Wiltshire Council are apparently advertising a number of enticing new jobs. Their workforce enlargement is said to be due to expectations that Brexit will bring the millions and billions streaming back to local authorities.
So far we have only seen advertisements for six new jobs:
Emergency Damper (Class Channel 4) – one or two senior Wiltshire Councillors took umbrage over the Channel 4 series of 999: What’s Your Emergency programmes. These were set in Wiltshire and Swindon and showed how ambulance crews were faced with distinctly challenging (whoops – that’s a Spin Meister’s word) situations. These tended, it was alleged, to portray the beautiful county of Wiltshire in what was seen as a distinctly negative light. Others thought they showed how dedicated and expert the ambulance and police crews were, and how illuminating these human stories were.
The job of the ‘Damper’ will be to make sure emergency crews only accept accompanying television video crews into their blue light vehicles when the 999 caller is known to have a labrador, a Range Rover and one or more Aga stoves.
Brexit Monitor (Class – TBA)– the spec for this new Wiltshire Council post has been written and re-written and shredded and sent back for another vote by Councillors and checked by the local Brussel Sprout grower. And still there is no spec available. It may well that the deadline for this post will be extended – or put to another vote of the cabinet makers or turned into something totally different…only historians will know the full extent of the angst that launching this job has caused the people of Wiltshire.
Boundary Markers – four posts (Class – less than zero) Healthy persons required to mark out boundaries of the newly diminished voting divisions – consequent on the reduction in the area’s unitary (also known as ‘Wiltshire’) councillors from four to three. Applicants need not be ultra healthy as there are fewer boundaries to mark with little flags (skull and crossbones flags are not to be used).
These jobs are a bit of a mystery – as the number of posts does not fit with the reduction in boundaries and the employer is not named. Is it:
1) Wiltshire Council making a defensive effort to mark out the indefensible?
2) The indignant Marlborough Town Council making a point about the unwarranted reduction in representation in the Marlborough Area but nowhere else in the county?
3) Or West Berkshire Council making a pre-emptive strike to re-draw the entire county map which has been so wilfully disregarded in Trowbridge.
Map reader (Class 2)– this person’s task will be to constantly shove maps under the noses of Wiltshire Councillors to remind them that Marlborough is in Wiltshire and not conveniently forgotten or imagined as being part of Swindon or West Berkshire. And, though they have fallen off the County Hall maps, Marlborough area people count too.
One of the latest Wiltshire Council self-promotions is to swank about the new tennis courts they have provided for the people of Melksham. Marlborough’s hard working Tennis Club had to do it all themselves. The results of their labours can now be seen on maps – if not from space.
Private Eye Checker (Class 99)– the work of this employee will be sporadic – but under latest Government guidelines the role will count as a full time job for the monthly full employment figures. They will be responsible for getting hold of each issue of Private Eye and making sure Wiltshire Council has not appeared in that organ’s Rotten Boroughs feature – which in issue after issue exposes the idiocies and sometimes the misdeeds of local authorities.
(NOTE: Applicants are not supposed to have much of a sense of humour.)
Spin Meister (Class 0) – one of the main problems facing Wiltshire Council is that while services are reduced, support for organisations drops off the balance sheet, pot holes get deeper and grass verges grow higher etc etc, Wiltshire Council buildings and services are being passed down the line to Town Councils who then have to raise their part of the Council Tax to get the money Wiltshire Council no longer has to spend on upkeep, staff, maintenance and other running costs.
Yet all the while the main part of the Council Tax (set by Wiltshire Councillors) is increasing too – by leaps and boundaries even though they do not anymore have the costs of looking after all these transferred assets.
This is an example of the electoral ‘double whammy’ – a political policy that bashes voters’ bank accounts from both back and front. The new Spin Meister (who would, marlborough.news has learned, have been called a Spin Doctor – but there is a dangerous shortage of Doctors) will work to apply illiberal quantities of whitewash to this parlous state of affairs.
It is unclear from the advertisement whether he/she will be allowed to continue to publish fake headlines with reams of fake news.
Deadline for applications for all five roles is 1 April 2020.
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