There are lots of ways local government can help businesses and people during the recession.
Corby Council, for example, has come up with a particularly innovative way by, erm, paying its bills on time:
Businesses in Corby are being helped through the recession by the council which has pledged to pay its contractors in extra-quick time. The authority has promised to pay the invoices of businesses who are employed to work on borough council projects within 10 days where possible, and within 30 days if it cannot do so any quicker.
Seriously.
I don’t know if this quote from the Chief Executive of Corby Council makes it better or worse:
Chief executive of Corby Council Chris Mallender said: “There was some research done to show that local authorities are really slow at paying their bills so we wanted to ensure that we were not one of those authorities.
We are trying to do everything we can to help local businesses to survive this recession.
So last month we paid 99.5 per cent of our bills within 30 days, and 84.8 per cent of our bills within 10 days.
Every little helps, I suppose.
arbitrary constant 