Budget consultation questionnaire results
Questions:
Q1 If you were the leader of the city council, what would be your very top priority?
Q3 Where do you think the city council could improve efficiency and/or make savings?
Q1 If you were the leader of the city council, what would be your very top priority?
Crime & Community Safety
- Reducing crime and disorderly behaviour of all age groups
- Tackling groups (teenagers) who meet every weekend either at St. Phillips Church (Northallerton Road), top of the ginnel (Littleton road) causing nuisance/fear amongst neighbours
- Reducing crime and tackling anti-social behaviour
- Youth crime reduction
- Not just quoting supposed reductions - reduction in all types of crime
Environment
- Environmental improvement
- To include outlying areas i.e., Irlam & Cadishead in the improvements to the city
- More support for community and voluntary groups
- To make Salford a cleaner place to live
- Regeneration of run-down areas, i.e. Liverpool Road, Eccles
- Cleaner streets “How many are fined for litter and dog fouling”. Do the street cleaners stop work from October to May each year hence dirty Salford streets
- Grounds maintenance is sloppy and inefficient, any debris left behind them stays!
- When improvements have been done make sure there is enough money in the budget for maintenance
Education
- Sure Start - whenever finance is available extend the boundaries of Sure Start. This is the best way to help young mothers & small children to enjoy a healthy & socially acceptable way of life. The benefits will be felt in schools by teachers and pupils, by police, courts, probation service, social services etc. and by society & the community.
- Young people, after school activities
- Encourage private finance for school
- Improving education in our schools
- Learning - making sure that all our children and young people (as well as adults) get the very best, including youth facilities
Efficiency
- A full value for money review of the management structure of the council
- A simple solution to return to the good and essential service provided by the Housing offices which is now a complete shambles if you get any response from the taped messages when ringing for help, it takes approx 20 minutes to get through to the appropriate department, my personal experience, plus my neighbours is that you wait so long then give up and then jobs required not reported to relevant departments
- Review all costs and cut back waste
- Keep down council tax for all
- Cut waste of money and keep council tax low. Pensioners pay rise 2003 to 2004 2½% Council Tax over the top
Leisure/Health
- Provide community facilities in Worsley, Ellenbrook, Moorside and improve and maintain existing amenities
- Health, improve and make access to all adults free at off peak times to Fit City’s programme
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- Developing pride in the city’s past and confidence in its future
- Make sure people know what, and why the decisions of council are made. There would be less criticism if people were informed, even if they did not agree with the decision
- Ensure that all funds are expended on activities that directly benefit the residents of Salford so maximising practical benefits to the community ie elimination of campaigns such as “IN Salford” which expends cash on road signs that are of no practical benefit to Salford taxpayers
Q2 If you had between £5m to £10m to spend on improving city council services what would you spend it on?
Crime & Community Safety
- It would be a waste of time improving anything at the moment - until you sort out “scum” who go round wrecking fences/properties/pinching from gardens etc
- Reducing crime, improving health
- Tackling youth disaffection with sanctions re anti social behaviour
- More police on the beat
Environment
- Removing derelict eyesores from around the city
- Better public transport and improve car parking facilities to make people’s lives a little easier. Alleygating
- Environmental uplift of neglected areas i.e. landscaping, cleaning rubbish “designing out” crime in this process. Pavement and road repairs
- Resurfacing roads and pavements - at the moment we use a patchwork repair system allowing the foundations to fall apart
- We need a service that will do better in the gardens department. To make sure that tenants gardens are kept in good order. I am 80 yrs old and received awards for my garden and also helped judge gardens for the council I am constantly phoning to get help with pruning and cutting. My hedge is now about 4ft high and is making it too dark for my close neighbours - Help!!
- Roads and pavements
- Street lighting
- Parks, open spaces - cleaning, improving and patrolling - salary for a ‘flying park keeper’
- Highway and street maintenance as this amount of money would help improve this service greatly
- Improving the roads in and out of Irlam and Cadishead to stop the grid locks
- Improving access to trains for the disabled, only one disabled station in Salford and the council refuse to help get it a timetable you’re a disgrace
- Our diabolical roads and gutters
- Clean, or demolish, some of the derelict buildings in Salford, especially those on main roads
Education
- Half on Sure Start and other support services for young people - outreach workers, youth workers (in youth clubs), sports feeders, classroom assistants, mentors etc. The other half on economic development to ensure as far as possible that having left school our youngsters are either in FE or employment with training
- £1m each on Youth Service, Sports Development, Police not computers! Additional PCs, additional community support officer (PCSOs), informal sport facilities in parks etc, and before & after school staffing
- Support non maintained schools
- Talk to teenagers in schools to find out what kind of activities/entertainment they would patronise in the evenings, keeping them off the streets. Make existing leisure facilities more easily accessible at night
- Encouraging parents to enforce more discipline towards their children
Efficiency
- Additional car parking provision (two storey/three storey on existing sites)
- Funding decorating, gardening and handyman type schemes across the city (including cleaning windows & hanging curtains and changing light bulbs for older/disabled people
- Less committee work and better action
- Servicing the customer - the people of Salford (Customer service)
Leisure/Health
- Creating more after school sport and leisure facilities for young people
- More care for the elderly including respite care for all carers
- Improve access to swimming pools for the disabled
- Improve all swimming pools
- Providing services for youths who do not commit crime, nuisance
- Well run facilities for young people throughout the city
- Supporting services to young people
- Youth facilities
Housing
- Quality housing, health and education
Q3 Where do you think the city council could improve efficiency and/or make savings?
