Having received Oxfordshire County Council’s most recent issue of Oxon News, I noted that although council leader Keith Mitchell indicated that non-front line jobs would be going, the magazine didn’t really detail how £90m (which now seems to have risen to £106m) of savings will be made.
Mr Mitchell says he’s being honest and upfront by telling us that 500 odd jobs are likely to be lost so as to streamline back office functions and lower bureaucracy.
Yet the county council is advertising for an assistant to the current head of transport, worth £75k a year.
So much for becoming leaner, and more efficient with the Oxfordshire taxpayer’s pound.
The head of transport (Steve Howells) says in that job description “the county is facing major pressures on growth which places high demands on an already stressed transport infrastructure”.
Behave! As we know only too well, most of the stress and pressure on our local transport infrastructure has, in fact, been caused by the county council either tampering with the ‘unbroken’ over the past 11 to 12 years to make the place look nice for visitors, or the continual introduction of money-wasting, traffic-clogging, non-essential strategies and schemes in Oxford and some surrounding towns – all of which have caused more problems and cost the taxpayer (whether motorist or not) more money than they have ever solved or saved.
Wool and eyes are the first two words that spring to mind. Bull is the next!
David Williams
David Walter Close
Oxford
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