Pre-Action Letter – Proposed Claim for Judicial Review was served on Barnet council.

Local

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, STOP PRESS:

Pre-Action Letter – Proposed Claim for Judicial Review was served on Barnet council.

A Barnet resident, Maria Nash, has instructed lawyers to seek Judicial Review of the One Barnet Programme.   A pre-action protocol letter was sent to the Council today, prior to the Cabinet meeting tonight which plans to approve the appointment of Capita plc as preferred bidder for the first of the One Barnet contracts, worth £320 million.

The letter details the grounds on which a Judicial Review will be sought:

1.         Breach of the Council’s duty to consult Barnet residents, businesses and community organisations about its plans, the result of which is that it has spent millions of pounds – the Agilisys contract alone has cost over £4m and is likely to rise to £6m – on professional consultants helping it to run the procurement process, but has not once asked local people for their views.

2.         Breach of councillors’ duty to the residents in their area, to make sure that their decisions represent the best available value for public money. In order to be sure that they are getting best value out of this or any other contract the Council must compare the costs, benefits and risks of outsourcing with the costs, benefits and risks of retaining services in house but reforming the way they are provided to optimise value. Despite having been urged to do this, and despite the fact that it has been done by other local authorities, like Edinburgh, Barnet has refused to do it.

3.         Breach of the public sector equality duty: the Council must take issues of equality into account when making important decisions which affect people’s lives, like making radical changes in the way Council services are run.  The “equalities impact assessment” done in the One Barnet case was a pure paper exercise, which took no account of the views of people who would be affected by the changes.

4.         Breach of public procurement law, which requires that this contract be awarded to the company submitting the “most economically advantageous tender from the point of view of the public body”, i.e. the provider that gives the “best value for money” , taking into account the council’s responsibilities. Lack of consultation with local people, lack of consideration of equalities and lack of an in-house services comparator means the council cannot state that Capita gives the best value for money.  Such a breach of the public procurement rules leads to cases like West Coast Main Line.

5.         Breach of councillors’ duty to make up their own minds: Individual councillors must by law make up their own minds how to vote after informing themselves on the issues.  They are not allowed blindly to follow the party line.  Councillors have been starved of information and have not had the opportunity to understand the highly complex proposals for the contract, so they cannot legally vote to do anything other than defer a decision so that they can inform themselves and come to a proper view.

 

Notes for editors

1.                  Capita has been chosen as the preferred bidder for the New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) contract with Barnet Council, worth at least £320 million over 10 years and advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union as worth between £600 and £750 million. A second contract covering Development and Regulatory Services (DRS) worth £275 million over 10 years is also being bid for by Capita Symonds and EC Harris; parking services were recently outsourced to NSL for £15 million (5-year contract).

2.                  Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) is a coalition of residents, trade unionists and community campaigners in the London Borough of Barnet, formed to defend and improve public services.

3.                  Maria Nash is unfortunately unable to talk to the press due to illness. She has asked BAPS representative to speak on her behalf.

 

Contact: Barnet Alliance tel: 07534 407703 – Vicki Morris tel: 07446 292994 – http://barnetalliance.org ; Barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com

One Barnet:”When something looks too good to be true………”

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Between November 2006 and September 2007, ahead of the credit crunch, Barnet Council entered into a number of fixed term deposits worth £27.4 million with two Icelandic banks.  Councillors were advised that the Icelandic banks provided a very attractive and sound return on the investment, they were also informed that these banks had sound strategies, business plans and delivered excellent performance. The investments in these banks were apparently within the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Strategy approved by the Cabinet Resources Committee in March 2008.

http://www.barnet.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/345/annual_performance_report_2008-2009

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/Data/Cabinet/200810231830/Agenda/Document%209.pdf

However, during the same period newspapers were reporting that these very banks were lending huge sums of money to investors (some Icelandic) to buy companies (many UK businesses) and paying eye watering prices which even the Middle Eastern sovereign funds would not pay.

What happened next was £27.4 million pounds of Council assets were frozen in two Icelandic banks following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system.

The point is that nothing is guaranteed and to date the Council has not provided either of the Council Scrutiny Committees of any robust evidence of learning lessons from other Councils.  