Environment
- Street cleaning has improved but not enough. The condition of pavements in some streets is not satisfactory
- Using recycled paper
- Less paper waste
- Refuse collection
- Regenerate areas like Broughton, so much money wasted i.e., housing very poor - put facilities into this area build it up and people will want to spend time there also this implies other areas
- Improve traffic - get people onto bus and trains, improving transport as to job prospects, leisure - travel in full
Efficiency
- A review of the staffing levels of every department in relation to what they actually do. Far more openness and disclosure to the public on what the council actually do and what they are planning to do. It is our money they are spending so we have a right to know where it is going
- Remove at least half of the mobile phones - only a handful of employees cannot work efficiently without a mobile phone.
- By getting the planning right and the budget right.
- Get rid of best value and free up managers to manage
- No free drinks, only water
- Hiring a consultant to raise a profile is what business do - they need to - they are in competition with other businesses and can make a profit to offset the cost. This city is not in competition with any other - if it thinks it is in competition with Manchester - it has no chance - the two cities are as chalk and cheese. They need to work together
- Open negotiations on disposal of assets lease of land
- Collect more council tax
- Reduce the salaries of council executives and there is far too great a discrepancy between their salaries and those of the man-in-the-street
- Less administration, bureaucracy and performance monitoring
- Employ better staff
- Take back all the laptops and mobile phones given to officers and councillors
- Council expenses
- Providing electronic access to services
- Reduce administration. Focus on services that work. Encourage staff to go the ‘extra mile’
- Less managers and pen pushers going to meetings
- Improve efficiency of council departments at present letters seem to get ignored
- Make savings by reducing the number of mobile phones issued to staff
- Ensure that all council staff have a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay
- Less Committees
- Less Departments
- Eliminating waste and inefficiency in every department
- Any training for councillors or council staff should be held within the city of Salford so that any money spent goes back into the city coffers
- Encourage senior managers to employ proper business techniques
- Cut councillors expenses by making committee meetings more efficient. Using council owned properties for public committee meetings instead of hiring halls. Better publicised dates and venues of meeting to discuss projects of local interest
- Reduce two year projects, look at the long term effects of two year initiatives. Stop projects repeating the same jobs. Streamline existing projects stop producing glossy publications
- Health & Social Services scrap a lot of stupid traffic ‘calming’ expenditure
Leisure/Health
- The Lowry is not accessible to those who live in The Height, Kersal, Broughton etc., unless they have their own transport. This is very important - those who get the most out The Lowry are “the Cheshire set”. A need for cooperation between The Lowry & GMT Live - a bus service on its own will not work unless The Lowry markets itself in the relative areas so that people take advantage of opportunities offered to them.
Arts - Leisure
- Get all obese people into getting fit with cheap or free passes. The doctors would empty. Get Clifton station open, the only station this side of Salford with access for the disabled - no help whatsoever
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- Stop wasting money painting the town pink. Sub contractors rip-off the taxpayer (I can prove it)
- Too late now but if it had not employed someone to ‘think pink’ not paid for
a) designing pink ‘INSALFORD’ signs
b) making pink ‘INSALFORD’ signs
c) surveying for pink ‘INSALFORD’ signs
d) erecting pink ‘INSALFORD’ sign
this would have saved? How much - thousands!! - However, there are some basic principles of economy which are accepted by everybody. E.g. consultant for ‘think pink’ one of the art faculties in Salford’s colleges could have produced a design to raise the city’s profile - by competition - therefore being beneficial all round
- As I have been sent two copies of this posting - try checking your mailing lists that’s 2 x envelopes, 2 x postage, 2 x sides of colour printing, 2 x 6 sheets good quality paper
- We do not need all our signs changing to Magenta
- Closure of the Marketing and Communication Department
- Marketing
- Stop wasting money on Magenta signs etc
- Stop painting Salford all in pink keep it green
- Do we need all these signs “INSALFORD”
- Benefits and marketing which has now grown to a department
Consultation
- It is disingenuous to require us to come up with suggestions to make savings when the majority of council tax payers do not understand the complexities of local authority finances even when broken down in pie charts.
- I am on Focus Group have been on Best Value Community Committee Residents Association. Constituency member of Labour group so feel I am doing my best for Salford. I feel I am a responsible citizen of Salford and deserve to be heard on issues in this consultation
- Continue to develop participation and take notice of advice given by people. Refuse to allow bureaucrats to run the city services. Cut out pomp and ceremony
Housing
- Could make savings by not redoing properties of people who wreck them continually - fine them!! Stop their benefits!! Give them lessons on how to behave like normal people
- I would also like to suggest that when council tenants leave their properties for any reason (including death) that instead of the council cleansing department cleaning said properties why not ask prospective tenants to view before goods removed and trashed. I have seen carpets, fridges cookers etc trashed all obtained by DHS etc my neighbours feel the same about this matter and are very complacent about bringing essential matters to the city council Budgeting Committee, I know this epitaph is very long drawn out, but I consider worthy of notice. I will attend meeting on December 6th at One Stop Shop, Longshaw Drive, Little Hulton. Thank you and hoping for better things to come (Mrs. Ida Seddon)
- Less consultants, e.g., housing review - spend the money on actually improving housing not talking about it
- Housing
Youth
- By not investing in young people. They are not interested. All they want is to get to the pub, line up the pints, go on a wrecking spree etc. They are not worth any expenditure
This page was last updated on 28 September 2006
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