Share and share alike with any job losses

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at last night's meeting of Boston Borough Council's Joint Committee where the issue of merged services was on the agenda.
As is so often the case when any serious and important matter comes up for discussion, the online agendas viewable by the public are impossible to access - as though someone thinks that the great unwashed army of voters is also too stupid to be allowed to see what our masters are deciding in our name.
The shared services issue is something of a poisoned chalice, as it inevitably means loss of jobs.
According to reports, as many as 60 staff at Worst street could be affected if five departments -IT, Human Resources, Finance, Customer Services and Revenues and benefits - are merged to provide a single service for Boston, East Lindsey and South Holland district councils.
There's also been a suggestion that South Holland's Chief Executive might put in a couple of days a week in Boston rather than replace the recently departed Mick Gallagher - though SHDC's leader was rudely dismissive of any such thought.
Earlier reports have stressed that the councils want to stay independent whilst they cut costs, although "localness" is not an essential when it comes to running services that are not only repetitive, but identical whether they are performed in Boston, Spalding or East Lindsey.
Having said that, we are sure we are not alone in calling organisations such as Lincolnshire Police, to find that the person we are speaking to has no knowledge of Boston or its geography ... and that is something to be avoided.What we do need to be careful about is that Boston does not shoulder more than its "fair share" of any job losses.
A few months ago Council Leader Richard Austin was claiming that the number of council staff had fallen from 355 to 295 since the BBI took power - but we cannot recall hearing news of cuts in South Holland and East Lindsey.
In troubled times like these, we accepts that redundancies are inevitable - but don't think that it is necessary for Boston to lead and others not to follow.

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