It is wrong and naive to claim other Councils did not seek expert advice about drafting contracts. To suggest that by spending millions on expert legal advicethe Council wil be able to hold a multinational company to account and hence guarantee savings is quite frankly frightening.

In the real world everyone (apart from One Barnet Supporters) understands one thing

“Their (multinational companies) lawyers are always bigger and better

than the Councils.”

Update list of Barnet Council services down for outsourcing

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In response to the Leader of Barnet Council services playing down the number of services on the Sunday Politics Show

View programme here http://youtu.be/O2enS9eT9sw

Please see list of council services either already transferred out or about to be transferred out

1.    Residential/ Supporting Living/ Day care services for adults with disabilities

2.    Council Housing Services

3.    Parking Service

4.    Legal Services Department

5.    Audit Service – the majority of the service is provided by the consultancy Pricewaterhouse & Cooper

6.    Services which are shortly to come off the Payroll

7.    Information Technology 

8.    Human Resources & Payroll

9.    Pensions

10. Health & Safety

11. Financial Services

12. Customer Services (Call Centre) which includes Social Care Direct Team             based in Adult Social Care.

13. Estates,

14. Property Services

15. ·Revenues & Benefits

16. Corporate Programmes (Project management)

17. Procurement

18. Electoral Registration

19. Trading Standards & Licensing,

20. Land Charges,

21. Planning & Development,

22. Building Control & Structures,

23. Environmental Health,

24. Highways Strategy

25. Highways Network Management,

26. Highways Traffic & Development,

27. Highways Transport & Regeneration,

28. Strategic Planning & Regeneration,

29. Hendon Cemetery & Crematoria.

30. Priority Intervention Team

31. Music Service

32. Public Health Service

33. . …………

One Barnet – NOT Learning LESSONS from failure

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NOT Learning LESSONS from failure

It was simple but clear request from the cross party Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee. They asked the Lead Cabinet Member Councillor Rams responsible for One Barnet Programme to bring evidence of when they visited other Councils, who visited them and what they learnt.

What they got was a list, but listen for yourself here http://youtu.be/_UQ17yFYeIs

The short clip is under 3minutes long. Have a read of some key extracts

Former Leader Councillor Brian Salinger tried to obtain details of the visits

“When the visits carried out who went on them and what did they learn from them? None of that is contained in here, six pages is desk top research. What members here are looking for are, what have you learnt from meeting up with councils face to face?

To Councillor Rams he asked “Which of these have you visited?

Councillor Rams replied

 “I haven’t visited any of the sites, just by not visiting does not mean you are mot learning from your officers and desktop research”

Chair of Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee Councillor Hugh Rayner intervened and said:

“In fairness councillor Rams all we have here is a list of visits it doesn’t say whether they were for one hour, one day, one week, it doesn’t say when they were there, it doesn’t say what benefit we got from them, it doesn’t say who went, how detailed whether it was one person or a team, it’s so sketchy its absolutely useless I’m afraid”

He followed again by saying:

“I think the most important thing is to know what you learnt from each of them, for instance if you went on a visit and you found contracting out wasn’t a good idea maybe that should be noted, that they considered it was not a good idea and but here we don’t know.”

After four and half years of Future Shape/EasyCouncil/One Barnet, millions spent on consultants, Ten Conservative Councillors are on the brink of making the biggest political decision since the creation of Barnet Council in 1965, and the Council has still not provided any evidence of lessons learnt.

That is why this REALLY is a BILLIONPOUNDGAMBLE.

“The Commissioning Council- It’s what it says on the Tin!”

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“The Commissioning Council- It’s what it says on the Tin!”

There has been a lot of talk about what is Commissioning Council means. What it really means is the Council moves to a strategic commissioning role and away from delivering services.  

In the last 12 months we have seen the following services leave the council

·         Residential/ Supporting Living/ Day care services for adults with disabilities

·         Council Housing Services

·         Parking Service

·         Legal Services Department

·         Audit Service – the majority of the service is provided by the consultancy Pricewaterhouse & Cooper

The next big tranche of Council services are New Support Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO)

Which involves the following services

·         Information Technology 

·         Human Resources & Payroll

·         Pensions

·         Health & Safety

·         Financial Services

·         Customer Services (Call Centre) which includes Social Care Direct Team             based in Adult Social Care.

