Author Topic: Accountability and cost of Council Staff  (Read 6347 times)

NightWish

  • Not So New ...
  • *
  • Posts: 36
Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« on: February 16, 2015, 16:21:06 »
I have a plot on a council-run allotment.  According the the Council accounts "salaries" make up £18,000 per annum of the budget for the allotments.

Our rents have been going up far more than the rate of inflation in an attempt to make the plots "self-funding".  There is a mood among the plotholders that we are not getting £18,000 of time spent on our plots.

Does anyone firstly have any idea of how much time of a council groundsman £18,000 would buy?

Secondly, has anyone ever successfully got a council to account to them for the time of their staff?  For instance, how many days they spend actually going maintenance on each site, and how much time is spent running competitions or on admin?

Very grateful for any help you can offer.

kGarden

  • Half Acre
  • ***
  • Posts: 223
    • kGarden Blog
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2015, 16:56:14 »
I am guessing, but I would think that Council will need to charge staff out as 2x to 3x salary (to cover Employer's National Insurance, Pension, etc. the overheads of Office space and Admin staff that manage HR, Wages, and Management).

So £18,000 would get the services of someone who's salary was £9,000 or maybe even only someone paid £6,000.

No idea what the salary is of such clerical folk, but if £20,000 p.a. and they work, say, 200 days a year (after sickness and holiday) then you'd get 90 - 60 days p.a., and if the salary is £30,000 then 60 - 40 days p.a.

No idea if that is any good as a starting point though?

NightWish

  • Not So New ...
  • *
  • Posts: 36
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2015, 17:08:09 »
I am guessing, but I would think that Council will need to charge staff out as 2x to 3x salary (to cover Employer's National Insurance, Pension, etc. the overheads of Office space and Admin staff that manage HR, Wages, and Management).

So £18,000 would get the services of someone who's salary was £9,000 or maybe even only someone paid £6,000.

No idea what the salary is of such clerical folk, but if £20,000 p.a. and they work, say, 200 days a year (after sickness and holiday) then you'd get 90 - 60 days p.a., and if the salary is £30,000 then 60 - 40 days p.a.

No idea if that is any good as a starting point though?

Or it would get the third of the time of someone paid £19,000 pa (which seems to be the rate for this type of job around here).

My company (completely different type of business) want 171 days allocated to fee-paying work.  Assuming the same type of thing it means that our maintenance person ought to be working on the allotments for 57 days a year (works at at around 7 days per site).

There was only one sighting of the man on our site last year.


bluecar

  • Acre
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2015, 19:09:40 »
Hello Nightwish.

I'm not sure there is a simple answer to your question.

First of all assuming the £18000 costs are purely for your allotment site, then your £18000 costs will be paying for more than an individual it will have to cover overheads such as NI, pension and establishment/overhead costs. What do the Council do for you - collect rents, maintain the waiting list, allocate plots, inspect plots, maintenance etc.

The likelihood is that you are being subsidised by the Council (tax payers) and each year they will be trying to reduce that subsidy. As to whether you are getting value for money then that is another question. If you want to reduce your costs then the answer is self management and you may wish to consider this option.

Regards

Bluecar


NightWish

  • Not So New ...
  • *
  • Posts: 36
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2015, 20:08:41 »

The likelihood is that you are being subsidised by the Council (tax payers) and each year they will be trying to reduce that subsidy. As to whether you are getting value for money then that is another question. If you want to reduce your costs then the answer is self management and you may wish to consider this option.


That is exactly what the Council say they are trying to do - and most of the plotholders don't object to that.  The issue is that there is a general consensus that the guy responsible for the maintenance is a very best "a waste of space".  Furthermore, there has always been a suspicion that the time allocated to allotments is often spent on his other duties, which are far more high-profile for the Councillors.When, 10 years ago, we were paying a peppercorn rent, that was one thing, but now it is felt that we're not getting value for money.  There are suggestions of self-management, and of outright rebellion and not paying the rents.

However, before pursuing either of these route (!) there is also a feeling that we should try and address our concerns with the Council.  But as we don't know what we ought to be getting for our £18,000 we don't know where to start.  If we knew he was supposed to spend x number of days on admin and x number of days on-site then we'd know whether we were getting value for money.  I was asked if I could ask "the internet" if other sites ever have this kind of information or whether all Council run sites just have to accept what they are given.


kGarden

  • Half Acre
  • ***
  • Posts: 223
    • kGarden Blog
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2015, 08:26:09 »
Would the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners be able to help (not something I know about, except the name!)

www.nsalg.org.uk

BAK

  • Wiki Editor
  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 529
    • BK - This and That
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2015, 08:28:01 »
NightWish,

it would be useful to know what the rent is and roughly where you are. This would allow a view on how it compares to other sites.

Re salaries, overheads have already been mentioned by others. One other question - does the account include the salary of others, i.e. the person / persons responsible for admin matters?

Is it just salaries .. or does the amount cover other items such as land rent, water, equipment, consumables etc?

How many sites is the council responsible for?

Finally, I will be highly surprised if you manage to get the council to account for everything .. but I am just an old cynic!

Personally, I would avoid confrontation .. because that is where this sort of thing can easily lead .. and concentrate on being constructive, e.g. negotiating a self-management deal if that is what the majority are happy with.

NightWish

  • Not So New ...
  • *
  • Posts: 36
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2015, 14:13:45 »
Rent for a 5 rod plot this year is £50, last year it was £42 and next year will be £57.  There are approximately 250 half rod plots spread over eight sites.  This is in a rural area of Surrey.  None of the sites have an kind of communal facilities, or security - unless you include on my site a falling down fence and a gate with a missing lock.

The £18,000 in the budget/accounts just "salaries".  There is a separate entry for water, and various consumables, photocopying, postage etc.  The land is owned by the council.

