Non-job of the week

As councils up and down the country do their best to expand their middle management, bloat their own salaries and scale back frontline services, they never fail to come up with yet another non-job for us to expose.

This week Liverpool City Council burns taxpayers’ money by offering this job, yet again, from the Guardian Society pages:

“Public Art Officer

£30,598 - £33,291

Liverpool is looking for people with the passion, commitment and skills to make their mark and deliver an exciting and challenging agenda. If you have ambition for yourself and for Liverpool; if you can improve yourself and support the development of your colleagues; if you share our values and strive to make others feel valued then we want to hear from you.

The post holder will be based in the Urban Design Team and will be dealing with all matters related to public art, including guidance and strategy.

Successful applicants will have a degree/diploma in a visual arts related subject and/or substantial experience of public art matters.

Candidates should preferably have experience of working within Local Government and should be self-motivated, well organised and be able to communicate effectively and work well as part of a team.

You must be able to work well under pressure and have the ability to meet deadlines.”

What?  No taxpayer-funded chalk?  No subsidised paint sets?  Liverpool City Council lets us down.  But give them credit, at least the ad wasn’t blank like last week’s non-job.

Seriously, though, Liverpool Council claim to be cash strapped, yet they have a sixty million black hole in their finances.  Why are they employing artists when there is something very wrong with their finances?  They spend £9.4million of taxpayers’ money (a 700% increase on 10 years ago) on its own publicity, with well over £1million of that on its staff advertising (a 1,000% increase on 1997 figures).  Add more on top of that after Liverpool City Council’s 4.9% Council Tax grab this year and you find even greater scope for this council to waste more of your money.

This is where you come in.  Kindly ask the leader of Liverpool City Council, Warren Bradley (warren.bradley@liverpool.gov.uk) whether this public art officer is value for money.  How much longer are you going to let these council get away with wasting your money?

Comments

[Hardeep_Singh]

Here we go again the great art conspiracy it's taken over the minds of the loony left, if it isn't so called "holier than thou" green issues then it's "ah look at them finally being able to express themselves" art. This is a sheer waste of money but can you blame Liverpool from pursuing the easy option, after the tax black hole .... what on earth can central government do to Liverpool council, shut it down like a private company, not in the cookoo public sector. Councillor in Liverpool will no doubt shrug their shoulders and state "oh well there's always next year". But "next year" will never really come in fact there'll never be an efficient council in Liverpool. I very much doubt they'll have any plans on cutting back their expenditure if they had they certainly wouldn't be advertising for these kind of roles and not with that level of salary. It defies belief that this new rich and powerful strata of public sector middle management staff is able to waste money like this.

[Alan Troake]

Why shouldn't money be spent on the arts in Liverpool? Why should all the sport 'luvvies' get all the cash for their activities but nothing for art lovers? Art can be healthy too.

[ivan]

With reference to the previous comment, you'll probably find that there isn't any money available for 'the arts' in Liverpool - the budget has been blasted on high-maintenance officers, leaving little or nothing to subsidise Arts.

[Michelle Peters]

Arts are fab, It's a shame that Liverpool is'nt employing artists and companies to deliver workshops, instead they are hiring yet another pen pusher. It's creativity gone mad!