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Dear Councillors

Please find enclosed briefing number 9 entitled ‘Regulatory Services & Risk’.  (to view click here)

The One Barnet Development & Regulatory Services Project has bundled together the following services

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, Cemeteries & Crematoria,

Many of these services are Statutory Services that are critical to the well-being of Barnet and its residents.

As ever if there is a point of clarification or concern please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary.

Barnet UNISON

Local Barnet resident and Blogger Mr Reasonable has through a series of FOI requests and follow up emails managed to take a closer look at the robustness of the what has been referred to nationally as the ‘Graph of Doom’

His analysis is crucial for Barnet residents because this graph has been used by councillors in power to justify the outsourcing of over 70% of council services,

Mr Reasonable has submitted hundreds of questions to a variety of council meetings in attempt to try and develop a dialogue with councillors.

I hope this analysis will begin a ‘different relationship with citizens; one in which the council opens up the possibility that there are alternatives to the One Barnet Programme mass outsourcing.

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/graph-of-doom-fact-or-fantasy.html

Download PDF here

“What I have heard from the Leader, is that he will take a substantial amount of convincing before we get anywhere near a joint venture, so if I was a gambling man, which I am not, I think you could probably put the Icelandic Bank deposits….on there won’t be a joint venture if I was a gambling man, so , quite , quite why councillor Schneiderman you need to be excited about something which is highly unlikely to happen I am not sure.”

Waych here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0RlRku_wvI

(Councillor Brian Coleman, Chair of Budget Overview & Scrutiny Committee, Wednesday 19 September 2012).

Those in attendance at this meeting were the Leader, Deputy Leader and the Interim Director of Planning, Environment and Regeneration. They had ample opportunity to correct this very powerful statement, but chose to say nothing.

The very next day staff working in were informed that both bidders Capita Symonds & EC Harris have been told that a joint venture is the councils preferred option. The winning bidder will therefore submit a joint venture proposal in order to win the £275million pound ten year contract to run Barnet Councils Regulatory Services

The One Barnet Project Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) is looking to privatise the following Council services:

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, Cemeteries & Crematoria.

For the last 7 days I have been trying to get to the bottom of the sudden change in direction for the DRS One Barnet project. Everyone working across DRS should have seen the council committee discussion, if not I suggest you take a look here.  As you can see in the exchange in emails with the Deputy Leader here it is patently obvious the service delivery model for DRS will be a Joint Venture. UNISON has provided two briefings on Joint Ventures for councillors which you can view online here and here.  

“A disaster and a waste of money, Southwest One was the firm set up five years ago in conjunction with computer giant IBM, but there has been a bitter & expensive falling out, the company has just begun legal action against the council..”(BBC news 18 September 2012. To view click here)

This Joint Venture was raised by Conservative MP Ian Liddell Grainger speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday 18 September 2012 (you can read the Hansard transcript here scroll down to 3.6 pm.

“It gives me no pleasure to rise to talk about a failed procurement project that has cost every citizen in Somerset a great deal of wasted money and time. Southwest One is a joint venture between Somerset county council, Taunton Deane council, Avon and Somerset police and IBM—one of the world’s biggest IT firms. It is a classic example of how not to do public procurement.”

He finished off by saying:

“This is a national, not a local, scandal. The district auditor gave Southwest One glowing reports. The Audit Commission whitewashed the lot. There is now overwhelming evidence to prove that the auditors were grossly negligent. Southwest One should be—must be—examined properly by the National Audit Office..” 

Over the last four weeks there has been concern about what is going on with the DRS One Barnet project. Senior officers are openly recommending a Joint Venture and councillors are clearly not.

Below is the latest email response to a series of emails sent to the Leader of Barnet Council on this important matter.

To view the full email trail click here 

 

 

Dear John,

This seeking of information by ‘megaphone’ and copying-in of many members is quite unnecessary especially when you have regular meetings with officers and officers have updated staff at key milestones.