The "salaries" is, as far as we know, supposed to cover maintenance, admin and organisation of various competitions.  As far as we know,  there was one day of "maintenance" last year, and we definitely know there is a long list of jobs which need doing.

Quite a few plotholders have suggested they would rather see more maintenance and fewer competitions.  But without any idea of how many days' time we are getting for our money it's difficult to know whether this would make any difference to costs, or whether scrapping the competitions would have any effect on the amount of maintenance ... which we why people are asking whether it was possible to get an degree of accountability from the Council.

sparrow

  • Acre
  • ****
  • Posts: 493
    • mudandgluts
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2015, 15:57:40 »
If it's £18k for 8 sites then you probably wouldn't get much. An eighth of a working year is about 31 days, but easily half of that might be taken up with admin (dealing with water bills, budgets, insurance, H&S issues etc) plus management requests and report writing and other issues might take up more time on other sites so it won't ever work out evenly. We have a half-post covering 24 sites in the borough. Half of those are self-managed and the rest are serviced through a contractor as part of the overall green spaces management.

Personally I think it depends on how big your site is and how many volunteers you might have if you are thinking of getting self-management sorted. Self-management can be hard if you are on a small site. Quite often most of the jobs end up being done by one person. Perhaps you could have joint self-management with other sites to help spread the load?

My site is self-managed but quite large. The Council does do really major jobs when necessary - we had new gates last year, but we do a lot of the maintenance ourselves through work parties or paying via our rent surplus. Can you set up work parties to start doing some of the jobs on the list yourselves rather than waiting for the Council? We have a long lease with the Council which means we can set our own rents. Our individual rents are lower than on sites which aren't self-managed, but we still have enough to pay for a few improvements when we need them.

kGarden

  • Half Acre
  • ***
  • Posts: 223
    • kGarden Blog
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2015, 16:57:25 »
Personally I think it depends on how big your site is and how many volunteers you might have if you are thinking of getting self-management sorted. Self-management can be hard if you are on a small site. Quite often most of the jobs end up being done by one person. Perhaps you could have joint self-management with other sites to help spread the load?

Is it possible to self-manage as a group of several sites? If so might that be more attractive if the site in question is small?

sparrow

  • Acre
  • ****
  • Posts: 493
    • mudandgluts
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2015, 17:02:08 »
That's what I was suggesting...

kGarden

  • Half Acre
  • ***
  • Posts: 223
    • kGarden Blog
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2015, 19:01:39 »
So you did, sorry missed it the first time I read it.

bluecar

  • Acre
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #12 on: February 17, 2015, 21:26:32 »
Hello Nightwish.

I don't think we've been able to help too much as it seems so far we can't quote the support from a council site and the corresponding costs. I can only suggest a scenario of 50% admin costs and 50% maintenance costs and ignoring the competitions as we don't know how many they are a year and what the competitions are.

So, for the time being assume the 50% covers admin & competitions then at a generous £25.00 per hour cost including overheads you should get 360 hours of admin support which I believe is more than adequate to run 250 plots (rents collection, waiting lists, plot inspections etc). Then take another generous £30.00 per hour maintenance then this equates to 300 hours worth of maintenance so each site could expect a weeks worth of maintenance. Obviously this excludes major costs such as erecting fencing.

My costings are, I believe high, but I am just trying to give some perspective.

If you can negotiate a self management scheme for your site, some sites or all sites, then I'm sure you will find you are able to direct your funds for the benefit of your plot holders. We are self managed with our Council as the landlord and a half plot is £7 inclusive of water. Fortunately we have Little in the way of maintenance needs however if we were paying £57 the extra £50 per plot would allow serious site improvement.

Regards

Bluecar

Digeroo

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,578
  • Cotswolds - Gravel - Alkaline
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2015, 23:40:44 »
I am on a private site and pay about the same.  We certainly see site maintenance: the paths are mown, hedging done, plumbing sorted.  Recently had a new gate, though this is more to prevent ingress of sheep. 

Not sure I would expect so many hours for the money.   I think I would double the per hour charges hence reducing the available hours by half.  Apart from anything they will have charging out nearly 20% to cover the pension scheme.

Agree self management is the way to go.  The council certainly need to reduce their contribution.  Suggest you get a committee together who are willing to do the organisation and approach the council.   There are quite a few people from self managed sites here.  The biggest problem seems to be the moaners at the AGM.  It is a recurring theme.

One problem with work parties and organising committees is that it tends to be the same people who contribute time and effort and others who moan.

Competitions sounds like a luxury no one can afford.  Certainly think these should be organised by a voluntary group of some kind and not the council.

 

NightWish

  • Not So New ...
  • *
  • Posts: 36
Re: Accountability and cost of Council Staff
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2015, 11:14:03 »
Thank you everyone,

This has been helpful, if not in the way intended.  I think the conclusion is that, considering all the overheads, pushing at the Council isn't going to get us more maintenance time for our money (i.e., they are not ripping us off and using "our" time for other things), however, we we went down the self-management route we could be better off, if we can find enough people to do it.  I think, when people start moaning about this I'm going to make the first point, and then ask them how they would contribute to self-management instead.  That should keep them quiet.  I think because I can be quite bossy (I've organised working groups before) and also enjoy socialising people think I ought to take all this on.  No!

fyi, the competitions are:

Best kept plot (1st, 2nd and 3rd price on each site, plus best overall)
Best Scarecrow
Biggest Pumpkin
Fruit and veg Exhibition (not sure what the proper name is, where people get points for each class).

Plus

Winter lecture
BBQ

Quarterly newsletter


As all of these involve our Council-man's time I'd dump the lot!  If people want them then they can organise them themselves.


 

SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal