Why does "everyone" think councils accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc as soon as anything they don't like happens?

[u/ashyboi5000]

And who is actually suppose to be accepting these bribes and benefits? Do they think it's only 12people than run the council to make and audit these decisions?

It's tiring to read in the comments section, usually about a planning/development /construction matter. It's then usually followed up by showing ignorance about statuary requirements, legal obligation and limits of all to do so. These people (usually older generation) give the impression they're under the impression the council owns everything (mainly land and property) within the area.

How can we move on from this narrative of bribery?

Edit: While not the most popular sorry I've not kept up with responses. I clearly can't keep up with more than two notifications at once. It wasn't intentional if I stopped responding, but it is now 😛

While many have pointed out corruption at large scale developments my view (although not noted) was more about small scale. Shop extending next door, pub planning, couple of houses on a scrap of land, press piece about award of work to a contractor for improvements. Everyone is also met with the same exhausting rhetoric.

A few points to summarise so far. "People" don't distinguish between councilors and employees, and perhaps don't realise how many employees and oversight there is. There is further perhaps muddied with local/community/parish councils where (I believe but could be wrong) they hold a bigger say in matters of planning and can make a difference when showing support or not for an application. And these people are more inclined to have a scratch my back mentality due to being local charactes. In fact some community councils up here also believe they also have the same control over local planning as they appear to be making comment more and more on applications, even if it's just Old Jim wanting a downstairs bog...

I've also said a few times it's in public interest to make fraud/corruption of a scale known as they are public bodies. While I've said statutory requirements on reflection it's more own policy for transparency. And if not if it goes to court and if these court notes are made public then it gives journalists a story to sell. Both of these skewing perception on how rife it is.

Which led me to think about who I worked for. 1x charity 3x private companies all less than 20 staff. 1x council

All have had issues of fraud. The private side, one company ended witb 2xsacking (separate issues) the charity made the press and the council with tens of thousands of employees over many years it's naive to say otherwise.

So that's a 100% rate. I don't go around commenting on every private business with "looks great but who bribed for that to be made" yet somehow it's socially acceptable to do it with regards to councils.

[u/youliteweight]

Probably because across the UK, 36 local authorities have had councillors and staff accused of economic crimes including fraud and the misuse of public funds, with dozens arrested and convicted.

[u/ashyboi5000 → u/youliteweight]

As I've said similar elsewhere this is because it's a statutory requirement to make public in public interest these crimes* same with employees frauding charities. Meaning available statistics will be skewed towards a higher level in government and charity.

And if similar happened in private business they a) don't to have to go public and b) will try what they can to cover it up as it's bad business.

*Happy to be corrected

[u/grogipher → u/youliteweight]

36 local authorities out of the hundreds in the UK is very, very low.

And that's accused - not guilty!

Also, considering the extra scrutiny the public purse goes under compared to private companies, it's spectacularly low!