Regarding this request, have you pursued the proper and first port of call of i.e. sought clarification from the relevant officers and is my intervention really needed? If so, please e-mail me the times of those requests directly, I’m aware some colleagues do not wish to be included in this correspondence. If you have not received a clear response and have allowed a reasonable time for a response then I will intervene.

My previous reply regarding the status of joint venture discussions was clear and I have nothing to add to it.

Regarding wider discussion, the scrutiny meeting last week dealt with a member’s item regarding joint ventures in the manner it deemed appropriate and the position was again outlined. It was for the members present to decide what questions to ask.

Additionally, there will be scrutiny of the proposal and I have also asked for group briefings so that members are fully informed.

Kind regards,

Cllr Daniel Thomas

Finchley Church End Ward

Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance

London Borough of Barnet

The following email was sent to all 63 Barnet Coucnillors. To view the report click here

“Dear Councillors and those celebrating the New Year “L’Shana Tova,”

Please find enclosed UNISON briefing Number 5 entitled ‘What are Joint Ventures’This briefing is in response to the recent Council decision to abandon strategic outsourcing in favour of the Joint Venture option for the DRS One Barnet project. I am also including the Treasury Guidance on Joint Ventures for those of you who would like to read much more detailed Government advice on Joint Ventures (also attached). 

I am sure you are all aware that on Wednesday 19 September there is item specifically about Joint Ventures at the Budget & Performance Overview committee http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=123&MId=7332

I will be attending this committee and hope you all will be able to make it.

As ever if there is a point of clarification or concern please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary.

Barnet UNISON

It is unprecedented for a Councillor to name a Council Officer (an employee of the Council) in a disparaging way in public. Why? Because a Council officer has no public right of reply. So when the employee being attacked is the branch secretary of the biggest Council union, namely our John Burgess, it is particularly offensive. The same Councillor uses sexist, denigrating language to people sitting in the public gallery. “Ah, but that’s Brian Coleman for you,” I hear you say, “The Councillor who just lost his GLA seat and seat on the Cabinet”. I do not much care for speculation about whether he was there to provoke or not etc. I do know this: He was asked/ allowed to make a key speech for the ruling Conservative Group on a key issue facing our workforce – the One Barnet Programme. That group and the leader of that group allowed him to be their public face. Rightly or wrongly he was chosen. During the whole debate (and I was there throughout) Cllr Coleman made no apology. His leader, Cllr Cornelius, did not distance himself from the comments made by Cllr Coleman or insist on an apology, instead he smiles and nods approvingly. The Mayor does not choose to make any kind of statement regarding conduct expected from Councillors serving in public office but only addresses his comments to members of the public, many of them women incensed at having been insulted, nor does he choose to remind Councillors about protocols around naming employees of the Council. Cllr Harper (portfolio for Children’s Services) is clearly seen smiling when his colleague uses sexist language to residents of Barnet. What does this say about our Council’s ability to conduct Equality Impact Assessments?

I hope you would agree with me that we think our Branch Secretary should continue writing emails on behalf of our members to the Councillors. If they think this is “increasingly desperate”, that is their problem. We elect our Branch Secretary precisely to represent us, amongst other things by telling the Council when we think they have got it wrong. The fact the leading Conservative Group refuses to debate with us (and we have offered many, many times over) on the detail of the One Barnet Programme, but can only resort to name calling is a critical sign of weakness in their case. Nonetheless they think they can get away with it. We must show them otherwise.

Listen to the speech, listen to the way the Councillors express their views via Cllr Brian Coleman about you as a workforce. They just do not care about you. Now what was that about Barnet’s Values…? Who do you stand by? Come to branch meeting 25^th September.

