SIR – Yesterday I made a determined effort to read Bradford Council’s ‘Have your say on Council spending’.
As I expected it was heavy-going, repetitious and cliche-ridden. Council spending is not truly detailed but clumped into sectors.
As an example, we are informed that the Human Resources sector consumes £13.3 million, which is spent ‘for services involving the support and management of the Council’s employees’.
Before anyone could make any considered judgement as to whether this particular sum of money is being well-spent, the Council needs to provide a far more detailed financial breakdown.
How, down to the last penny, is this huge sum of money spent? As we all know, the Council is committed to being as open, fair and transparent as possible, so this information will be forthcoming? Yes? No, I didn’t think it would be.
Had the publication genuinely been meant to inform, it would have featured detailed breakdowns of spending in every sector.
A useful start would have been a definitive list of Council employees, including the Chief Executive’s office, with job titles and individual salaries. Then we really would have had something to consider. We could have clearly seen where savings might be realised and made our informed comments.
Joe Woollard, Bogthorn, Keighley
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