Fiscal prudence and councils are not good bedfellows.
Private companies are accountable to owners or shareholders: councils seem accountable to no one.
The Carrabino case is one in point.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of our money were recklessly spent by irresponsible officers yet no heads rolled.
Weak leadership allows this to happen and the victims not just the Carrabino family but us poor bloody taxpayers.
The officer responsible for taking sides should have been fired. So who was this clown who wasted our money?
So over £300,000 wasted on the Council getting involved in a neighbour dispute? There is much more to this than meets the eye.
ReplyDeleteYou forget the vast cost in officer time wasted
ReplyDeleteSo the officer complicit in supporting the neighbour was one Tim Davis? The haplessly hopeless Cllr Marie-Therese Rossi has an allowance of £40,000 to scrutinise these appalling travesties of justice yet so far we have heard nothing. Councillors like Rossi would be hard pressed to obtain gainful employment in the harsh world outside Hornton St. She is a very lucky lady! One assumes Mr Davis was promoted for his incompetence!
ReplyDeleteVery troubling that RBKC officers access personal data. Some officers have access to residents’ medical records. 2019 a FOI request confirmed that an RBKC officer Tim Gorvett had access to NHS files. The NHS Trust wrote on the “whatdotheyknow” website: "Mr Gorvett is a social worker and part of an integrated (Multidisciplinary) team, therefore to fulfil his role within the team he does have access to the relevant patient records…..”.
ReplyDeleteWe should all be worried.
Another example of a failure of Leadership in the Town Hall. Engaged Leaders find out when Officers are playing games and wasting tax payer's money. And they put a stop to it. Unfortunately Councillor Campbell is not Leadership material. She continues to demonstrate this fact. In spades. In this case, another £500k of Council Tax blown because of culpable neglect and incompetence by dizzy.
ReplyDeleteHigh time for this woman to be sent packing
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ReplyDeleteRemarkable to claim "a minor neighbour dispute, with no wider public interest"; yet spend £300,000 taking sides in dispute at tax payers expense. 254 email accounts linked, thus obviously treated as serious, accessing personal data without legitimate grounds - is not minor matter. It makes no sense. Residents are entitled to transparency and accountability.
Deletehttp://fromthehornetsnest.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be ran like personal fiefdom. Not what anyone would expect in this country. And yet, here we are
Deletedizzy needs to be booted out. A "Leader" who does not know how to "take a grip"
ReplyDeleteTake a grip? Preferably not me, thank you
DeleteRemember this piano nonsense was all happening at the same time as Grenfell Tower residents were pleading for improved fire safety measures in their catastrophically doomed building. If RBKC had put half as much time, money and effort into Grenfell Tower concerns as they put into the Baptistas' complaints, those 72 people would still be alive today.
ReplyDeleteThis is the most perceptive of comments.Spot on. And who was in the Cabinet at the time of Grenfell? Cllr Campbell. Campbell is desperate for a peerage so she can show off to her boating friends on the Island. If any Conservative Gov thought of 'honouring' this idiot woman there would civil unrest.
DeleteMost of the councillors are useless, but unfortunately they have very little power over incompetent (or worse!) officers. Really, the officers involved in the piano dispute should have been fired. Instead, despite the nationwide embarrassment they brought on RBKC, they are fiercely protected, and even promoted.
Delete"Savings" on the Grenfell Tower cladding paid for the £300k legal fees spend by the Council to defend the rich piano player of Scarsdale Villas
ReplyDeleteGood to know where RBKC priorities are
Observer, for the record, it was not the piano player RBKC was spending your money on. Rather, RBKC was spending your money, our money, on the complaining neighbour's behalf. It should be noted that the complaining neighbour refused to negotiate with the piano playing family. They probably reasoned that they had nothing to lose given that the council was supporting their side and the taxpayer was paying the bill.
DeleteIn the end, the judge gave the piano playing family many more hours and more generous times than they had ever even asked for.