The Libdem/SNP administration have offered the opportunity for you to try to set you own council budget and have your views heard on the priorities the Political parties should have.Sound great.. except that it only went up 4 weeks before we set are due to set the Budget. So my question is; just how much influence will you have? If the administration don't know what their priorities are by now then they really don't have a clue.. or.. they do and this consultation process is a farce, in the manner of a TV phone in competition perhaps.
Do this kind of consultation is fine but for it to be effective or realistic, (or honest) it needs to be done 6 months in advance but that would take a level of organisation way beyond the capacity of the present administration.
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Pretty meaningless little tool too, it seems.
Answering all questions correctly to "earn" £760,000, selecting no additional services, and choosing the budget-cutting option results in ... Happy citizens.
Answering as many questions as possible wrongly (on the multi-choice one, you have to select at least one), thus "earning" a mere £40,000, adding as many services as possible, and then selecting the most expensive possible later option results in ... Happy citizens.
Useless tool - would be far more use if it let you directly modify the budgets of each department, to see the effect that it has on the end council tax (which is obviously heavily distorted by the fact council tax raises a relatively small proportion of what the council spends).
Euan
Thanks for this and I couldn't agree more. Turns out around 600 people responded, (thats 0,2% of the population) but the results are very much motherhood and apple pie.
By the way, Edinburgh has the highest proportion of council tax as a total of its income in Scotland (around 25%) so your final suugestion is even more valid.
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