Hot meals for pensioners under threat from cuts (From Echo)

Basildon Council announced its intention to slash £30,000 from catering budgets.

they need to cut out the food for the fatties on the Council. Looking at the huge size of the gut on many of them they could do with cutting the ale and pies budget.

I took this from the March for England facebook page
Dear Mr. Cameron,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing the UK 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.
Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed

2) They MUST buy a new British car.
Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage -
Housing Crisis fixed

4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/unive
rsity -
Crime rate fixed

5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week .....
And there's your money back in duty/tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know.
Also.....

Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.

Think about this (more points of contention):

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria?

And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
I am not saying I support March for England but that statement is so true https://www.facebook
.com/pages/March-For
-England/17254023668
2?fref=ts

Add 50p onto the cost of each meal and that will raise half the target, a pound will meet it in full.
Not welcomed by the users I'm sure but preferable to the cessation of the service altogether (which is probably the hidden agenda here)

I am astounded that a carvery, not a million miles from George Hurd Centre, can offer "Two meals for a tenner" and still turn a nice profit. Are you sure this Council is not including the cost of the consultants that they seem to delight in using when they do these way overpriced calculations?

Its not a like-for-like comparison - the £9 is doubtless a fully allocated cost including the premises, the Council itself and just about anything you care to add in. If these are Council-owned premises then the pensioners will doubtless be spending a bit of their Council Tax on them which needs to be added to their £3.20. The £3.20 is probably a fair approximation of the variable cost to the Council - the rest is just overhead.
Unless lobster thermidor is on the menu.

is there an 'n' missing from the headline?

But they can afford to send tony ball to india

Sensationalist headline does not really paint a true picture of this service.

The council serves 36,045 meals and snacks over four centres in a year. That works out to about 85 dish of the day/specials/dessert
s a day and 54 'snacks' across all four sites (George Hurd, Landon, pitsea and wickford priority club).

So whilst not an insignificant number, there is not 2000 people having a hot meal every day at one of the centres. Day centres are also for over 50's, not just pensioners as the story states.

Also worth pointing out that this service is not stopping but the council is undertaking a review to make sure it is getting value for money and to review changes that need to be made to save money.

We would also point out that basildon is one of the only areas to still run day centres and is investing in its community and voluntary services.

We hope that through the review and meeting with the committees we can come up with some innovative ideas of how to carry on running and offering this service in the future but with less resources.

GrumpyofLeigh wrote:
Add 50p onto the cost of each meal and that will raise half the target, a pound will meet it in full.
Not welcomed by the users I'm sure but preferable to the cessation of the service altogether (which is probably the hidden agenda here)

Raising costs by a pound would not cover costs unfortunately.

Service is subsidised to the tune of £158,600 which is mainly staffing costs.

36,405 meals and snacks served over the year, so even a £4 rise wouldn't cover it.

Basildon Council Communications wrote:

GrumpyofLeigh wrote:
Add 50p onto the cost of each meal and that will raise half the target, a pound will meet it in full.
Not welcomed by the users I'm sure but preferable to the cessation of the service altogether (which is probably the hidden agenda here)

Raising costs by a pound would not cover costs unfortunately.

Service is subsidised to the tune of £158,600 which is mainly staffing costs.

36,405 meals and snacks served over the year, so even a £4 rise wouldn't cover it.

I thought your target savings were £30,000 in which case a quid would suffice, not the entire "subsidy"

GrumpyofLeigh wrote:

Basildon Council Communications wrote:

GrumpyofLeigh wrote:
Add 50p onto the cost of each meal and that will raise half the target, a pound will meet it in full.
Not welcomed by the users I'm sure but preferable to the cessation of the service altogether (which is probably the hidden agenda here)

Raising costs by a pound would not cover costs unfortunately.

Service is subsidised to the tune of £158,600 which is mainly staffing costs.

36,405 meals and snacks served over the year, so even a £4 rise wouldn't cover it.

I thought your target savings were £30,000 in which case a quid would suffice, not the entire "subsidy"

Sorry I see what you mean. Misread your message which as you say said target which is 30k rather than the whole subsidy.

Why not just one hot meal choice each day. If you have six menu-es that rotate, would cut down on wastage.

There could cut Blakeys park budget, he was recently given around £240,000 to play with

We tend to forget the rise in subscription's from a fiver a year to £52.

TheWizzard wrote:
There could cut Blakeys park budget, he was recently given around £240,000 to play with

he's got to pay someone to go polish his favourite seat in his cottage....