The billboards at the local cinema inform me that The Magic Roundabout is now showing. For a moment I thought this was a film about the way the Treasury distributes taxpayers' money.

The public is taxed, the Treasury allocates cash to numerous quangos, departments and development agencies, councils then make applications to these bodies and a service is delivered back to the public.

On second thoughts, Dumb and Dumber might be a better way to describe how this system, riddled with short termism and duplication, is allowed to consume so much of the public purse.

In education, health, the environment and many other areas, you simply cannot judge whether something has been a success if you have just three years of funding.

Compare a ten year scheme with three short term schemes covering the same area. Each short term project requires the cash and resources to bid for the funding in the first place, recruiting staff, setting up the scheme, auditing and reporting back.

Much of the final 12 months is spent trying to cope with an increasingly rapid turnover of staff as workers, quite understandably, seek more secure employment. Meanwhile, you have to start working out how replacement money can be found.

There also has to be a big question mark over the real value of these short term initiatives.

Take, for example, education. Say you secure three years' funding to address the low pass rates of schools in deprived wards. How can you tell whether this has been a success over such a short period?

Locally, we have developed an excellent community warden scheme. But, in order to get it up and running, we had to pitch to numerous bodies for funding, including the European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Obviously, each of these bodies wants to ensure that its money is being spent wisely. So, for each fund, we have to have someone tracking how every penny is spent, how each warden spends his or her time.

Four separate applications, four on-going bureaucracy costs.

I recently visited a local organisation which carries out some excellent work providing help, training and advice to teenagers. The following week I visited a centre run by the local branch of a national organisation which also carries out laudable work with young people.

The point is they both do the same work, apply for the same funding and have the same associated costs.

In Middlesbrough alone we have over 20 groups aimed at helping the black and minority ethnic community - again very laudable but, collectively, they could be more efficient.

So we have decided to "map" all the local organisations, their areas of activity and funding to see if we can tackle the problems of duplication.

Nationally, the Government needs to carry out a similar exercise and adopt a long term perspective when it comes to funding.

Rein in all the quangos and grant funds for ten years. The results will be more reliable and you won't need any more new initiatives - simply ensure the successful blueprint is followed by other councils.