Cut. Cut. And cut again.

Carnegie reads that Fife Council is currently heading for a budget overspend of £4.5 million by next March unless it trims its budgets even further. He is sadly not reassured by the fact that the Council's Social Work Department is making cuts of £4.585 million, Education a "further cut of "£2.008 million" and Transportation a saving of £718,000.

He asks which Departments overspent in the first place and what action has been taken in relation to disciplinary proceedings against the Council officials responsible?

Magic roundabout?

Carnegie hears that the roadworks to the Sinclair Gardens roundabout in his beloved home town of Dunfermline are starting to cause major problems for local residents and that the roadworks themselves are now scheduled to continue until November, after they "slipped" from an October completion date.

Carnegie encountered these issues in his business life and usually someone's head rolled. He doubts that this will happen on this occasion, although it clearly should. There's no excuse for incompetence.

It stinks.

Carnegie read with sympathy comments from a private "bin washer" about the increasing problems being caused by the two weekly collections which have been introduced by Fife Council in a number of areas over the last several months.

Carnegie has personal experience of the effects of this policy change: his bin stinks, despite him recycling just about everything he can and the self same bin being cleaned every couple of weeks. Oh, and because the weather has been so awful and temperatures so low he wonders what it would have been like if we had had an "Indian summer."

Fife Council did away with weekly collections for one reason and one reason only, and that was to save cash. Not having to collect the waste and then not having to pay the Landfill Tax to put it in landfill sites. It's not about being green, it's about paying less greenbacks, and that's not a good enough reason for the change and the problems it is causing. They should think again.

Protect and survive.

Carnegie noted in the Dunfermline Press this week the highly commendable concern which local Labour MSP Helen Eadie demonstrated in calling for increased security for MSP's offices in order to protect the two staff that work for her at her office in Inverkeithing. Ms Eadie is quoted as saying that she was "just making sure that my two assistants are properly cared for." Especially given the "one of her two assistants" is none other than her husband and Fife Councillor Bob Eadie.

Even more castles.

Last week, Carnegie reported that Fife had more than its fair share of castles up for sale at the moment. Well, it gets even worse with what is described as an "important Scottish mansion", Monimail, near Cupar up for sale through Knight Frank with a "price on application," and Pittormie Castle (pictured) near St Andrews on the market with a "unique opportunity to purchase ownership weeks in one of 8 luxury apartments" with prices from £80,000 to £100,000 (giving a valuation of around £4 million tops).

Carnegie is beginning to suspect that Fife's propertied classes are selling up and heading somewhere else. Soon there will be none of them left - or so it feels. Could it be related to Fifer Gordon Brown becoming PM?

Taking a toll.

Carnegie read this morning that: "Toll collectors on the Forth Road Bridge are being verbally abused by drivers taunting them about job losses when the charges are scrapped, The Herald can reveal. Bridge officials say their staff have faced abuse on a daily basis since the Scottish Government announced its plans to abolish tolls on the Forth and Tay crossings."

Now Carnegie must admit to having had the occasional bad experience of the Forth Bridge as he headed north to visit acquaintances in the Kingdom, including one memorable evening when he was delayed over an hour because the maintenance workers on the Bridge had started restrictions on it 24 hours early because they were "practising" laying cones (yes - that was the official explanation), but nothing justifies the abuse of people who are after all just doing their job.

Forth Un-Bridge?

Carnegie spotted the story in the Sunday Herald that dismantling the Forth Road Bridge could cost £130 million.

"THE SCOTTISH government's transport agency is considering demolishing the Forth Road Bridge - at a cost of nearly £130 million. A report by Transport Scotland, released under freedom of information law, reveals that consultants have been asked to estimate the cost of dismantling the entire 43-year-old structure. The study was part of extensive investigations earlier this year into a Forth replacement crossing, which is being backed by the Scottish government. Consultations are now under way on whether to build a new bridge or dig a tunnel because of fears over the corrosion of the existing bridge's cables. In a report produced in June, experts from Jacobs and Faber Maunsell calculated that the total cost of demolishing the deck, the cables, the towers and the approach viaducts of the current bridge would be likely to come to £128.57m."

