10:36am Friday 20th August 2010
For Cllr Graham Henson’s information, I was part of the team that ran the entire South Eastern region’s computer systems for the late Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). Later a major private sector installation for the world’s largest advertising agencies and a local IT firm that provided equipment and backup for small business.
The former spent a fortune on “upgrades” and the latest toys, naturally at taxpayers’ expense and that rarely worked properly and was only kept afloat by huge injections of other people’s money. The latter cut their cloth accordingly, careful to ensure that every pound counted and that it ran as efficiently as possible. True that this was a while ago, but basic economics and common sense have not changed.
Fast forward to the New Labour administration with the same old faces. Hopelessly out of their collective depths, we have the same dalliance with shiny new toys when most of the current equipment is perfectly serviceable.
What is this 95 per cent of machines not being serviceable nonsense? The 1500-plus workstations are Pentium-4 PCs running Windows XP, with high-grade flat screen monitors and peripherals. I challenge Cllr Henson to a hands-on inspection to prove otherwise.
Harrow has to make real savings and start acting in a businesslike manner as opposed to the socialist mafiosi culture that when the money runs out clobbers hapless residents, businesses or motorists on pain of draconian punishment. You don’t splurge millions you don’t have on machines that depreciate from day one, filling the Civic Centre with highly paid bureaucrats and consultants while cutting front-line jobs.
Labour would have us believe that shiny new computers will make the council more efficient — they won’t. In the same way that a new school building does not guarantee a better education, when it is the people, staffing and the work ethic that matters most. Labour’s cuts in front-line staffing are going to do terrible damage, but we’ll have nice new computers, Labour’s expensive legacy.
This is what happens when people are fooled into voting Labour, this is what socialism always does, tax, spend, borrow and waste, and all we can do is watch Labour’s entirely preventable slow motion train wreck taking place while they blame everyone else and we have to clear up the mess again in 2014.
Jeremy Zeid, Conservative Team, Kenton West
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