Lancashire councils reject curb on salaries (From Chorley Citizen)

Selective licencing will only make run down areas even worse because investors will not invest in these areas any more -anyone being unlucky enough to own a property that is empty for any period of time - will now have to pay 100% council tax regardless of however short a period their property is unoccupied. All this extra cash going into the coucils coffers should allow for even greater salaries in the future.

dagsballicks wrote:
If shisha cafes are there purely for smoking, why aren't they raided everyday? There is a clue in the name that an offence may be being committed.

Why can't I say this on the article in question?

If you read the article "It is legal to smoke in a shisha bar if 50 per cent of the premise’s wall area are missing". I assuming the wall has to be an outside wall however I suggest as the process of Shisha smoking is not like "nipping outside for a quick fag" then I suggest at night or on days that are not warm enough to sit outside (ie most) then only Captain Oates would be found outside so yes I agree. Sound like a good money earner in fines to me.
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It is more disturbing that children are being found on these premises and danger from smoking is the least of their worries. Make these places apply and pay for a licence (unless they already do of course) and ban under 18s

I wonder whether this report is taken from a Taxpayers Alliance Press Release. If so, then it needs to be subject to further analysis and additional information used to put figures into contact. One point that needs to be made is that since Blackburn with Drawn is a unitary authority comparison with authorities in the two-tier area is not valid, in my view.

At first glance a figure of 28,000 staff nationally on salaries exceeding £70,000 sounds shocking but this is out of total local government staffing of some 2.76m. This equates to just over 1% of the total workforce, which puts a rather different complexion on things.
I
have to say that I am not convinced by the arguments advanced by the political leaders in response to the accusation that chief officers are over-paid. The fact that the statements made by the political leaders of different authorities are similar makes me wonder whether they have gone to the chief officers in order to have a response to the claim that chief officers are paid too much money! If this is the case then what we have here is a local version of 'Yes, Prime Minister'.

Moreover, the argument that the salaries paid are comparable between authorities is a circular one in as much as the salaries reflect the ‘going rate’ for the job, so one would expect them to be broadly comparable.

Finally, of most interest to me is the figures relating to the lower-tier district councils that have the same duties and responsibilities but show considerable variance in salaries over £50,000. In Pendle the number is 7, in the Ribble Valley and Chorley they get by with just 3 – less than half the figure in Pendle.

Of course, without seeing the entire organisation structure it’s hard to draw a firm conclusion but on the face of it further investigation would seem to be warranted.