Carnegie asks wouldn't that money be better spent, in a worst case scenario, on changing the bridge's use into something else. How about a four lane, motorway standard bicycle lane? Or how about a dedicated route for a hovercraft service (after all, the Hovercraft wouldn't weigh anything would it)?

Leuchars.

Carnegie reads that: "RAF LEUCHARS will reopen for operational flying next week after a £24 million refurbishment of the main runway and ancillary taxiways at the front-line fighter base ... The three Tornado squadrons based at Leuchars—111, 43, and 56—will be returning from their temporary detachments, which for the past 12 weeks have included rotations between RAF Kinloss in Moray, Leeming in North Yorkshire and Akrotiri in Cyprus. As the squadrons rotated through RAF Leeming, each took on the Quick Reaction Alert mantle, which saw a number of intercepts of Russian Bear and Backfire bombers ... Work started on the 2588m runway during the first week in May. Since then 65,000 cubic metres of concrete has been used along with 54000 tonnes of blacktop resurfacing. In addition 600 lights and 750 transformers have been replaced using 130 kilometres of cable."

Did you know that RAF Leuchars was having a little bit of a "makeover"? Obviously explains the lack of an Air Show this year.

Bad planning.

Carnegie reads in this week's Dunfermline Press that: "A FORMER council worker has claimed staff cuts, low morale and bitterness over pay rates caused turmoil in West Fife development control (the planning) department."

Carnegie is really not surprised by these revelations, indeed he is willing to bet that Fife Council has one of the lowest rates of any council in Scotland in successfully defending appeals against it planning decisions, and in managing successfully to enforce the planning conditions which it imposes on developers, whatever the scale of the development.

Carnegie thinks it just isn't good enough. The people of Fife have a right to expect that the correct decisions are made, and when they are made that they are enforced: he doesn't think they are being on either score. A pat on the back to the Press for highlighting the issue which too many Fifers have found themselves on the wrong side of.

Fifer in the White House.

Carnegie was fascinated to read on the Fife Council website that: "David Martin was born in Anstruther Easter on 1st April 1737. His father was a schoolmaster in the town. David showed promise as an artist and studied under Allan Ramsay, the Scottish rococo artist who was appointed Principal Painter to King George III in 1767. David studied in Italy and toured most of Europe. On his return to London, he opened a very successful portrait business and painted many famous people of the day. In 1767, when Benjamin Franklin was visiting London David made what was to become his most famous painting, Benjamin sitting at a red velvet covered table reading a document with his thumb on his chin. A copy of the painting stills hangs to this day in the White House, Washington, USA."

A little piece of Fife's heritage in the White House.

Bon Voyage QE2.

Carnegie sees that Fife got a very illustrious visitor yesterday with a brief stopover by the 70,000 tonne QE2 to the Firth of Forth during her "40th anniversary tour" of the UK's major cities before she is retired from service later this year and heads off to a permanent mooring in Dubai.

It's becoming an increasingly common occurrence for cruise ships to dock in the Forth during stopover trips to Edinburgh, but the presence of the QE2 is surely the most spectacular. She may not be the biggest ship, but she is certainly the best. We won't see her like again for a very long while.

Nice flares EXXON?

Carnegie notes the adverts in various of Fife's newspapers this week informing residents that ExxonMobil Chemical is to begin a "phased start-up of its Fife Ethylene Plant after its shutdown for maintenance" leading to "periods of intermittent flaring" with the company apologising in advance for any "inconvenience or concern."

If you have an "question" they tell us you can give their "Public Affairs" Department a ring on 01383 846341 during office hours (9.00 a.m. up to 4.30 p.m. only) or 01383 737000 outside of office hours and they "will return your call."

Is Carnegie alone is asking why in this day and age, with environmental awareness higher than it has ever been, and reduced bin collections and recycling points littering the place, Fife still has to contend with "flaring" on the horizon and the environmental consequences this creates?

Never mind Carnegie notes Exxon sponsors loads of bins at bus stops in the Kingdom.

Castle for sale.

Fife doesn't seem to have a shortage of castles up for sale at the moment.

The latest is Easterheughs Castle near Aberdour, which is on the market for "offers in excess" of £1.5 million.