Councillor Coleman One Barnet speech

http://youtu.be/jiGOM0LbfdA

Bite size clips of the above speech

·         Councillor Coleman attacks Barnet Alliance residents in public gallery

·         http://youtu.be/ViiB-RDG5kE

·         Councillor Coleman calls residents old hags

·         http://youtu.be/G3HeXtOWWyo

·         Councillor Coleman says staff don’t matter

·         http://youtu.be/8uPHxKhKoKw

·         Councillor Coleman attacks staff and UNISON Branch Secretary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yofl1HfI8c

·         Councillor Coleman and Leader share private joke

·         http://youtu.be/LREDmOdnafI

 

Unfortunately UNISON learnt of this survey via a Blog which is a sign that all is not well. The survey confirms feedback coming into the UNISON office from our members. The One Barnet Programme is absolutely responsible for some of the stark responses back from staff. I would go further to say that the One Barnet programme has broken the spirit of some of our members and this is having an impact on their health and the quality of the services they provide. What the council is trying to do is impossible and the strain is showing across all departments. UNISON predicted staff would start making plans to escape 12 months ago once it became clear the council was simply not interested in investing in a public sector comparator (in-house service). We are now witnessing the consequences across all departments as experienced staff leave. The Council is struggling to fill posts but, it appears to have no problems recruiting Consultants!

Earlier this year UNISON carried out a stress survey in Planning and some of the results were equally shocking

Q: Do you feel valued by senior management in your work role?                        

 A: 100% said no

Q: Are you considering leaving your present post?      

A: 91% said yes         

UNISON is seeking urgent discussions about how to address these shocking results.

Solution

There is a simple solution which would have a dramatic impact on the workforce overnight. Drop the One Barnet Programme, meet with UNISON and let’s work together to deliver high quality public services and keep any savings within the Council.

The outsourcing saga of Barnet Council Legal Services to Harrow Council continues. The likely date of transfer to Harrow could be early August. The target date was 2 July, but that was before the #Spartacus revolt and plans of the new Harrow Legal Service revealed.

Yesterday staff were informed the new name of the service will reflect the shared service ethos,……?.

There were two issues that are causing concern.

The first is how are the Barnet Council going to overcome the tricky issue of Capita?

Capita currently provide IT services for Harrow Council. Barnet Legal services are currently advising all of the One Barnet projects and using Barnets IT service. They will still have to support the One Barnet projects after they transfer to Harrow, BUT then they will be using IT services provided by Capita.

Capita Group and Capita Symonds are bidding for both outsourcing contracts worth up to £billion pounds.

The staff were told a solution is being worked on…….

The second issue concerns contract monitoring.

UNISON has been concerned about the lack of transparency and requested a copy of the Due diligence which has taken place to support the business case.

UNISON was informed there is no actual Due diligence document. UNISON asked if there was a Due diligence template and was told No.

UNISON asked how the Council was going to ensure the new shared service was going to deliver Value for Money for Barnet residents.

At first UNISON was reminded of the joint strategic board which includes both chief executives). UNISON was already aware of this and asked who would actually monitoring of the contract. Furthermore UNISON asked if the council would monitor outcome or outputs (sorry readers if you now fall asleep).

UNISON was informed that the Council was going to monitor outcomes &outputs and a contract manager would be appointed.

UNISON asked if this was one of the posts in the recent chief executive restructure and was told it was a separate post.

At the Legal services briefing yesterday UNISON asked when this post was being advertised. Staff were informed that they were still working on the details, but they could confirm it was a level four post which makes it a Head of Service post.

UNISON found this strange as the Chief Executives restructure involves all posts level four to level six. The Council has already started assessing staff for the new posts in the Chief Executives restructure and understands some staff have been successful and others not. The Legal Services Contract Monitoring post has not been made available for staff to apply……..more later…

 

The Barnet Council Not For Sale Conference was a tremendous success. More new faces were welcomed to an every growing group of residents who are concerned about the One Barnet Programme.

In Part One of the Conference there were three speakers. You can view their Powerpoint presentations below 

Professor Dexter Whitfield ESSU click here

Andy Mudd APSE click here

John Dix local resident click here