Excellent Savings!

As promised, here is the Official Dog & Duck Summary of all the savings we’ve noticed the Council announcing since we started taking an interest (less than six months ago). In fact, just today, here they are at it AGAIN!!

By our reckoning, before long they will be paying us to live here!

Unfortunately, like the Council, we are having problems with our auditor.

Audit Report

Our auditor, Albert Einstein, is currently in no position to issue any sort of coherent report on this summary. This is entirely his own fault, for insisting on trying to comply with trivial and irrelevant rules such as: the Laws of Nature, Logic, the Law of Gravy, Prudence (whoever she is), and others that we can’t pronounce. Let alone spell.

Before we pressed the “publish post” button on the blog, he was heard muttering something like “Nein, Nein Dumbkopf! You are double counting, and it does not vork like zat anyvay!”

However, every single one of these numbers has been taken from the Council’s own website, or from reputable sources like the TV. We have actually taken care not to do double counting (e.g. procurement savings started off being only £140,000,000 and then got raised to £150,000,000 so we put in £140,000,000 and £10,000,000, NOT £140,000,000 and £150,000,000, which would have given us a far better figure, but would have been double counting).

As a matter of fact, WE were the ones that suggested that the Council originally raised the procurement figure from £140m to £150m because they realised that even if 150+17 does not come to 200, at least it comes closer than 140+17.

Daffer, who happens to have “O” Level Maths, even suggested helpfully that 150+17 might be 167, and that this (using technical terms such as “one significant figure” and “rounding”) was the same as 200.

At this, Albert just flew off the handle yelling “Illogical, illogical! Nein … vorse than illogical, WRONG!”

Anyway, the point is, there is a deadline that was set 2,000 years ago and cannot be changed. Christmas is nearly upon us and all we know is that the Council has been going on and on about saving hundreds of millions of pounds, without bothering with explanations. This is an important time of year for household budgets. People need to have some idea of what all these big numbers mean for their Council Tax, so they know how much they have left to spend on presents.

These are special circumstances and we have done our best. OK?

Incompetent Auditors?

More in hope than expectation, we had a quick look at the latest minutes of the Excellent Audit Committee last night.

You see, these were the minutes of the first meeting of this committee since Somerset County Council achieved its latest distinction. That is, the National Award for tossing away more taxpayers' money in Iceland than any other LibDem run Council in the whole country.

In fact, they threw away two-and-a-half times more than their closest rival for this prestigious trophy. The runners up, Cambridge, only lost a measly nine million - even less than the Audit Commission.

Needless to say there was no hint of apology or humble pie or embarassment. In fact once again there was absolutely no mention of Iceland at all.

There was, however, an astonishing crypto-criticism of ... wait for it ... the very same Audit Commission!

It went like this "... both Members and Officers expressed disappointment that the external auditors findings had been received in such proximity to the 30 September deadline ..."

Apparently this meant that " ... the nature of the discussion at the September meeting could have create (sic.) a poor perception if members of the public had been in attendance ..."

Hmm. A poor perception of what, exactly? Are they trying to say it's a good job none of us ignorant yokels were at the meeting, because they did something wrong, and the auditors actually noticed? That would be a first!

Anyway, before anyone starts cracking jokes about Enron and Ponzi Schemes, let us commiserate with the poor old Council. That's because down at the Dog & Duck we are having problems with our own auditor.

All we are trying to do is a simple summary of all the savings announced by SCC this year, and set out a broad overview of what they mean for the average Council Tax payer. It's not finished yet, but is a real proper job exercise, with a spreadsheet and everything.

Meanwhile Albert Einstein (our auditor) is still tearing his hair out because he reckons 17+140 does not equal 200, and is being a general pain in the arse. However, we will publish it this week. That's a promise. Audit or no audit.

Excellent Complaints Management

One thing that has long taxed the (limited) intellectual resources of the Dog n' Duck is how the Forces of Excellence are able to claim that they get so few complaints. However over the weekend a CHUM agent was so incensed by the censorship issue that they leaked us a copy of this spreadsheet. It is self explanatory, and just reinforces what we suspected all along!

Videos – Don't Panic!

Whoever drew up the Human Rights Act obviously had no regard for the needs of people who have spent the whole week in County Hall, reading extraordinary emails then going around in circles and banging their heads against the wall in despair.

