Why Mike Freer is a useless leader of Barnet Council

Councillor Mike Freer is trying to make a name for himself as a Council Leader by championing an initiatve called "Future Shape of the Council". As he fancies himself as a right wing Thatcherite, you've probably guessed that this involves much ideological mumbo jumbo.

In lay mans terms, his plan is to Privatise everything he can. If the Council runs a call centre for residents, let the cheapest provider take the function over, they may not know where Barnet is, but it'll save a few bob. Now most people don't call the council for a chat or to discuss the price of plums. They call because something has gone wrong. They call because there is a serious problem. When you need your council to help you, you will be speaking to someone, who "cheapness" was THE PRIME FACTOR in their selection.

If you could pick anything the council does and select the thing where quality of service was the most important factor, what would it be? I thought long and hard about this and given that Mike Freer is planning to outsource the lot, drawing up major contracts, I would say legal services. Barnet has already had experience of what happens with shoddy contracts. Barnet Council's sale of Underhill suffered from a badly drawn up contract. The result? A £1 Million bill for lawyers and accountants during a protracted inquiry. That was just the expense of the case, the actual loss to the taxpayer is many times that. Another example is the outsourcing of care homes to Fremantle. This has resulted in multi million pound claims against the council. The reason? Badly drawn up contracts.

You would think they'd learn, wouldn't you? You'd think they'd realise that when you are dealing with complex legal issues, you need the best lawyers. Has Mike Freer learned?

Well today the following cabinet report was brought to my attention Appointment of Panel of Legal Advisors. The reason for this report (drawn up at huge expense)?

3.2 The service provided by the in-house Legal Service is in high demand to deliver on the
Council’s priorities. Moving to the Council’s ‘Future Shape’ will involve additional and
extensive legal input.

So there is a tacit admission that privatisation requires huge legal expenses. When the council decided to select lawyers, what criteria did they consider important and how much importance did they associate with each.

APPENDIX A – “Successful ‘Tenderers’ Scores
Organisation Authority Comment(s)

Price Score 55% Quality Evaluation Score 30% References Score 10% Overall Tender Quality Score 5%
Total 100%

There it is, in black and white. The Council ascribes a 55% importance to the cost and a 5% importance to the OVERALL TENDER QUALITY. If quality is so unimportant when choosing lawyers, who draw up the contracts, how can anyone believe that Mike Freer's baby, FUTURE SHAPE will ever really work or save money.

So I ask you this - Do you really believe that a leader who has so little regard for quality, really has what it takes to lead the 9th largest authority in the Country. Reading this report explained one thing though. I now understand why we've lost money in Iceland, the Aerodrome Road project has overrun, we wasted a million on equirys into Underhill.

It's because the Council, from the very top, has scant regard for attention to detail. As far as I'm concerned, if I was looking for Lawyers and I went through a tender process and a firm submitted a Tender where the "overall tender quality" was rubbish, that Tender would go straight in the bin, no matter how cheap and cheerful it was. Believe me, if the Council really pay as scant regard to quality as this document implies, the Icelandic experience is just the tip of a huge Iceburg, one which we will all pay for (except those lucky Councillors such as Mike Freer who are hoping to move to Westminster next year).



Mike may think he's the King of the Jungle. Truth is though, he's out of his depth !