Month: Feb 2009

Black cab bullies

On Thursday the black cab trade got together and blocked roads in Westminster to protest about a scheme being run by Westminster Council and the Met to get people into cabs late at night in the West End. See BBC story here. I guess the story got lost in all the snow but it sounds like the black cab drivers will be doing this again soon.

It is in no-one’s interest to have young people wondering around late at night trying to get transport home. Westminster has come up with an imaginative scheme but the black cab drivers see it as a threat.

This YouTube clip shows how much they hate minicab drivers impinging on their frankly unfair privileges. The piece ends with the sentence: “How long before it starts to get nasty and someone gets hurt badly?” Judging by the thuggish black cabbie who was berating both the minicab driver and his customer in this clip that sounds like a threat that black cab drivers will get violent if they feel like it. What a scumbag?

In London there are about 22,000 black cabs and 44,000 minicabs. I often find black cabs are superior to minicabs. But most of all, when I get into a taxi in Newbury, I usually just want to get home and too many black cab drivers want to do the airports, work during the day but still protect their privileges if they deign to go out late on a Saturday.

I hope Westminster succeed with their scheme in the short term. In the longer term we need some legislation which takes into account modern technology. It should be possible to text, phone or e-mail details such as location (GPS?), destination, desired pick up time, type of vehicle required, etc and get back in seconds two or three competing bids detailing price and time to pick up such that all you need to do is hit the reply button to strike a deal. The current minicab regime is totally ungreen because it forces drivers to travel half their time empty. This not only wastes fuel but makes minicabs twice the price they should be. Doh! By the way this is the only reason that black cabs can compete.

Rather than the current two tier system we need 66,000 or more cars that are better than minicabs in terms of driver and car quality, cheaper and more easily accessible by anyone, anywhere. Are you up for this Mayor Johnson?

Update: Why does it not surprise me to find an RMT banner at this protest? Oh yes, thuggish bullies.

rmt-at-cab-protest

Ealing and Northfield

All those fat cat teachers

Post author By Phil
Post date 2nd Feb 2009
29 Comments on All those fat cat teachers

I noticed on Friday that the Gazette had picked up the previous week’s “research” paper from the TaxPayers’ Alliance that looks at people earning more than £50K in local government.

Would it be too much for the Gazette to do a bit of elementary fact checking before they just swallow the TPA’s press release wholesale? 154 of these “fat cats” are in the Borough’s schools. Now some people might say that paying £50K-plus to 154 heads, deputy heads and other senior staff in our 65 primary schools, 12 secondary schools and 6 special schools is a misallocation of resources. Please do say if you think so.

Now we have reduced the number of council fat cats from 326 to 172 perhaps we can heave a sigh of relief? If we take the TPA’s figures at face value, which would be a mistake, Ealing is ranked 21 out of 33 London authorities (ie 21st lowest) in terms of spending on highly paid staff per head of population. So we are probably not horribly out of order.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. I was involved with them in their very early days. I helped them with their initial fund raising and organising but I got disillusioned because their first publication, The Bumper Book of Government Waste, mixed up capital and revenue and different years and wasn’t really a serious analysis of waste – at least not one that was any use to anyone.

The headline of their press release was:

COUNCIL SPENDING UNCOVERED: COUNCILS EMPLOY 22% MORE MIDDLE MANAGERS THAN LAST YEAR

This is utter nonsense. They make no effort whatsoever to put any of this in any context or to compare like for like. I had a look at their figures for London boroughs. They had the Brent population figure wrong (71,600 instead of 270,000). They haven’t tried to work out whether or not teachers are included. Most boroughs include them and are roughly comparable. At least six don’t include them so look better than they otherwise would – Ealing is probably better than 21st. The City of London is an exception as it has a tiny population but loads of businesses to deal with.

The TPA could be really useful if they upped their game somewhat. Much of what they do though is to pull out facts and figures from published sources without understanding them. Ealing’s own figures for people paid over £50K are published on page 23 of our Statement of Accounts and anyone can pull them off our website here. All public bodies publish these tables. At least when I do this stuff to my friends at Transport for London I explain my workings!

Ealing and Northfield

Skinny cats

Post author By Phil
Post date 2nd Feb 2009
1 Comment on Skinny cats

I see that West Ealing Neighbours have picked up on the old fat cats story too. Eric Leach and David Highton seem to be unhappy:

Yet, WEN senses, anecdotally and from some of our own dealings, that there is growing frustration with some aspects of the Council’s practices and a feeling that our local democratic dealings are becoming increasingly confrontational. It’s as if you have to shout louder and louder just to be heard let alone to see any action.

They seem to want quick replies to letters and emails and to have questions or problems speedily and efficiently dealt with and resolved but don’t seem to want to will the means. They are perhaps being unrealistic.

Take for instance their pay comparisons. The place to go to for earnings information is the National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings here. Eric and David are right to point out that “the national average wage is around £24,000”. The 2008 survey says that average (mean) gross weekly pay is £471.90 per week or £24,538.80 per annum. It isn’t much use trying to pay national average pay rates in Ealing. The average also includes part-timers which is not a typical characteristic of senior staff like head teachers and other senior managers. If you look further in this data you will find information by place of work by local authority. Average (mean) gross weekly pay for full-timers resident in Ealing is £670.20 per week or £34,850.40 per annum. It is not hard to see how we end up with 172 £50K plus people running the council.

How much do the guys think some of the senior social workers get paid? They can’t praise the children’s services and then look askance when we pay people reasonable money to take responsibility for keeping children safe. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.