Not a bad living 168k.

So what's the craic with stopping public swimming? Is there classes on or is the pool just shut?

These well paid sit behind desk and drink coffee morons could not give a sh*t about you and me

Apart from those that do voluntary work, and those that do jobs that look after others (teachers, nurses etc) no one gives a shit about you, me or anybody else. Just the way the tories like it.

Apart of course from the Tories looking after the banking sector, looking after the bankers.

Its all part of Camerons big society plan.

The swimming pool can re-open in the mornings, manned by volunteers who work for nothing. easy.

And the Mayor has backed the rise:)

Anyone looking to buy a 4 bed detached house in Seaton ?
Time to leave town

Seems very difficult to justify, very difficult indeed.

In other news,
HARTLEPOOL Borough Council chief executive Paul Walker phoned in sick today

Seems someones rallying the facebookers

http://www.facebook.com/hartlepoolgreed?ref=ts&sk=wall#!/hartlepoolgreed

Rock and hard place though Mr F.

If the fella is contractually entitled to it how can the mayor or anybody else deny him it? From what I've read it's written into the bloke's contract.

I like it as little as anybody else but to apportion personal blame for it isn't right either.

Chip not knowing the full facts AGAIN.

I haven't.

I use Facebook about once every three or four months on average.

I was basing it upon what was written in last night's Mail. Have you read that?


PS. I'm not saying that what is in The Mail is definitely correct like!

Can't agree with you without knowing the full facts, and although I do agree that what's in The Mail isn't necessarily the full facts nor do I generally believe anything that the BBC have to say for themselves.

If it is written into the bloke's contract and just has to be "rubber stamped" by the cabinet and not "agreed" by them then what can they do short of breach of contract?

Signed and sealed in 2008 unfortunatly.

The way the housing Market is and the prospects for the future prepare for a very long time in Hartlepool!!

Walker should be ashamed of himself, what an utter 'lovely lovely person' for not refusing to take the payrise.

He would still be on a wage that most people in the town will never even be able to hope for.

Does anyone know what he actually does? With lots of directors and a mayor, and councillors what is Walker (and his equally we paid assistant) doing with his time to earn such a fabulous wedge?

If he actually cared about the town, even one bit as a gesture he would have deferred the rise, a proper man would have proposed a 10% cut for everyone over £50k and a 5% one for those over the higher tax threshold. I can't be bothered to do the maths but that would have saved quite a substantial amount of money.

I would hope it could have saved enough to keep at least some of the bus services, keep blokes like Mutley doing their normal hours, and not have required inefficient departments to compete with private sector firms for income to sustain their bosses. Oh and thinks like Mill House wouldn't be facing substantial price rises or the dial a ride service that probably is the only way lots of old folk get out and about wouldn't be stopping either something is seriously wrong with this town.

Drummond could fight against the officers if he had a cabinet capable, instead he has lots of nodding dogs who simply do not understand the information thrown at them by council officers. The salaried bureaucrats drown the councillors in paper, then speak to them at such high speed an professional note-takers would struggle.

Whilst some of your post I agree with, the bit above is just plain stupid I'm afraid.

A pay freeze maybe, which in itself is the same as a pay cut taking inflation into account, but not a mandatory reduction. People have mortgages and the like to pay you know, or should they just become homeless because you want to save a few buses?

It shows appalling naivety and a lack of sensitivity in the present circumstances.

so what is anyone going to do about it?

There is a fund called the community pool which is there to help fund local charities & community projects which has been hit by a 10% cut this year

Cry about it on here of course!

Are really expecting them to actually "do" anything else about it?!

Do you think people should start burning council property to the ground & vandalising politicians homes ?

lol i dont think burning council property is the best way to go but it would make for interesting television for other people to watch while they get dicked over the same way we are

Come the next election any councillor who is not on record as opposing this pay rise will not get my vote thats a certainty.

So people have mortgages, some of those people will be made unemployed due to the cuts. Those made redundant or given reduced salaries will be the ones on much lower salaries than Walker and any near the top of the authority.

As you say a pay freeze would be good, but on the figures I proposed the reality of a 10% and 5% wage cut would actually be very small, and salaries could then rise year on year.

A £52,000 (near lower end of the 10% cut threshold I suggested) gives £37,000ish take home before any deductions such as student loans or pensions. After a 10% cut this £46,800 salary gives a take home of £34,000. Now if people taking home £37k a year are living so far beyond their means that they cannot afford a relatively small cut in their take home pay I would be shocked.

The other saving that would be made is on the 12.8% employers NI contribution paid above the cost of any salaries.

Yes it would be hard to stomach a 5 or 10% wage cut given the current levels of inflation and the threat of interest rate rises, but this is where people need to start to take responsibility for their lifestyle and make difficult decisions that while affecting them in the short term will have a longer term benefit in sustaining not just their own but the jobs of others.

It isn't going to happen anyway, so it is in many ways a pointless thing to discuss as you have your view and I have mine.

the TOTAL for ALL subsidised bus services is £260.000 but the council have cut millions so its not all down to a few buses
fucking tosser

So its not okay that a bloke on over £50k a year gets his pay cut because "he has his mortgage to pay"
What about the swimming pool lifeguards who have lost their jobs completely - dont their mortgages matter ?

Contracted or not he should have waived the increase. In the coming months he will have to justify cuts in services and having taken a whopping pay rise he will be booed off the stage at every turn. Had he turned it down or even postponed it he would have at least had some moral authority to discuss cuts.

It isn't just the cut in hours, I go swimming at least twice a week but with the proposed increase to £3.30 a go it might work out only a tiny bit more expensive to join a leisure club. If people work that out then yet another public service and it's associated jobs will be cut.

