In a clear move that smacks of ivory tower syndrome, Blackpool council bosses have been revealed to have been far from prudent with the financial coffers of our town when it comes to providing web services.
Over the last two years, the council spent £175,310 on external website agencies and contractors – a staggering £87,655 per year. Compared with the average private sector spend of £3,297, the council spends a monstrous 26.6 times more money, but then it’s really easy to spend other people’s money isn’t it?
I don’t doubt that web agencies and companies ramp their prices up when the client is a public sector body (F Parkinson anyone?), but the council must shoulder responsibility for frittering this money away. They already have their own in-house IT service boffins, so why are these people not being deployed on website activities?
An unnamed council spokesperson came out with a somewhat lame excuse;
“To say council spend on website is inconsistent with the private sector is unrealistic as those sites do not need the level of updating or protection which public sector sites which serve the entire population require.
“The tourism web site is essential to draw in visitors and is a key marketing tool.”
So cutting through the smoke and mirrors here, this person is saying they paid £87,655 per year for people to update their sites with new content; a task requiring no technical skills at all.
Another story to remember when they come crying about “shortfalls” for the Illuminations or for repairing the roads.
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Wouldn’t be so bad if their online services functioned properly. Their main website is out-of-date, ill-designed and just does not work (search facility? Non-existent). The pisser is that £175K would buy an enormously fat pipe for bandwidth, which they don’t have and thus renders their entire online operation unusable.
Combine this money with the six-figure sum that was pissed away on the Blackpool4me site and it’s enough to make anybody with an ounce of fiscal prudence want to lie down in a darkened corner and never, ever have to listen to the bullshit emitted from every orifice of the council’s bilge pipe.
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John that was an excellent rant Sir!
You are putting me out a job, lol
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It would be funny if it wasn’t our money.
It seems some in the public sector just don’t get new media costs. I know two very good companies who would do it all for 10K and even then they would be over charging.
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Callow out!
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Can you really expect anything else from Blackpool council
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Dont tell me, 90% of that was Steve Weavers handling fee?
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Did you read that other superb story about that woman that siphoned off £600,000 into a fake care home account that belonged to her? It’s insane, she’s only been told to pay back 20% of it and only spent a year in jail!
Talk about encouraging crime. I’d spend a year inside if it netted me £480,000 and I bet a lot of other people would too.
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Average wage in this country is 25K, that’s 20years of working I am sure there are several people willing to do a year for that.
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Spot on Phil!
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fucking crazy, need more boffins++
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