"The creation of Easterheughs is an extraordinary story of eccentricity. During the Second World War William Thomas, the manager of Burntisland’s aluminium works and a member of the Home Guard, was detailed one night to keep fire watch over the coast and opted to climb a large beech tree for a lookout. As dawn broke he noted an outcrop of rock, the perfect site for a castle and decided to make that rock the foundation of his dream. Mr Thomas had been renting rooms in the decaying Rossend Castle, which overlooks Burntisland harbour and a few months after the war ended in 1946, he set about turning his fantasy into reality and purchased the site. The main influence behind the design was the medieval Rossend Castle, which was restored in the 18th Century by Sir William Bruce. He was also inspired by the work of Sir Robert Lorimer who reacted against the classical tradition, in favour of vernacular architecture."

It isn't exactly steeped in history, but was bought in1998 Fife artist Jack Vettriano in 1998, and is described as a 20th century castle, which also boasts its own cannons on the roof.

Carnegie is tempted, but he has his own baronial piled to worry about and doesn't need another one on the go.

Testing ... Testing.

Fife Council's Trading Standards Department are about to launch a blitz on ... electric blankets as we approach the winter months.

Now he doesn't dispute the dangers inherent in these and Carnegie suspects he is being old fashioned but how about a blitz on ... premises sering unhygienic food, unscrupulous rogue traders, retailers that rip you off or lenders that take their borrowers for a ride?

Or perhaps they are also having to cut back given the budget restrictions within Fife Council?

Fine @ 139?

Fife Constabulary issued 139 anti-social behaviour fines last month, at £40 a time.

Carnegie must ask ... was that IT for a community the size of Fife? Especially given that on the same page of the Dunfermline Press is a story about the garden of a nursery being vandalised for two weeks in succession.

Fife Police really need to raise their game, or is that the Crown Office don't want to risk any more possible court cases?

Park 'n' Ride.

Carnegie reads that Fife Regional MSP John Park has been given a role by new Labour Leader Wendy Alexander as a “regional campaign co-ordinator” for the “central belt.”

Carnegie isn’t exactly sure how this will go down with Mr Park’s constituents who will obviously see less of their elected representative as he turns his attention to campaigning on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party outside of Fife, but the bigger issue is that his £50K plus MSP salary is being paid for by us the taxpayers to enable him to work at least part-time on behalf of the Labour Party ... not for the people of Fife.

£16,481,996.

That's how debt much Fife Council wrote off during the last twelve months (under the previous Labour administration.)

Shortly before the current administration (SNP/Liberal Democrat) cut £8 million off it's social work budget.

Mind the gap.

Carnegie notes the comments in this week's Fife Free Press that apparently "no-one (is) to suffer in £8 million social work cuts." Does Fife Council's Executive Director Stephen Moore really believe that?

More worrying is the fact that yet again we appear to have rank incompetence by the previous administration in setting a budget which was unsustainable and will lead to increased hardship on those least able to respond to it in plugging yet another multi-million pound gap in Fife Council's finances

Carnegie's bequest.

This week Burntisland is marking the centenary of its Library which was openen by Mr Carnegie himself on September 18, 1907. An occasion worthy of note thinks Mr Carnegie.

Not because of who opened it, but because of the hundreds of thousands of people who have over the last 100 years benefited from an opportunity to learn something from the institution that would otherwise not have existed.

Carnegie's bequest in action. But who is the old bloke (Carnegie not so double) that they wheeled out for the picture in the Free Press?

Satisfaction guaranteed?

Fife Council are claiming success for their housing service in that 69% of Fife Council tenants rates their housing service as "excellent" or "good."

The only drawback is that just 2,000 of Fife Council's 31,000 tenants bothered to return the form as part of the survey, which means the creditable approval rating of 69% becomes an approval rating of just 4.5% taking into account the views of all tenants. Even worse it was a self selecting sample from council tenants, most of whom probably couldn't be bothered because they are receiving a substandard housing service.

A suggestion from Carnegie is that perhaps next time Fife Council should commission someone to pick tenants at random and get their honest opinions, rather than those who probably have no reason to complain.

