I can imagine now the thankless and downhearted life of a Boston Borough Council CCTV worker. Not only do they witness disorder, violence and depravity night after night, day after day but have to contend with their employer's attempts to steal money from their pockets and make them redundant.

This week in the Boston Standard, tucked away on the bottom of page three, we read about the council's plans to move monitoring out of town to a neighbouring authority. The diminutive article states "Boston Borough Council is considering paying surveillance units in Grantham or Lincoln to keep an eye on Boston's streets in an effort to save money". It also suggests that these plans are in direct response to an industrial tribunal from February 2006 in which council workers received years of backdated unpaid overtime; "The council recently had to pay its CCTV workers hundreds of thousands of pounds in backpay following a dispute about overtime rates"

Further study into the tribunal shows that instead of 'overtime' the payments are in fact unpaid 'unsocial hours' payments. These unsocial hours payments are higher rates of pay for council employees working at night and weekends. The council had previously attempted to unfairly swindle its own workers by not paying CCTV workers and swimming pool staff these higher rates of pay when other council employees WERE receiving them. CCTV staff had, until recently, been paid the same flat hourly rate even if they were working at night and at the weekend. The "hundreds of thousands of pounds" was actually £130,000 as pointed out in THIS Borough Council Document.

As punishment for getting what was owed to them, it seems that the council is now threatening to put CCTV workers on the dole line - with complete disregard for the safety of the public. Councillor Sandra Bakewell said "This review is part of an ongoing programme within the council to ensure we provide the best service possible" however, it remains to be seen how cutting essential services can indeed "provide the best service possible". In the Boston Target Julie Alderson, strategic finance adviser said: "Inevitably we will face some very tough decisions in the future about the whole way in which services are delivered to the public and indeed whether some services need to be provided at all."

Also this week, the Council has decided to give 2.5 million pounds from its budget to fund projects that it is not responsible for. In this article the council have outlined £2.5m to fund unnamed and unknown projects to ease traffic congestion: the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council. Councillor Peter Bedford said "Transport is the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council, but we are responsible for regeneration – the borough is showing its commitment to the cause by earmarking this money for projects that will support Boston's regeneration by improving the flow of traffic."

The council has, as yet: no idea how, when and what the money will be spent on. We thank you, our democratically elected council, for prioritising the use of OUR money so wisely. Should I get stabbed in the throat by a drunken council estate loser mistaking me for a Polish immigrant worker, I will feel safe in the knowledge that the ambulance driver will have a clear and signposted route to my inanimate corpse.