I posted the following on the Conservative local cuts thread. Reposting here now.

As part of my council job (lowly business support) I manage a load of volunteers who in effect are taking paid work away from qualified professionals. Also I should know just before Christmas if my post is going away as business support is being restructured into one service with service level agreements to the myriad services they support. Lots of redundancies and lots of downgrades.

The effect of the cuts will mean that managers, officers, social workers, etc. who actually deliver services to the public will be tasked with doing much more of the business support work (filing, answering phones, minute taking, arranging meetings and travel, ordering goods and services) for themselves because there will not be the support staff to do it. More time doing admin work equates less time delivering services.

Eventually every service will be expected to become self supporting financially too, which means commissioning (managing services and projects for other authorities) and / or becoming a traded company and selling service back to the council. We know what the grand plan in our council has been for a long time. Just one small very highly paid top level organisation, contracting with external businesses for all public service provision.

We have also seen how this model fails, especially for vulnerable people. Once the council removes itself from the direct service provision they can easily wriggle out of failings of private companies to deliver the provision. Care homes come to mind.