·         Estates, Property Services

·         Revenues & Benefits

·         Corporate Programmes (Project management)

·         Procurement

·         Electoral Registration

These Council services are closely followed by Development and Regulatory Services (DRS):

·         Trading Standards & Licensing,

·         Land Charges,

·         Planning & Development,

·         Building Control & Structures,

·         Environmental Health,

·         Highways Strategy, Highways Network Management, Highways Traffic & Development, Highways Transport & Regeneration,

·         Strategic Planning & Regeneration,

·         Hendon Cemetery & Crematoria.

·         Priority Intervention Team

Music Service is going out early 2013.

Public Health Service – This critical responsibility was recently handed to Local Authorities. The staff have only recently arrived in the Council for the NHS only to hear Barnet have decided to transfer them out of Council control. 

 

The next stage of One Barnet is called Wave Two

1. Street Scene Services.

The decision to keep these services in-house was agreed at a Cabinet briefing at the ‘eleventh’ hour. Brent Council had announced in their executive meeting that they were going to carry out a joint procurement of Street Scenes with Barnet Council. The recycling service is being brought back in-house next year because the council will gain all of the financial benefits. The decision to bring this service back in-house was always the plan even if they had gone ahead with the joint privatisation with Brent.

2. Registrars Service

At the Cabinet Resources Committee on 17 December councillors are going to consider service delivery options for this service.

Incredibly they are now looking at Children’s social work.

Have you noticed a theme emerging?

When services are being reviewed, the question being asked is not if we (Barnet Council) can do them better ourselves but WHO can deliver them instead of the Council.

This is what a Commissioning Council looks like.

This is why the Council is breaking up the staffing structure and issuing redundancies.

This is why in-house staff are being referred to as delivery units!

The key message Council staff are getting is that the Council does not want them and are desperately seeking other organisations to take them on. What we have seen with the NSCSO project has reinforced this view and it seems the Council are unconcerned about the numbers of redundancies it brings. 

Capita Property Services in Southampton

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CAPITA have been named as the preferred bidder in the senior officer reports going to scrutiny committee on Thursday 29 November.

You can view all the reports here on Barnet Council website http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=123&MId=7348

One of the key issues raised by UNISON and Barnet Alliance concerns ‘lesson learnt’ from other poor outsourcing projects. At last weeks scrutiny committee councillors were told that the council had learnt from other council experiences.

I wonder if they came across the report below ?

Southampton Council has a long term contract with CAPITA.

Take a look at this committee report on CAPITA Property Services Performance Review dated 15 December 2011

You can read the full report here

Here are some highlights

“The report identified that performance in Capita Property Services was poor and client satisfaction was below the mean.”

“During the financial year 2010/2011 the number and range of issues that arose between service departments and Capita Property Services increased. A significant number of these were escalated within the dispute resolution procedure to the highest levels within the partnership. As a result the perception within the service areas and key stakeholders within the Council of the performance of the property service gave rise to a number of areas of concern.”

“Poor value for money due to high fees: A number of issues highlighted

concerns within service areas over the fees charged by Capita.

Disputes over fees have formed a very high proportion of the Property Services issues. The cause of many of the issues has been attributed to:

• A lack of clarity when fees have been proposed by Capita;

• Differing interpretation of the fee tables in the contract by discrete business units operating within the Capita office;”

 

“Poor reactive maintenance of school buildings” This has led to difficult decisions regarding prioritising expenditure and a perception that Capita are responsible for the poor maintenance of the schools.”

 “Quality of Professional Services: A number of issues have related to the quality of the professional services received from Capita.• Service errors were escalated to issues due to a lack of willingness on the part of Capita to accept responsibility for them and take corrective actions.”

 “Key Performance Indicator: The services provided by Capita Property Services are monitored by a selection of indicators. The reporting by Capita of their performance during the first three years of the partnership was not supported by robust assurance data and the results were often obtained immediately prior to reporting to the Council”

Finally

“The performance issues in the service provision by Capita Property Services have led to a significant amount of senior management time and resources,”

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