I suppose the big news this week is the Barnet Council Cabinet meeting. I attended the TUC rally outside before, along with various local characters and the esteemed film director Ken Loach. There were a couple of hundred people outside at the rally, all of whom were locals and all of whom cared about the future of the Council enough to stand around in the cold. The item made the BBC local news.
Inside there was the Barnet Council cabinet. They announced they'd made arrangements to accomodate a couple of hundred people wanting to attend the meeting. As I made my way to the chamber, I was just about to go in when I was told it was full (very conveniently). I was directed to the overspill room. This was a large room full of chairs and a rather small PA system. Now strangely enough for a Council which has spent nearly £100,000 on large plasma screens for conferences, there was no video link. So there I was with the commoners in the big room. I was happier there, but sadly I can't tell you who the person who got ejected for heckling Mike Freer was.
Anyway what can I tell you? Mike Freer is cross with the Unions, because the council paid for them to hire a consultant and the union's consultant didn't agree with him. Whilst the unions gave a response to the council's document, Mike felt that they should have come up for a better plan of their own. Maybe Mike should look up the term RESPONSE in the dictionary (Mike can click HERE if he wants to see what it means).
I found the whole proceedings rather surreal. Mike seemed to be saying that we had to privatise Barnet because the Labour Government think it's a good idea. He said that as his administration had failed to achieve a decent settlement from Central Government, we had to save money. He said that Future Shape was the way to do this. He rather bizarrely stated that Barnet's excellent (his words) in-house refuse service would be given the opportunity to bid for the service? Those of us who remember the previous rather lousy outsourced service had a look of puzzlement. Anyway he then had the chance to be grilled by the rest of the cabinet members. Not being able to see how he coped, I'll have to use artistic license (please forgive me). Each member in turn stood up and paid homage to dear leader and his 5 year plan (sorry Future Shape plan). They bowed as they spoke and dear leader anointed them. Then from left field Deputy leader Matthew Offord stood up "I'm outraged" he announced. Everyone in the room's ear's pricked up. "The response from the Union is disgusting." Mike agreed. He went further "The Unions are stuck in the 1970's". I looked at the assembled masses of union members. No glam rockers in sight. Not a Mohican or a pair of bondage trousers. I suggested that maybe the Tories are stuck in the 1980's. I don't know what it is about Mike Freer, but I could well imagine him with a Mullet. Anyway, once all of the Cabinet had paid homage and received their blessing, they put their hands up and it was agreed to progress to the next stage. I must mention Councillor Harper. He actually suggested that maybe a bit more Democratic Control might be a good idea. Not being versed in Barnetology, I'm not really sure whether this was criticism or not. Mike sounded slightly less effusive in his blessing of Councillor Harper, but it is hard to tell when you are in another room with a dodgy PA. Maybe next time they should pipe the meeting to the pub. At least then we can all have a pint.
At the end of the Future shape discussions, most of the public left. I took the opportunity to move to the main meeting room. A long debate on the merits of the Middlesex University scheme ensued. It seems that this has the potential to cause much damage to the local community, many councillors had reservations about aspects, but agreed to pass it anyway. They also agreed to sell the lease on the town hall and rent it back. Brian Coleman said he didn't understand why. I have to say I agreed with him. Mike Freer explained that it was because the council was rubbish and hadn't looked after the building, so they should give Middlesex Uni the chance to do a better job. I find it rather surreal the way that when the council are rubbish Mike says "The Council" and when they are marvellous he says "We". I'm sure there is a term for having two personalities?
We then got on to the subject of equality. Mike told us what a marvellous job he'd done. Councillor Harper said he didn't understand what "level 4" meant in this context. A kindly Council officer explained (although I suspect that neither Councillor Harper or myself were really any the wiser).
There was then a general motions (quite apt) section. Mike asked if any councillors wanted to ask any questions. Councillor Offord said he'd like to ask a question. His question went along the lines of "I'm marvellous because since Burnt Oak library reopened it has 500 new members". It was rather hard to tell because Councillor Offord, despite his years at the BBC, seems unable to operate the button on the Microphone in front of him. Mike had the look in his eye of someone who wanted to be somewhere else as Offord droned on. Later Offord commented (on a different subject) that he'd have to defer to Mike Freer's greater skill with Council funds. At this I had a fit of the giggles. Just how bad is Offord with money. Does his mum let him have pocket money? It took a Herculean effort to suppress my laughter as I could see Mike itching to chuck me out for my rudeness.