Otherwise there would be an additional “right”, namely to a bit of light relief at the weekends, watching the latest video about their tormentors on YouTube.

This weekend, when Les Miserables click on their favourites to have another look at Ian Liddell Grainger’s famous video about their plight, they will see the words … "This video has been (censored)"

The same applies to all the others as well. Even the most innocuous ones (the ones that we liked best, incidentally).

Luckily the legendary County Hall Underground Movement (CHUM) was tipped off in advance. Hey! Maybe by Simon? That would be in keeping with the Matt Finnegan / Tony Parrish tradition.

Anyway, as a result someone was able to download most of the videos before C-day, and re-post them on another site (presumably offshore) called vimeo.com.

Here is our selection.

First, there is everyone’s favourite – the firing squad in a quarry (subtitled: “why no-one waved a red flag about the issue ").

Then there is the one about chaotic innovation … which includes the infamous words that inspired the folks down the Dog n’ Duck to start taking an interest.

We also like Bugs Bunny & the Jackass.

Some of the others can be found there as well, but as you know, we don’t do Sex or Politics down at the Dog n’ Duck. We are “strictly business”.

So … your weekend has been saved!

Public Apology to communities team

A group claiming to represent people of Gypsy/Roma heritage recently contacted the Dog n’ Duck. They told us that the Somerset “Gypsy & Traveller Team” was in no way Excellent, and was, in fact, "doing a fe**ing good job”.

We promised to publicise this, and to link to a story about Somerset on a “Romany” website that they told us about …. but due to distractions around bullying and censorship it got overlooked. And in a display of utter incompetence (it wasn’t me, it was the Dog!) we have now lost the link.

However we would like to apologise for the delay in bringing it up, and to confirm our belief that this story on the Council’s own website is in fact true.

And, before you ask, no - we are not “only saying it” because they don’t mention Excellence.

Not even once!

CENSORED!

Down at the Dog n' Duck we are all hoping that Jonesy has gone to the same place as those disappearing videos on YouTube.

(NB - don't despair! A few days ago we noticed that someone had made a little collection of some of the videos and has posted them on another site - we are checking our browser's "history" to find out where, and will post the link when we find it. At the time Daffer Jones said something must be up. His voyages have taken him to many places where there is censorship, so he picked up on the vibe before the rest of us.)

Let us be clear: we did NOT approve of the videos. At least, not all of them.

But some were very topical. Especially the one with the firing squad in the quarry. I remember when Jonesy ordered that execution - we were all delighted. She was a real bitch.

However, one does have to wonder how much of our money the Council is spending on censorship. Presumably they will see it as money well spent, since without censorship there would be no Excellence.

Would there?

Where has Jonesy Gone?

The latest two TV programmes about Excellence (this one and the BBC effort on "cyber-bullying" a week earlier) show an astonishing shift in Policy. Jonesy, once so prominent in swanking to broadcasters, is nowhere to be seen or heard!

One must assume that the County Council has finally seen the light, and realised that Jonesy is a total liability in the presence of a camera or a microphone. Of course, down at the Dog n' Duck we consider him to be more of a comic genius than a liability, but then, we don't have to explain to the electorate what he has been up to. At least, not with a straight face.

Unfortunately, the Councillors seem to have decided to put themselves in the firing line (well that brave chap, Sam Crabb, has been doing so). This is bad news indeed, because:

(1) Councillor Crabb has an understandable but unfortunate tendency to look embarassed when being made to clutch meaningless trophies or spout idiotically large numbers that not even Albert Einstein can understand. It's hard for the audience to laugh and cringe at the same time;
(2) Councillor Crabb appears not to have been Linguistically Programmed to insert random but relevant phrases into his speech. That is phrases like "we, of course, are a four star (the most you could get before the plus was invented) excellent council as rated by the Audit Commission"; and
(3) The landlord has placed an absolute prohibition on "Political" postings from the Dog n' Duck computer (we even got into trouble for defending the Mogg).

Luckily, before Jonesy was removed from the public eye he showered us with so much bull that we estimate that the Dog n' Duck "explaining Excellence" programme could continue for another 2.75 years purely to clear the backlog. Even if he never said anything to anyone about "Excellence" ever again.

And let's face it - that is hardly likely to happen, is it?