If this town was a thriving hub of business and industry led by the high quality of services delivered by the local authority then Walker would deserve his pay rise. If the local authority was being ran so well that when Osborne announced his cuts the bean counters in the Civic could just respond with 'keep calm and carry on' then Walker would deserve his pay.

As it is we have an authority that wastes more time through sickness than most in the country, third highest council tax rates, huge unemployment, a depressed industrial sector, have hardly any major employers that do not rely solely on state funding, are about to lose vital bus services and that's is all I can be bothered to type because this is turning ranty and this forum is about football not politics.

I might throw some ideas at the other place, but for now I am off to the pub.

The town is foooked and when questioned at a recent meeting those in power reply insinuating a two word reply which is found humerous by the people who actually have a say in running the foooking town.
That's the sort of people the town has to deal with.
There's no fighting talk just a grim resignation of a bleak future with zero prospects while the fat cats pick up their obscene wages and a mayor who thinks it's one big joke.

Where did you hear that?
The only money it has available is for fat cat pay rises not for saving peoples jobs.
You'd have thought the daft get would have refused it.
You'd also have though Drummond would have kept his mouth shut.
Silly boys.

That reads like your being cynical Chip mate, surely that wouldn't happen

does anyone think this walker bloke is bothered about what people think of him,fook me he is laughing all the way to the bank and what sort of golden handshake do you think he will get when he retires not counting his pension pot

Obviously the chief exec is going to retire on a final salary pension so he is going to cost the people of Hartlepool a hell of a lot of money. Stu Drummond was pathetic as usual on radio tees this morning, he spent the whole time blaming the Hartlepool Mail for the timing of the story and claimed if the decision was made today then the chief exec would not of had a rise. I can't believe the budget cuts have come as a shock to those at HBC and would like to think that as thick as the cabinet appear to be they could of predicted what sort of response such a pay rise would have. The bottom line is that they don't care. It's about time Drummond started taking some responsibility for the sorry mess that is HBC and started doing what he was elected to do rather than playing the victim all the time.

Funny because nobody I have spoken to knows what Walker does, yet you can never get a meeting with the bloke when you need one.

Does the Chief Exec actually live in the town...?

I'm not bothered whether the chief exec lives in the town or not, I do think it is a joke that he gets paid more than the prime minister but if there were positive developments in the town I wouldn't be bothered if he got say 100-120k a year. But the facts seem to be that Hartlepool people are being asked to pay more and more in council tax for a shabbier service year in year out.

As for Drummond, I believe he is in his third term as mayor..? But I would like to know what positive changes or contributions he has made - has he made any? All his supporters seem to say is that 'our Stu is a better choice than Gillen', that may be the case but it's based on zero evidence. If he told someone in a public meeting to f-- off or even made out that's what he meant t is nothing short of a disgrace. No doubt he is also in line for a pay rise at the same time as others are sold the idea of a pay cut...

Of course it matters, if you're in charge of a local authority, you can hardly extol the towns virtues if even you don't live there....'HARTLEPOOL, GREAT PLACE, BUT DON'T EXPECT ME TO LIVE THERE!'
Also, if you actually live in the town you're affected by your decisions, easiest thing in the world to cut things that don't affect you or your family.

and also, you might just get on the committee that decides whether or not to close the hospital.

Quite an easy decision to say, lets build the new super hospital, if you lived in, say, Wynyard.

The Mayor is an independent, the council majority is Labour. Which means things go the Labour way or never happen, sadly Drummond knows this and the champagne socialist party also knows this.

The councillors should never have voted to approve the rise (but then none of them are losing their jobs), Drummond shouldn't have supported it but I reckon he knows he will lose the next mayoral vote, but for me the biggest crook is Walker the leader of a failing council in a failing town taking a pay rise that is more than some of those losing their jobs earn a year on top of a salary that is out of touch with the reality of being a Hartlepool resident.

I don't begrudge bankers their telephone number salaries, but I do begrudge people in the public sector taking them without delivering results.

sorry like but I DO begrudge the bunkers their salaries. I begrudge them a lot. So much so I would party if one jumped out of a high rise building to commit suicide and landed on a few others below and killed them as well.

Death is too good for the bastards

I think we will win the game tomorrow 2-1

I tried to take my boy swimming on Friday morning. Checked the website, learner pool open, trotted off down there with him all excited. Thick ugly woman on counter in process of taking my money when the wife spots a tiny little note saying that the learner pool is closed. When asked the thick ugly woman behind the counter says there's schools using it and they don't bother updating their website with a complete fk you attitude. We ended up driving through to Stockton, turns out it's a better pool anyway so Mill House can go and get fked in future and Stockton council can have my pennies and this Chief Exec will be getting a nice letter today about his useless staff, cack policies and the fact that they pocketed my money for the car park under false pretences.

By the way, there wasn't just us put out we spoke to a woman with half a dozen kids on the way back to the car who would also have been going in but went to Peterlee and another bint with her son through at Stockton who turned out to be from Hartlepool but doesn't bother with Mill House any more due to it being unreliable.

PS. It's not the fact that the school were using the pool that was the annoying thing, it was the fact that the council's own website said that the pool was open.

PPS. People twist about how to make the council realise that folk are pissed? One way is to cancel your direct debit for your council tax which I'm about to do. You can pay online a little bit at a time on the red bill without having to leave the house and clart about and not get charged any extra and it buggers up their cashflow and pisses them off no end. If more people start doing that they might get the message.

i buggered off over here without paying what i owed them couple hundred quid..
feel a bit quilty now wi you lads not getting a swim