Wednesday 3 December 2008

What does this mean.....

This is an excerpt from a job advert for a communication specialist to work for a Northern city council. I love this stuff.....

"It is essential that you are able to work effectively within a political environment, managing stakeholders in a diplomatic and tactful manner steering toward the delivery of a highly targeted and focused community marketing communications campaign.

Here at Rotherham Council we are committed to delivering the Governments Empowerment Agenda, and now were looking for someone equally as enthusiastic to step into this new role and make a real impression. Acting as the single point of contact and support for tenants and residents groups, you will be our lead officer supporting, advising and guiding tenants and residents who want to take ownership of managing their own homes."


I think this job is about dealing with aggressive disenfranchised council tenants, who haven't paid their rent. Or did I miss something.

Do you think I could apply? What kind of wedge would Rotherham council offer a communications expert like me?

Two bonus questions; can anyone tell me what is the Government's Empowerment Agenda? Does it involve a) arresting opposition leaders, b) nicking their computers, and c) checking out who they telephoned?

Someone called "powerman" did the hard work and found the ad.

17 comments:

hatfield girl said...

Or they want to privatise the council housing stock and are facing an organised resistance from council tenants not wanting to be put at the mercy of a housing management association made up of who ? one wonders. The tax payers will be paying for the lead officer to enable this.

Anonymous said...

This country is becoming more and more scarily reminiscent of a disutipian novel. I feel more and more urgently the need for someone to take ownership of a voting public's empowerment agenda. But who??

Alice?

RenterGirl said...

Yep, it's about furthering right to buy before there are no council houses left. Just when they are needed most.

Mark Wadsworth said...

No, I think it is about getting tenants to manage their own blocks of flats via something called ALMOs. The lefties are all het up about this (I can't remember if they are for or against) but it is a small step towards selling off the council houses (I think) so as like as not the lefties are against it. And probably rightly so, in the circumstances. The time to sell of council housing would have been during the boom years, tee hee.

I like this bit best: "this new role", which shows that the quangocracy continues to expand at the usual breakneck speed.

powerman said...

Thanks for the mention, but it really wasn't that hard work. The Guardian jobs section has been full of weird non-jobs like that since Labour came to office basically. That, and a war that most people can now see was based on lies, is where your money has gone.

Anonymous said...

The Guardian has been full of non jobs forever...

Nick von Mises said...

I think you translated this perfectly. It's essentially a taxpayer-funded job to enable benefit scroungers to more effectively steal taxpayer money. Makes you proud to pay your 50% to Gordon.

Electro-Kevin said...

I notice that the 'empowerment agenda' is fine by the Tories too, so long as it doesn't involve nicking their MPs. My point is that if it's OK to leak (which I think it is) then there should be as much outcry about the arrest of the mole.

Someone responded to me on this point thus:

"The outrage against the arrest of the mole is implicit in the widespread outrage against the arrest of the MP."

Yeah, right. My reposte:

"Is-it implicit, the public outrage that the man who's complicit, was given a visit ... an' then dropped right innit ?

OK. Without looking ... wha's his name then ???"

Speaker of The House and Sargeant at Arms - there're two NuLab non-jobs.

Well they certainly are now that they've been totally degraded by this lousy Government.

Anonymous said...

How sad. The fools who write this sort of gloop think they are "managers". And they will get a con-person who can parrot it back to them, and so the towering mass of state-funded positions funded by a collapsed economy continues.

I wonder if the IMF will put a stop this kind of public waste when they are called upon to bail the UK out. Or will their demanded cuts just fall on needed publicly funded activities?

B. in C.

roym said...

"Does it involve a) arresting opposition leaders, b) nicking their computers, and c) checking out who they telephoned?"


This is a bit disappointing. Repeat something often enough and it may become fact.

Anonymous said...

The job is dealing with the TMO's. The pay is £28k to £30k based in Rotherham. Not sure Rotherham is for you Alice.

The Housing (Right to Manage) Regulations 1994 allow tenants' or residents' organisations to set up Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs) and to take on the responsibility for the day-to-day management of their estates.
Research has shown they provide a model of what can be achieved by local people; they are generally well run most were performing better than the local authority.
Some of the local housing services TMOs may be responsible for are: collecting rents and service charges, organising repairs and maintenance making sure that buildings are kept clean and tidy and more.

Anonymous said...

The Empowerment Agenda is about hiring as many hot, asian babes aged between 20 and 35 as possible. I actually don't mind because they are usually rather nice to look at. The government should also have Disempowerment Agenda to hoover up all the feral white youths who can't get work, at least just for our public safety.

Nick von Mises said...

"The government should also have Disempowerment Agenda to hoover up all the feral white youths who can't get work, at least just for our public safety."

You mean prison?

Elby the Beserk said...

If the ad is verbatim, whoever wrote it needs some English lessons.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, this leaves me in two minds.

First I live in Rotherham and know that on my side of the town there is a real need for leadership in what is a very run down area. The BNP recently gain the council seat for our area mainly due to a lack of investment and decent management.

The lack of investment can best be seen in the quality of the housing stock, the portacabin that to my surprise tuned out to be Brinsworth Library, and the continued reliance for employment on a concentrated collection of fairly nasty heavy industries such as Blackburn Meadows sewerage works.

The lack of leadership is exemplified by Eon being allowed to build a new waste burning power plant in this local area. The close combination of the M1 motorway, BOC Gas, the Sewage plant and other heavy carbon producing industries in such close concentration, means we're number 10 on worst air pollution for the UK before Eon get to add to the problem.

Taking a look at the estate I live on with its real social deprivation, I have real doubts about how people managing their own estate could combat the appalling living conditions thrust upon my local community.

Eon have promised £10,000 to spend on what ever project we want, but I suspect this will go on staving off the closures of local services such as the One Stop Shop that helps with free computer and languages classes. In the end there won't be much of a community for this new role to support, at least not in my part of Rotherham.

(Sorry to go on) I said I was in two minds about this because I would like some of the council workers to be removed from their responsibilities. Not just because of what happens here, but in Rochdale (where I originate) my partner’s brother has recently found out that the council has it on record that he doesn't want the free heating insulation on offer, and hasn't requested for his heating to be repaired despite it not working for 6 months. It turns out his housing officer has been failing to do his job and neglecting the tenants under his jurisdiction.

So maybe if those tenants with the time during the day to manage their own neighborhoods did so, they would get better services, something to put on the CV and take money away from neglectful council workers.

Mitch said...

In what would be a major departure for British monetary policy, the Bank is considering pressing the button on printing presses by engaging in a so-called policy of quantitative easing.

Oh my god.

Nick von Mises said...

Halifax numbers out today. C'mon Alice, we are all waiting for your new chart!