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Is austerity working- and will it ever end?

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I have just found out that my local council fund a gardening service for older people and disabled. I personally don't think its been done in the right way and gardening is not an essential service, so austerity is definitely over.

The customer pays the gardener £11 per hour, the council scheme pays the gardener £4 per hour, so the gardener get £15 per hour and the customer gets a subsidised service, DBS checked and all that.

How much do gardeners charge in your area?

 

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49 minutes ago, El Cid said:

I have just found out that my local council fund a gardening service for older people and disabled. I personally don't think its been done in the right way and gardening is not an essential service, so austerity is definitely over.

The customer pays the gardener £11 per hour, the council scheme pays the gardener £4 per hour, so the gardener get £15 per hour and the customer gets a subsidised service, DBS checked and all that.

How much do gardeners charge in your area?

 

Is this just for council house tenants? If so it probably saves the council money as when the old person pops their clogs the council would be left with a big clear up job. 

£15 per hour is quite a lot if the gardener justs mows and strims I suppose but a 'proper' gardener would warrant that rate

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21 hours ago, lil-minx92 said:

Is this just for council house tenants? If so it probably saves the council money as when the old person pops their clogs the council would be left with a big clear up job. 

£15 per hour is quite a lot if the gardener justs mows and strims I suppose but a 'proper' gardener would warrant that rate

If they just mow and strim then they'll be done in what, 15 - 30 mins.  £7.5 to cut and trim the garden.  They have to travel to the location, own the equipment to do it, own a van to travel, possibly dispose of waste and so on.  They probably lose 10 mins each job they have to move to at least.

They'll be lucky if they make £100/day.  It's not all that much over minimum wage, but with significantly higher costs to run a business.

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2 hours ago, Cyclone said:

If they just mow and strim then they'll be done in what, 15 - 30 mins.  £7.5 to cut and trim the garden.  They have to travel to the location, own the equipment to do it, own a van to travel, possibly dispose of waste and so on.  They probably lose 10 mins each job they have to move to at least.

They'll be lucky if they make £100/day.  It's not all that much over minimum wage, but with significantly higher costs to run a business.

£100 a day is a lot more than minimum wage. That would be about £65 a day. 

 

I don't know how accurate the website is, but according to this the average wage for a gardener is £10.11 an hour

 

https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Gardener/Hourly_Rate

 

(I have just noticed that despite the figures being in pounds, it does say that the country is the USA, so there should probably be a better source for the UK figure). 

 

Edited by Robin-H

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I suppose it's quite a lot.  But by the time you've taken into account all the costs of running the business it's probably not more than minimum wage at all.

 

https://www.thegardenersguild.co.uk/how_much_should_you_expect_to_pay_a_gardener.html

 

This suggests it should be higher (15/hr +), but they've probably got a vested interest.

 

https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/how-to-employ-a-gardener/

This one suggests from £10 hr up to £35 hr.

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Austerity in the news today, seems like the UN isn't impressed with it.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/un-poverty-austerity-uk-universal-credit-report-philip-alston-a8924576.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3wdsKl2gAS4ytVq7c4vNNLzsfJ5W83mQbYgwT6nJYxMPH80IC9iu3b7fA#Echobox=1558512170

 

Quote

UN tears into Tory-led austerity as 'ideological project causing pain and misery' in devastating report on UK poverty crisis

 

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46 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

Firstly, this report (or at least an interim version) was published last November.  Secondly Alston has made a career out of issuing 'devastating criticism' of numerous countries suffering from extreme poverty, from places as diverse as Haiti and the US.  It's his raison d'etre; it's what he gets paid for.

 

He was in the UK for just two weeks, and had daily meetings in a variety of cities and towns.   

 

Tell me; what sort of people do you think UN's Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, on a fact-finding trip to the UK, would be lined up to meet on such a fleeting visit?

 

I'm not saying there isn't poverty in the UK, but let's put this into perspective a bit and not succomb so easily to alarmist headlines.

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Plus I think he based his report on the Rowntree Foundation's definition of poverty, which has been torn to shreds on here numerous times.

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3 hours ago, alchresearch said:

Plus I think he based his report on the Rowntree Foundation's definition of poverty, which has been torn to shreds on here numerous times.

I think you should show where it's been torn to shreds rather than just putting it out there.
 

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19 hours ago, bendix said:

Firstly, this report (or at least an interim version) was published last November.  Secondly Alston has made a career out of issuing 'devastating criticism' of numerous countries suffering from extreme poverty, from places as diverse as Haiti and the US.  It's his raison d'etre; it's what he gets paid for.

 

He was in the UK for just two weeks, and had daily meetings in a variety of cities and towns.   

 

Tell me; what sort of people do you think UN's Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, on a fact-finding trip to the UK, would be lined up to meet on such a fleeting visit?

 

I'm not saying there isn't poverty in the UK, but let's put this into perspective a bit and not succomb so easily to alarmist headlines.

Is this really the same report that's popped back up into the media again?  How strange, I assumed it was something new.

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Yup. The stories late last year were based on his interim report.  They are now reporting on his completed report.  No doubt later this year they will report on his appendices.  

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On 19/03/2019 at 09:41, max said:

Surely we cannot consider austerity to be over until such time as services are returned to the level they were at before 2010? By services I include all those public sector jobs which have been decimated. Those such as fire, police, librarians, nurses, etc., etc. 

Why 2010? Labour began cutting police budgets and numbers in 2001.

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