Wires Crossed in County Hall?

Or is it, as Postman (not very PC) Pat suggested, "that lot just ain't wired right!"

The Dog & Duck mailbox has received a link to this astonishing document.

It seems that certain people at SCC have put an awful lot of work into working out CUTS TO SERVICES worth about £4 million!

Our initial observations are twofold. First, why do they need to make cuts when they have spent the last six months going on about how they have saved hundreds of millions of pounds? (And most of them thanks to SouthWest One, which, unlike some SomerBloggers, we have scrupulously avoided criticising - so far!)

... Give SouthWest One a chance, we told ourselves. Perhaps it is true that it is going to save us £200million ....

Anyway, our second observation is more of a question. The £4million hit-list targets things like "community", "care", "achievement", "transport" ... even "drainage" and "ditch clearance" (we thought they'd given up on that years ago, despite all the flooding we get!).

So, they are planning to cut things that we need, and care about. If they really want to make cuts in spite of all the savings, and in spite of the fact that they are sitting on A BILLION POUNDS of our money ... Why don't they get rid of the £4million spin department?

Sorry for all the links in today's post, but some serious inconsistencies are beginning to appear. We only hope this does not mean that the "it's all lies" faction have been right all along ....

Einstein confirms Iceland losses

SCC has its own version of the Dog & Duck. They call it the "Scrutiny Committee" and it met on 6th January 2009.

As a gesture of solidarity, we bought them each a calculator for Christmas, using the extra money that we're going to have thanks to the massive reduction in Somerset council tax expected this year. And it looks like it worked, too! This is what the committee was told:

the £25m had been invested as 5 separate deposits of £5m each

i.e. 5x5=25!

Not even Albert Einstein could argue with that one, even if he is too thick to understand that 140+17=200.

Daffer Jones, who knows all about sailing close to the wind in the North Atlantic, said that he wouldn't have been surprised if there had been 25 deposits of £5million each.

After all, using Jonesy's innovative mathematical methods (patented by IBM), this might also come to a mere £25 million.

Smug in Somerset

Ha! Everyone else is going to have an increase in their Council Tax of 3.5%, but not here in Somerset.

That's because we have an "Excellent" council that announced more than half a billion pounds worth of savings in the second half of last year.

Down at the Dog & Duck we await the arrival of our Council Tax bills with quiet confidence this year, despite having spent all our money on christmas presents to help the economy.

Here in Somerset we call it "the Excellence dividend".