Sutton Council: Your money, their broadband connection

TPA supporter Tony Barnes has brought to our attention yet another example of Sutton Council wasting taxpayers’ money.  Last time they were guilty of increasing executive officer salaries with an extra £11k a year, taking their pay to well over £100,000 a year.  Bear in mind frontline workers are pegged at a 2% increase, not the 10% awarded by the Council to senior officers.

This time, however, Sutton Council is using £92,000 of your money to “furnish councillors' homes with a high-tech arsenal of BlackBerries, laptops and broadband internet connections”. 

Snouts in the trough or what!  The political class line their homes with the newest gadgets and technology with your taxes that you expect to go to frontline services.

Sutton Councillors get a basic ‘salary’ of £9,582.  Surely this can be put to their own gifts and gadgets?  Sutton Council already spends over £1 million pounds on its own publicity, so why is this taxpayer broadband subsidy necessary? 

The fact is it’s indefensible.  On top of a salary meant to cover expenses, including communication, Sutton’s ruling councillors have raided taxpayer coffers to make their personal lives that bit more comfortable as the rest of us struggle to cope in uncertain economic times. 

Their recent catastrophic moves to give senior officers £11,000 more, to levy a £35 cost to collect garden waste and to implement an above inflation Council Tax increase proves only one thing:  Sutton’s ruling councillors are not putting taxpayer value for money first!

If you wish to make your thoughts clear to Sutton’s councillors, you can find their contact details on our previous blog here.  Alternatively, if you want to mobilise Sutton’s taxpayers to bring this issue up with their councillors, please send a letter to the Sutton Guardian, by emailing a letter to letters@suttonguardian.co.uk 

How long are you going to allow the politicians to keep on wasting your money?   

Comments

[Graeme Pirie]

It would be interesting to know how the taxman views this. For the rest of us plebs this would be "benefits in kind" and thus taxable....

[Steve Robson]

My goodness, you're luddites as well!

[ian]

It seems to me that one council is as bad as another. There is absolutely no problem when you are spending other peoples money is there?