The best thing about the Council meeting is that you get to see the Councillors in action. You get to notice their mannerisms. Brian Coleman picks his nose and bites his fingernails when he thinks someone is getting a bit too much of the limelight. He has a slight lisp, as he spoke I thought of "welease wodderwick" from the "Life of Brian" - yep, he most certainly isn't the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
As to Mike, he was playing a friendly at home. Wheras at the previous full council meeting we had a championship display of gurning, this time we got some mild eye rolling for Councillor Offord as he droned on. The saddest moment (well it was actually quite happy for me, as I don't like him) was Brian Salinger presenting his report on childcare on behalf of the Committee. Salinger is like one of Mao's cohorts who was demoted to a menial job, but is occasionally summoned back for a ritual humiliation. He diligently presented his report whilst the cabinet patronisingly smiled. They agreed the motion and off he went. Oh how the mighty fall.
We then all got slung out so the cabinet could have their secret session. No doubt that is where the real fun is had. Visions of Brian Coleman and Mike Freer doing the conga around the office? One of the assembled crowd works in MacDonalds and he told me that there is nothing Brian Coleman likes more after a council meeting than a Big Mac as we made our way out. Apparently he has to pay for it as well. I suppose that after all those free banquets it makes a nice healthy change.
Anyway, back home to watch the protest on the BBC London news. As I write (10.30 Tuesday), Mike Freer is on telly explaining that all sorts of options are being considered for future shape. I suspect that deep down, Mike is rather pleased that the Unions organised such an effective protest. It got him on Telly, which can only be good. It's just a shame he didn't have his '80's mullet wig and gold medallion on for the cameras.
"All sorts of options" ? - I was there and that's not how it sounded to me !!!!!
2 comments:
Rog
This is an object lesson in how not to do something. If Mike Freer wants to prove his critics wrong and show that he really is a Thatcherite at heart, what better way to do it than to privatise council services? The council, like so many public bodies, is bloated, wasteful and expensive to run. Efficiency savings are there for the making.
But the British are conservative (small ‘c’) by nature and we don’t like change for changes sake. Slowly slowly catchee monkey is the order of the day, not gung-ho all guns blazing.
The proposals, which I would desperately like to support, need to be carefully considered by everyone who is affected - which frankly will be just about everybody in Barnet. But if decisions are made on the recommendations of management consultants, then chaos will ensue.
Mike Freer says the council has to save money. Quite so. Every council of every colour must always look to do that. But to blame ‘Future Shape’ on poor settlement grants seems to me to be an astonishing thing to say. Yes, Labour has indeed given Barnet a poor deal since 2002. But in 2010 we hope to have a Conservative government in office who will deal with Barnet more equitably than Gordon Brown ever did. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to wait until after the next election to see how the land lies?
I think it would be quite right and proper for the council to engage in discussions with the public to get a better idea of which services could be privatised and which are best remaining under council control. Or rather, which services residents would be consent to see privatised, because neither Freer nor the Conservatives have a mandate for any of this. It was not part of the party’s manifesto at the last election and to try and implement changes of this magnitude without a mandate is asking for trouble.
This is not Partingdale Lane which upset many residents but was, essentially, a very local issue (and the Conservatives did have a mandate to open the road). Future Shape will affect every resident and will fundamentally alter the way the borough operates. To implement such a radical change without popular consent would be Freer’s equivalent of Kinnock’s suicide note.
David,
If PwC had come in and identifed a raft of inefficient services which were delivering poor value for money and laid out a case for improving them by outsourcing, with a strong business case, If they planned to build up experience of outsourcing and lear from their mistakes, I'd say fine.
What we have is an ideological paper saying "public bad, private good". If it is rushed and they throw out the good with the bad, they will fail, it will cost a fortune and we'll get a backlash.
Unfortunately, I think that the mass trade union lobby was a massive own goal. They did such a good job organising it that Freer got on the BBC news and he loves the publicity. He'll be hoping for lots more rallys to get his face on telly.
The opposition to this has to be pragmatic, broad based and case led. It is a shame that so much money is being spent on pie in the sky waffle.
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