Monday, June 21, 2010

Some Good news

Clearly someone in the colaition has been reading my blog. No sooner had i rallied against speed cameras, where now a weak later, no new money will be provided for local councils for the money collecting machine otherwise known as speed cameras. Three cheers to Mike Penning the Roads Minister who in a statement said the government will provide no more money for speed cameras fixed speed cameras. This is a victory for common sense. In a time when we are massively in debt, we can't fritter money away on speed cameras, which haven't actually had any effect on speeding motorists and road accidents and deaths. Perhaps the next stage is to cut the funding for speed cameras for local authorities as a symbol that the government is on the motorists side and not trying to crush them.

The message Mike Penning also gave out was positive, saying if local councils wanted to use fixed speed cameras, then they could finance it themselves, showing that autonomy from the centre was being allowed. What was more positive was the messsage afterwards from Mike Penning saying that we strongly encourage them to use other methods and effective safety measures. I hope this is an acknowledgement that fixed speed cameras have failed and it is time to move on.

In noticing that the public think the growth of speed cameras have got out of control, at least in some areas, the coalition has got its fingers on the pulses of what people are feeling.

The Shocking amount of fraud undetected in Local Councils

Today, it has shockingly been found that over 97% of council fraud is not detected, to put this in a monetary context that is £3.4 billion. This is deeply worrying considering the money being fraudently used is our money, paid for in council taxes which is going up year on year. apparently these higher council taxes would lead to more efficiency, well as the high level of fraud shows they haven't. Once more this shows that higher taxes are not the answer.

It is time also for the murky world of local government financing to be thrown open, at the moment we don't know where a lot of our money is going. It is time for all finances of the council to be published online, so we the public can see and comment on how are money is spent.

its time for us to know where are money is going and stop the waste, otherwise once again the people will be losing out, whilst local government officials will be laughing all the way to the bank. I dont know about you but if the government is truthful about wanting to give power, how about they make a start in working with local councils to decrease the disgraceful level of fraud.