What’s next for the chop?

Published: 19 February 2010

• FURTHER to Councillor Daniel Astaire’s letter (New team to crack down on anti-social behaviour, February 12) – it is typical of Westminster City Council that it would expect residents businesses and visitors to believe that cutting the amount of staff available on street by half will improve the service being provided.

The City Inspectors carry out vital education and enforcement work across the city, they deal with a large and varied volume of issues every day and those issues will not magically vanish even after “modernisation”. 

However with a proposed 50 per cent reduction in capacity simple logic dictates that a large proportion of those issues will simply fall by the wayside. But the story doesn’t end there because the city council also intends for the new team to take on the functions of the existing City Guardian service. 

So not only are the numbers of staff being reduced by half but the workload is also being doubled! 

That doesn’t sound like a recipe for improving service to me. The fact that the proposal will save £2.1million a year is being touted as though it is a side effect of these new plans when in fact it is entirely to the contrary. These changes are being proposed in response to the council demanding that the service make these savings.

The council must produce £20million of new savings to bridge yet another budget shortfall and these plans are surely the first in a long line of cuts to the great services provided to Westminster residents, businesses and visitors. 

The so-called “modernisation” of street management is in fact a bad old fashion slash cut. 

It may be the first but it certainly won’t be the last. What service is next for the chop?

Meanwhile it is interesting to note that while the council on the one hand proposes to make staff redundant to save money councillors are still going ahead with a £23,000 civic dinner to be held at the Northumberland Hotel on March 9. 

The needs of the public are playing second fiddle so that certain councillors can show off and stuff their faces while the council tax payers in this borough pick up the bill!

STEPHEN HIGGINS
Branch Secretary
Westminster UNISON