Sussex wrote:
agabbycabbie wrote:
Thanks Sussex, i would also want to know the actual running costs of the department and what they had coming in via licence fees, as i and i suppose many others dont like being over charged for stuff.
Well then add it to the list of questions.

Where do I start?
My LA which shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons we finally prized the accounts out of and found out that half of the budget for the department went on wages, pension and what is charmingly known as an FRS17 adjustment.
That is the revaluation of the pension scheme assets to make up any shortfalls.
The rest is spent on administration and council recharges, we see little if any enforcement of the legislation that actually governs how we work and we just got stung for an increase in line with inflation which certainly wasn't 0.5% in their view.
Frankly licensing officers in our LA are a waste of time, they can't even answer a straight question sometimes and are more concerned with the other 51 functions of their dept than dealing with us, yet we pay the vast majority of the income ( roughly 1/3.)
ps I am a member of a forum and also a trade rep, so I am being circumspect about the details here as these are my own views after 10 years in the trade of dealing with this obvious bunch of idiots.