With the country on lockdown and the economy bollocksed

What about all the gardeners / plasterers/ etc being asked to do completely other roles to help in the community?

 

The learning and development staff in local authorities are usually responsible for a wide range of training courses. Much of it is provided to in-house staff, across areas such as adult social care, children's safeguarding, etc. But in adult social care, they also have a duty to drive standards across the equivalent private and voluntary sector, so run courses, for example, for staff in private residential care homes. On top of the stuff you'd consider to be "direct" front-line training, there is also a whole host of training needed around "indirect" stuff, such as data protection, health & safety, diversity, IT, finance, HR procedures, environmental issues, council policies and procedures, etc. Training is often driven by the need for staff to be aware of current and changing legislation, to ensure the the organisation as a whole continues to be fit for purpose and compliant with current law.

In my experience, L&D staffing budgets are under the same financial pressures as the rest of the council budget (sometimes more so), so for the jobs listed in the OP to get to recruitment stage, they must have been deemed to be essential.

 

There wouldn’t be any gardeners or plasterers etc etc council employees if it was up to me.
I’d have the essentials such as bin collection and planning (although in my experience Barnsley has the worst Planning Department in England) and that would be it - other than a procurement office - all other services such as gardeners and plasterers etc would be put out to tender.

Example - how much would a contract cost to keep the disgraceful Dearne Valley Parkway clear of litter from Birdwell to Cudworth - and add to that the main A635 road from Goldthorpe to Stairfoot.
I would say a contract worth just £150k would see those two main arteries through the town clear of litter.
2 or 3 guys with a pickup would easily sort that problem out.
But no - instead we have Barnsley Council employees very very occasionally tidying those main roads.

 

Everybody that voted leave

 

Because outsourcing as an answer has proved to be so financially successful.

Unless you actually look at the evidence - at which point you realise that what all those lefties predicted was exactly what's happened - it gets more expensive and worse.

A related question - is it Barnsley council who empty your bins? it's outsourced in Donny.

 

Exactly. Not to mention that people are crying out for improved working conditions, and yet councils often get a kicking while doing just that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...nging-services-back-in-house-is-good-councils

 

That's approximately 2.4% of the roads in Barnsley.

 

Are you sure the advertisements aren’t to replace current staff? You seem to think they are newly created roles.

 

There isn’t any money to pay contracts, that’s the whole point, surely you must have heard of budget cuts? The reason it is rarely done is that they can’t afford for it to be done more often, whoever does it.

 

Didcot Red is correct,the Civil Service,OBR,ONS and LGO, all confirm that from 2009 to 2019, Barnsley Council lost 60%, yes 60% of it's central government funding. All councils in the UK, have a legal mandatory and statutory duty to provide essential services, even though a high proportion of them have lost funding. Don't forget that during this time, the government put a block on raising council tax. Barnsley is not like some parts of the South- East say, and raise incomes through Business rates.
The whole tone of the OP,smacks of the ignorant loud mouth men who frequent these parts,with their unfounded and untrue allegations of corruption against councillors and employees. There are civil service rules to be followed,for procurement and recruitment,not following leads to criminal charges. The OP believes these jobs are not needed,are over paid,that they will go to 'friends' of councillors or existing employees.
If the OP has any evidence that:
a) The posts are not required.
b) The decision of who will be employed,as already been taken.
c) Council officers and elected improperly.
d) Renumeration is beyond current nationally agreed guidelines.
Then he should make representation first to South Yorkshire Police,who will then guide him through Public Service proceedures.
I suspect that the OP has no such evidence but is rather one of those people who write to the Chronicle and Yorkshire Post and phones local Radio stations. I have heard these people all my life,belittling ordinary citizens serving their community, with unfounded ignorant slander and deformation.
Good grief,there's a global pandemic happening,a fiscal and employment recession which is predicted to get worse. It's not too late to change your way of thinking.

 

Sorry but the op has never called a local radio station, or a national one. Nor has he ever written to a newspaper.

