the well-worn line about:

“Reductions on national funding mean we need to drive the community-led agenda forward even faster.”

Steady the buffers, my friend. “Even faster?” It will be a blink and you’ll miss it moment before the consultation is actually complete. Which of course was never the intention all along. Oh no…

And so with the party political blame game being used as justification for @cllrstevereed and his Nu Labour cronies walking away from all democratic accountability, it is only fair that I trot out my well worn line about how #lambethcoop won’t actually save any money.

Actually, nope - I’ll leave that to Ed Balls MP, the highest-ranking Co-operative party MP (stop sniggering,) who actually believes that #lambethcoop will cost MORE money:

“I don’t think it’s a way to save money to be honest. Cutting corners is not what a co-operative council is about. Does being a co-operator save money in public services? I’m not sure that it will. I think that it might actually encourage us to spend more money for local people.”

Council Lobbies to Save Lambeth Schools covers the savage ConDem cuts to the Lambeth BSF programme. Some unlikely alliances have been formed within Town Hall, and it is very decent to see that the local response to the cuts appears to have cross-party support.

Blimey.

“An e-petition [urgh!] has been set up for residents to oppose the cuts. Visit blah blah blah…“

Please do visit and sign the petition. Nope - please *really, really* do visit and sign the petition put online by @LambethLabour. So far only fourteen people in a borough of over 250,000 citizens have. Only another 2,986 more signatures required to trigger a debate at Full Council, under the recent chest beating Power to the People Lambeth Life headline.

A deep *sigh* and then we’re on to Streatham Hub at the bottom of page 3.

Oh Lordy.

Ice Rink Could Come to Brixton reads the headline. This of course details the mega U-turn by the @lambeth_council cabinet in shifting the permanent temporary Streatham Rink away from SW16 and into the voter friendly Brixton power base.

The move down the A23 is all about appeasing Tesco, the corporate paymaster. Lambeth Life recognises this, stating:

“A spokesperson from A Spenhill, the wholly-owned regeneration subsidiary of Tesco, said: We want to make sure that the Tesco store gives customers the best possible shopping experience and that the overall development delivers all the regeneration benefits previously promised.”

Sounds good. Keep talkin’ fella:

“We are therefore making some small changes to our plans.”

Too right, matey - a *small* increased retail space of almost 50%. Meanwhile, the ice pad, swimming pool and dry sports facilities [urgh!] are no nearer now than what they were a decade ago when the whole farce first started.

That’s Life!