pay pay pay

[kevin wooldridge]

Are County units are subsidized by Councils? Err do they pay commercial rents, IT equipment and service charges, HR provisions, advertising? IF so, are people who pay Council tax in County A subsidizing the Council unit to carry out work in and out of County? I guess they big grey area is Council A paying for work to be in Council B's backyard. Do Council units get (occasionally) bailed out financially when the fail to break even (a financial loss in other words)? I also thought that Government was keen to stop Councils directly competing against private companies for work?

I am pretty sure in these difficult financial times that very few non-essential local authority services are subsidised....but depending upon your point of view (and I can see Uo1 going off on one here), what defines an essential and non-essential service....I mean all of the following roles could be construed as part of a county unit. County Archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? Planning archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? HER archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? Finds Liaison Officer wages- subsidy, luxury essential? Wages of archaeologist attached to local museum - subsidy, luxury essential? Wages of community archaeologist - subsidy, luxury essential?

Legislation was enabled during the late 80s to allow local authorities to provide services outside of their local area. Whether you consider that to be subsidy is a matter of opinion as most of the instances I know of where this happens both local and 'intruder' tax payers get stung for the cost....As for bail outs. If a local authority undertakes work for which it has a contractual responsibility, it should of course honour that contract. I think the Daily Mail might describe that as a bail-out, others would say it is just a business transaction. Although Local Authorities can in principle overspend, it isn't legally possibly for them to make a 'loss'....

There is legislation which covers services for which local authorities are allowed to provide 'direct services' and the rules for contracting out those services and for regulating the tendering process between 'direct services' and contracted services. Local authorities are allowed to administer what I would describe as 'arms-length' operations where the enterprise is directly and wholly owned by the local authority, but provides in essence a contracted-out service. I know of at least 4 English local authority units who are now in effect 'arms-length' operations. There may be more....not sure of the situation in Wales and Scotland and NI....