 

Yes - but it’s the major roads what visitors to Barnsley see.
So how we going to get investment and people wanting to live and work here ???
It dosen’t resemble a Tuscany town - get off the M1 at J36 or the A1 at J37 and it resembles driving into a landfill site.
Not that bad now tho - because the grass has grown.
There will be no change at Barnsley until we get rid of this jobs for the boys Labour run council.

 

I drive those roads all the time and I don't think they look any different to what roads in every town look like. I don't even notice the small amount of litter as I'm busy looking at the rolling countryside like I imagine most people new to Barnsley are.
Also noticed you concentrated on the entrance to Barnsley that just so happens to lead to your house.

And I do understand why you'd notice the litter more than most people too but honestly nudge it's no worse than anywhere else. Its certainly not an eyesore that will put investment off.

 

That won’t happen in a town that thinks the sun shines out of labours arse

 

It’s nothing to do with labour and everything to do with Austerity, you barmy bleeder.

 

Looking at the salary and the duties involved, they are not paying over the odds to recruit
the suitable candidates that they seek. In days gone by, an L&D Officer would probably have had
the title of a Training Officer. As such, the successful candidate(s) would have to primarily
demonstrate an ability to communicate with the Council's internal and external " customers"
on a very broad range of topics.


https://barnsley.engageats.co.uk/Vi...y1iouHtqJb1m/8wjhDLvl7Bqo4QxfESP/MncfRnLQRNyU

 

This
(Used to be one)

 

Anyone who tasked with learning about any topic and then being expected to impart its content to people of
varying abilities and levels of understanding has my admiration. I was once given the job of explaining "
Climate Change levy" to a room full of elected representaives ( Councillors).

I knew instantly that they'd taken on board what I had imparted, when in the Q&A segment at the end of
my presentation, one of them asked me if the " green" electricity being supplied, was in fact the colour green.!
I paused before I answered expecting to see a smile on their face, but it didn't happen.

 

Jesus wept there's some nonsense in this thread.

 

^^^^^^ As you know I can hardly be described as a 'Lefty' but I agree absolutely.

Privatisation in some situations SHOULD be the best way but it is the botched implementations that mean they are often a lost opportunity and get the whole concept a justifiably bad name. The trouble with outsourcing etc. is that there are always two sides to the argument.

One side is where it can be demonstrated and proven that a specialised company/individual has skills and resources to run a service or supply goods more efficiently and at a lower cost than Government or L.As (the argument being that Polticians and Public Sector are not there to run '*businesses' like Public Transportation and so, in theory!!!!, are far less efficient at doing so and costs escalate).
*IMO where people pay for goods and services as users rather than the entire revenue coming from taxpayers it is a business albeit one proviing a vital infrastructure and service)

The other side of the argument is that whenever outsourcing, privatising or using PFIs you introduce another cost. i.e. profits & shareholder dividends.

Clearly, the former, in theory, should work but unfortunately, in reality, there are two main flaws:
1) Greed takes over and companies often take excessive profits and even when they lose money it is the taxpayer taking all the risks (see rail privatisations, Health and Education PFIs).
2) In many cases, false projections, and 'efficiency savings' evaporate as the extra layers of bureaucracy, 'requirements creep', broken promises and assurances from Private companies erode any savings that might have existed at the outset.

Regarding point two, IMHO, Governments of all flavours and the Civil Service have always been shown to be inept- as if 'due diligence' exercise was a mystery to them-, or even, on occasions, corrupt, when it comes to awarding franchises etc. This, means, even when it makes sense to outsource something, the T&Cs agreed at the outset have often resulted in Corporates and businesses, (coming back to point 1) making large profits at the expense of the taxpayer. As I previously said, even when they fail, the cost of failure always seems to end up back with the taxpayers and the businesses seem to just walk away.

On a slightly separate issue, the numbers and costs of private consultants in the Public sector also puzzles me where sometimes the consultants are brought in to advise someone in the Public Sector whose job title suggests it is the very skill set they need to carry out the role for which they are employed.