The dead hand of central government has fallen yet again. Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, has published a list of 35 priorities for local councils to "improve" life for residents. She says it has been drawn up in consultation with the councils and other bodies like the police.

I think you and I know what that really means. It is the latest outbreak of initiative-itis, and it's serious, because it affects exactly what happens to our own hard-earned, ever-more precious cash.

Top of the local council "to-do" list are edicts to reduce the numbers of 16-18-year-old NEETs (young people not in education, employment or training), bring down teenage pregnancy rates, provide housing, reduce carbon emissions and cut childhood obesity.

Slashing smoking is ranked above reducing violent crime, and tackling car theft is way above conquering domestic violence. More help for the elderly doesn't even make the top 10. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be any mention of cutting the council tax itself. If the Government really had our interests at heart, I would have thought that should have been a major priority.

But those councils which perform best at ticking items off the list will receive extra cash. I don't suppose you or I will ever see it. Meeting the targets, objectives and outcomes will be tracked and audited and reported back to the Government. It is not revealed how much of that extra cash will be invested in the pen-pushers and paper trails required to achieve this.

Did anybody stop just for one minute, and consider what we ordinary mortals might think about these "priorities", especially when our council tax bills have gone up by another four per cent this year?

There are a lot of people, such as those who don't have children in state education, who are wondering exactly what they are getting for all that money they hand over every month. Ditto those who find themselves using their own petrol to drive their broken old cooker to the rubbish tip because the council can't come out for two weeks to collect it and will charge £20 for the favour when they do finally get around to the task.

I might be just a humble householder, but I'd say that organising efficient and regular rubbish collections, keeping the streets clean, maintaining parks, offering good leisure and sports facilities, and managing regeneration projects efficiently, and within budget, should all be somewhere near the top of the list of council priorities. Achieve those, and I might look favourably on more ambitious aims to change the world.

Perhaps I'm missing some big picture, but why put the onus on councils to tackle the country's major social problems such as teenage pregnancies and obesity when they have so many other things to worry about?

Surely there are already other agencies which should be taking lead responsibility for these – medical organisations and primary care trusts, for instance?

When I'm thinking of who might make the best councillor for my ward, I'm wondering about their attitude to road humps, not imagining them handing out morning-after pills. If I was a council leader, I would be seriously looking for another job, perhaps as a fire-juggler.

On the day of the announcement by Ms Blears, and in a spectacularly well-timed piece of double-standards, the Local Government Association introduced a brand-new poster campaign to tell people exactly what their council does for them. It features kids being taught to swim, sick being cleaned up off the streets and dog excrement being removed from a park.

It is clearly a big cheesy PR stunt, and some of the images have been criticised for being overtly offensive. At least it is
up-front and it attempts to challenge the confusion that many of us have about where our council tax money goes.

The LGA found that most people did not realise that dog wardens, swimming lessons, tourism promotion and restaurant food safety were all part of the local authority's role, and wrongly thought that the police and hospitals came under town hall control.

I cannot for a moment see how Ms Blears's initiative is going to do anything to make this situation any clearer. All it will do is muddy the waters yet further and make local residents even more resentful.

What ever happened to joined-up government? If it's not happening at local level, it makes you wonder if it is happening anywhere at all.