Total Biscuit

Salford City Council is responding to the fiscal squeeze - by banning biscuits and drinks at committee meetings. Apparently, the council will save £30k by dropping tea, coffee and custard creams from 20,000 meetings each year. It's all part of an overall drive to cut costs by £12m.

According to an insider LibDem councillor, biscuits will be banned completely - and hot drinks will be available only for councillors and meetings with outside visitors. He reckons that £30k will buy 50,000 packets of Hobnobs - or 11,000 little mini biscuits per day.

That's a lot of biscuits. And a lot of meetings - about 80 a day. If every local authority banned biscuits, we'd save about £10 million. Salford resident Freda Johnson is appalled, and thinks the Council should only have Rich Tea.

Take note, Total Place aficionados.

 

Comments

[twitter.com/juliandobson]

They could try keeping the biscuits but having fewer meetings. Bigger savings, happier councillors. Much happier council officers.

[Steve Cooke]

A suggestion I should bring to the council's budget meeting perhaps! We do have far too many meetings (thankfully some have been cut already).

[Adam Breeze]

Taking a more holistic/Total Place/City-Region approach to this issue, Salford cllrs should be reminded of the hundreds of jobs at the McVities biscuit factory a few miles across Manchester that depend on long, drawn-out meetings for their very survival. Keep dunking!

[Steve Cooke]

Last time I checked none of us sought election on a policy of subsidising regional biscuit production from tax-payer's money! Keeping a biscuit budget going whilst increasing library and funeral costs and closing day-care centres doesn't sound like the best policy option available.

[Richard Blyth]

Congratulations on making me laugh out loud - from one aficionado

[Dermot]

Thanks Richard - praise indeed