I have now decided to start publishing my expenses on this blog every month in a clear form. Frankly these have been available to critics under the Freedom of Information Act for years and are regularly requested by journalists using the act to trawl for scandal across the UK (the expense to the taxpayer of such fishing requests is something I should return to another time).This is a clear example of why Mike Freer isn't up to the job and why any administration he runs will
a) Be extremely wasteful
b) Be incapable of doing even the most simple things in a sensible fashion
Lets analyse what Mike Freer says. He says that it costs Barnet a fortune in providing information to journalists which they are fully entitled to see. He concedes they have every right to see them. He has recognised that these perfectly legitmate requests are costing us all money. So how does he address the issue? Well firstly FOI requests from journalists are not the only thing which costs the Barnet Taxpayer money. Mike Freer's Leader Listens blog also costs us money. Unlike my free blog here at blogspot, it cost you and I, the taxpayer nearly £500 to set Mikes blog up. Now the penny has finally dropped that he could save some money by putting expense details on there. Of course, like most other things Mike Freer does, it's not what he says, it's what he leaves out.
First, why has he only put the last years expenses up? Why not go back to when he started as Leader. Is it because the "travel" expenses would be rather bigger in previous years, when he was going to Conferences in the USA? As he concedes, we are entitled to know this and it will cost the taxpayer money to service FOI requests, so if there is nothing to hide, just put it all up there.
Secondly, why are only his expenses posted? He's the Leader. Why doesn't he show all of the expenses for his Barnet Cabinet and the Mayor? We all know that there are certain members of the Barnet Conservative party who, lets say, take a different view to claiming travel expenses than Mike.
In fact, he really ought to put all Council expenses for all Councillors on the Barnet Council Website. This would eliminate for once and for all the cost of the FOI issue and then he could say the process is completely honest and transparent. Do it for the whole period since the last election. If there's nothing to hide, then he can say "look what a good job I've done". He should also do this for all Council officers on salaries of over £100,000 per annum.
Finally onto his expenses :-
I don't know about you, but personally I'm of the opinion that if the Leader of Barnet Council requires entertainment, then he should pay for it out of his own pocket. I daresay he'll come back and say that this relates to having lunches etc with senior business and political figures (such as Ian Clement or maybe not????). Maybe it's justified, maybe it's money well spent, but if he just lumps it all under entertainment, with no explanation whatsoever, he only has himself to blame, when we start asking questions.
I've posted this comment on his Leader Listens site. Lets see if he bothers to answer it?
- Your comment is awaiting moderation. Mike,
Rog T
Please can you share with us exactly what this £417.20 in “Entertainment” was. I presume it wasn’t for a troupe of dancing girls to entertain you prior to your last cabinet meeting?
Rog
ReplyDeleteThe Information Commissioner introduced new Freedom of Information guidelines in January 2009 which Barnet signed up to. The new rules require councils to publish huge swathes of information automatically, without waiting for anyone to specifically request to see it.
The reason for the change was to reduce the costs of dealing with FOI requests. It makes sense - if a council is open and transparent, and publishes the type of information residents are entitled to see, they don’t have to waste time dealing with individual enquiries.
Unfortunately, due to the Stalinist manner in which Mike Freer operates, we are supposed to believe that he is doing us a big favour by giving us something we are legally entitled to receive and which the council should have been publishing automatically 10 months ago.
For Freer to comment about the cost of complying with FOI legislation is just a classic diversionary tactic because he doesn’t want us to debate how much money this council has wasted on his useless pet projects such as Barnet Bond and Future Shape.