Update: Radio 6 tell us that Reform’s great DOGE plan is “calling in auditors” to the councils they take over Councils: - ThreadSky

twlldun.bsky.social • 3 days ago

Update: Radio 6 tell us that Reform’s great DOGE plan is “calling in auditors” to the councils they take over

Councils:

Comments

yakopov.me•3 days ago

Councils to auditors

connolly-lg.bsky.social•3 days ago

Councils of course are already subject to probably the most stringent fiduciary duties of any type of public body and are routinely audited (internally and externally) in respect of those.

The vacuous cluelessness at the heart of Faragism is so tediously depressing.

drpaulitious.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh, I don't think the leaders are 100% clueless. They are taking advantage of the public's cluelessness. Look at any Local Facebook page. Anything in local politics they disagree with is inevitably the result of backhanders or brown envelopes, rather than their own ignorance of how things work.

connolly-lg.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, I should have made it clear I was thinking about the supporters rather than the architects...

dorienjames.bsky.social•3 days ago

"greedy councillors lining their own pockets" whereas any councillor putting in the hours to do the job properly, including the time spent fighting to get re-elected, is probably running at about half of minimum wage.

crizqo.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yeah, im a council worker and the cost at which you need to go tender for anything is very very very low. The actual costs are from using agency workers for social care, thats astronomical.

23daves.bsky.social•3 days ago

Far apart from the obvious points, isn't this the kind of crap all unimaginative political parties come up with? It's basically Starmer's entire plan for the civil service.
"We'll send someone in, then either screw everything up with radical cuts, or make a saving of £63k somewhere".

deargodwhatnow.bsky.social•3 days ago

So they're going to pay people to come in and give advice because

twlldun.bsky.social•3 days ago

Councils already have internal auditors and regularly - as a matter of course - are subject to external auditors, fwiw

jasongood.bsky.social•3 days ago

Sadly it’s not quite that straightforward…

(But Reform will achieve nothing with this approach. The mythical ‘waste’ is insignificant compared to 75% of spend going on social care and SEND.)

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/205906/govt-flying-blind-on-struggling-council-finances-amid-unprecedented-local-audit-crisis/

dermotsmith.bsky.social•3 days ago

Every … single … year! Including having to demonstrate value for money…

twlldun.bsky.social•3 days ago

(I assume they don’t count because idk woke?)

janetleicester.bsky.social•3 days ago

Wait until they meet the Standards Committee 😍

northofcam.bsky.social•3 days ago

Tbf there are issues with council audits as the audit commission used to do them and are now outsourced - and lots of councils are massively behind

mattjyeo.bsky.social•3 days ago

It's all so pointless and pretty much what the Tories used to say

beardybanjo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ironically one of the big cost savings on council audits would be undoing the "cost cutting" measure of Eric Pickles abolishing the Audit Commission which resulted in LAs needing to spend £££ on expensive private sector auditors

beardybanjo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Of course we're assuming that Reform mean actual financial auditors and not the conspiracy theorists with drones and cameras who turn up to harass police civilian staff and council employees on the regular.

mattsevern.bsky.social•3 days ago

Reform profit greatly from the uk
Media’s inability to describe how Britain’s actually governed and schools failure to teach it

nickcroom.bsky.social•3 days ago

Do they mean NAO or do they mean external firms? Because cutting back on unnecessary spend by paying loads to big accountancy firms would be quite a plan.

apexbuffoon.bsky.social•3 days ago

Grimes: "We'll get the auditors in. Young chaste men with feminine features. "Audit this" I'll say as I point to my groin"

smoulderstoat.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thank God there hasn't been a massive crisis in local government audits since the Audit Commission was abolished.

onlyindevon.co.uk•3 days ago

I am willing to bet hard cash that at some point it will emerge that consultancy firms engaged to undertake said audits have financial links to Reform UK Ltd.

therocon.bsky.social•3 days ago

Also of relevance - there is currently a sizeable problem with getting statutory audits done in time.

theangelremiel.bsky.social•3 days ago

I never know if it's worse if right wing creatures call for "efficiencies" because they actually think the public sector is inefficient or if they know it's a plausible euphemism for "get rid of everything"

drpaulitious.bsky.social•3 days ago

These people's idea of efficiency is only based on cutting input, they have no clue about improving output.

steviegogo.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/steviegogo.bsky.social/post/3lobn3j2bbk2y

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