Best in bloom.

Carnegie reads that one of the posher parts of Fife, Dalgety Bay, has lost the title of Best Kept Town in the "Kingdom" to Cowdenbeath.

Dalgety Bay is a really nice place .... despite the absence of bars and restaurants, but Carnegie congratulates the people of Cowdenbeath for having more pride in the appearance of their town than Dalgety Bayers apparently have. Time to shake up their act perhaps? Or perhaps even for Fife Council to reintroduce the dedicated street cleaning in Dalgety Bay which it suspended several months ago?

Taking the tolls.

The irony isn't lost on Carnegie. Apparently some Fife Labour MSPs, most notably Claire "Ma" Baker, have started jumping up and down about the refusal of First Minister Alex Salmond to rule out the possibility of a tolls being charged for crossing a new bridge over the Forth.

We realise that half of Fife's current crop of Labour MSPs didn't serve in the last Scottish Parliament, but he would like to remind them that the last Labour/Liberal Democrat administration at Holyrood refused to even countenance abolishing tolls on the current road bridge, let alone commit itself to building a new bridge, with or without tolls.

Carnegie guesses that despite the current uncertainty, perhaps Fifers are still well ahead on the deal and Carnegie wonders how often Edinburgh resident Ms Baker has actually set foot in Fife over the last year, compared to to the average Fifer.

Bridges too far?

If Fife is famous for one thing, then it is its bridges. But, Carnegie reads that Fife is apparently heading for the Dark Ages with the revelations in an Audit Scotland report that 75 bridges in the Kingdom fall below European safety standards, making Fife the third worst performing Council area in Scotland.

Here’s hoping the new Fife Council administration get a grip on the problem which the old council seem to have turned a blind eye to solving for many years – hence the scale of he challenge now facing the council … and council taxpayers.

For whom the tolls toll.

Carnegie notes that the current Forth Road Bridgemaster, Alastair Andrew, has apparently offered to take early retirement after a report concluded that the removal of tolls on the Forth Road Bridge later this year will leave him with nothing to do.

No doubt when the delightfully, if rather cheesily, named Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA) agrees to let him go he will walk away with a suitably large payoff and pension which reflects the £100,000 salary which his role carried.

Herbert dip.

More on the proposed Eadie Cairns development at St David’s Harbour, with another “new boy” Councillor David Herbert, reportedly commenting in the Dunfermline Press that “there are 5,000 houses in Dalgety Bay at present and we don’t see the need for any more. If you look at the pub and restaurant situation in the town we have about three restaurants for over 12,000 people. We need more and this is an ideal place.”

Hang on Cllr, Herbert, we know you weren’t in elected office before May 2007, but surely you realised that Fife Council has knocked back at least two planning applications for this very site … for bars/restaurants?

Good to see that Fife’s elected representatives are keeping up their long standing tradition of consistent political vision.

Trust Carnegie?

Carnegie pays very close attention to anything which involves the use of his name and therefore he “clocked” the fact that Charlie McConnell, the £81,000 a year Chief Executive of the Carnegie UK Trust, has been banned form driving after accepting he had been caught speeding at more than 102 mph.

Carnegie is sure that Mr McConnell’s attempted defence that he was driving a “big car” at the time and that he was looking to replace the car with “something more modest” would have come as great reassurance to anyone that he totalled in any accident caused by his speeding.

It was Mr McConnell’s sixth speeding offence in four years. Not much more to say then.

FATT fighters.

The delightfully named Fife Arts and Theatres Trust (FATT) has just appointed the council representatives to its Board which will oversee the initiative and which will reportedly save Fife Council over a million pounds a year by transferring control of Council arts and leisure facilities to the new “independent” trust.

But Carnegie notes one interesting name amongst the Council representatives to the new Trust, namely Labour Councillor Neil Crooks who joined his Labour colleagues after May’s council elections to try and reverse the unanimously endorsed previous decision in early 2007 of Fife Council to proceed with the Trust (a decision taken when at the time Fife Council was LABOUR lead).

Carnegie hopes that Cllr. Crooks finds it easier to bury his opposition to the Trust concept, now that he finds himself in charge of running it.