Where has all the money gone?

I see from the Law Society Gazette this week (p5) that the County Courts made a profit of £45.5 million pounds last year. So why, when I was speaking to the manager of our local court last night, did she tell me that they have a massive turnover of staff because they cannot afford to pay them properly, and that they have horrendous listing problems because they cannot afford to use enough Deputy District Judges? Where is all this money going to?

By the way, turn over to page 21 of the Gazette and you will see a bit about me!!!

Or what?

Of course it could all be part of a plan. "Getting a bit expensive to pay all those solicitors. Why not make it really difficult for them. Death of a thousand cuts. No-one will believe them when they complain, no voters will anyway. They are just whinging solicitors wanting more gravy.

Then when there are no firms left prepared to do the work, let the supermarkets and big companies take over. They will be able to automate it, do it at a bargain basement price. The clients, sorry customers, won’t know the difference. They don’t understand what its all about anyway. Give them a free digital clock with their first appointment and they’ll be happy.

We don’t want all those small firms anyway, so untidy, much better have one big one like Tesco. Get into a working agreement with them, so they won’t start criticizing and arguing and encouraging their customers to be difficult about government decisions. Things will be much easier. Lawyers will have to behave themselves in future and the exchequer won’t have to hand out all that cash."

Paranoia or what?

Dealing with the empties

It looks as if some Councils at least are using the new Empty Dwelling Management Orders which came into force last year. I am delighted to see that my own local authority of Norwich seem to be in the van here, as reported in the Evening News, and their own web-site.

However it seems that they are not alone. David Ireland, the Chief Executive of the Empty Homes Agency, reports on his blog that other orders are being obtained in South Oxfordshire District Council. But, he reports, it is often enough just to threaten to use the order. Apparently Manchester have done this on no less than 15 occasions, each time the property was sold or let.

Its nice to hear of empty properties being brought back into use.