SIC
Shetland Islands Council

I am sure this will not be the first council to be 'ahem' criticised on a blog. Well, its their turn now.

They are, basically, a bunch of wastrels. They are as happy as larry to spend taxpayers money on stuff that we don't need, while trying to cut the budgets on things we do (eg education) because 'it is a different pot of money'.

They recently paid a large amount of money for a review on the educational facilities locally, with several schools lined up for closure (including one secondary department on a small island with the huge total of 2, yes, TWO pupils, recently refurbished for about £80,000 IIRC) The result? No changes. They even decided to retain the secondary department (which has itinerant teachers flown in and out on a daily basis at huge cost per pupil) despite the fact that other kids of the same age have to leave their island homes to receive secondary education.

They are widely known to have certain 'officials' that will tell contractors to up their prices come the end of the financial year in order to use up money from the budget that needs used up - but that same department may well be overspent from a different pot.

Its crazy.

Apparantly they have a new education review going on at the moment. As well as one before the one I mentioned earlier - how much money are they going to spend on reviews before any 'savings' are made???

And the ferries - don't get me started on the two 'super-ferries' - at a cost of IIRC £1 million, they got two new ferries to go back and forward to an island with 1,000 pop (and leads to two others with a total pop of probably another 1,000 between them). One that they have been considering a fixed link for....

I'll leave the leisure centres and music venue for another vent....