Tuesday, June 03, 2008

City Hall a waste of money?

The GLC was abolished in 1985 because, it was claimed by Thatcher's government, city government was a waste of money and simply duplicated the work already done by the boroughs. Fast forward to 2008 and much of the local coverage of the GLA mayoral elections focused on possible wasted money. The inference of this campaigning was that Ken Livingstone wasted public money and that Boris Johnson would be more careful.

Therefore I was shocked to find that BJ's "handover" team is going to cost at least £465,000. This team is simply there to aid the transition to a new administration, not to actually run it. When much fuss was made over the salaries to officials like TfL's Peter Hendy, this revelation is at least a surprise and at most a disgrace.

ToryTroll reports that this is 70% of the cost to pay BJ's full time team for a whole year, while these "consultants" and Tory activists will only be working for between one and six months.

I sat at several mayoral election debates where BJ constantly berated Ken for the type of people he had employed and how much he paid them. He clearly doesn't feel the need to apply the same standards he expects of others to himself.

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