September 22: Those Kent TV savings in full
Exactly how has Kent
County Council managed through Kent TV to make
publicity savings of £1million this year?
The council has until now been rather vague on the detail
but thanks to Thanet
blogger Tony Flaig some light has finally been shed on where
the purse strings have tightened.
Following a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by
Tony, KCC has disclosed a breakdown of its savings in 2009-10,
identifying the sums for each of its directorates. You can see the
council's request response here and as Tony says, it's
amusing to see how the figures provided neatly add up to £1million
- not a penny more or a penny less.
The response also provides examples of how the savings have
been achieved, chiefly through a reduction in printed
literature. There's a not inconsiderable sum saved in Corporate
Support, where reducing the Around Kent
magazine to a twice-yearly publication has saved £150,000.
One interesting part of KCC's response is that it talks
about how cutting printed literature has been "replaced with
enhanced online access to communications and services through
formats such as Kent TV, thus enabling the significant
savings to be realised."
Which begs the rather obvious question as to whether all the
savings are attributable solely to Kent TV or Kent TV plus other
things, like the county council website.
Either way, the disclosure of the information - which is to be
welcomed - has left me slightly puzzled about KCC's response to my
own FOI request for similar details about the £200,000 savings made
the previous year.
You can read KCC's response to a complaint I lodged about its
failure to provide the details here
What is perplexing is that KCC said in its response to me that
"there is no reporting mechanism in existence under which
Directorates have to account for precisely how the savings have
been made."
But hold on. If that is the case, how come the authority has
managed to produce details of how it has saved £1million this year
but was unable to do so for £200,000 the previous year?
I suppose one explanation might be that KCC was aware that
questions would be asked about where the savings were
coming from and subsequently did introduce a reporting
mechanism.
Either way, I will be writing to KCC to see whether it can
account for the apparent contradictory responses. Unless someone
wants to pre-empt things.
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KCC is bullish about its on-going efforts to woo Olympic nations
to the county for preparation and training camps.
There's particular pleasure behind the scenes that after
yesterday's news that it has taken a
lead over Medway Council which is also aggressively marketing
itself to various countries. Who said competition was
unhealthy?
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I imagine it's not a question many of us ask but do any of
our councillors ever ponder how attractive they are?
Perhaps they would be advised to steer clear of such questions
after a
Conservative councillor in Uxbridge got himself de-selected by
his party after unwisely completing a Facebook questionnaire
designed to show how "sexy" he was. His only crime so far as I
can see is that he had a sense of humour. Maybe that's not allowed
these days.
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Tuesday, September 22 2009