Barnet Council - Leader Listens Breakfast report

So a nice early morning for me. Up to North London Business park for the Leader Listens breakfast. This gives the business rate payers of Barnet a chance to meet the Leader of the Council and discuss local issues. There is usually a guest speaker and today was no exception, as we had Neil Basu, the Barnet Borough Commander.

Due to a rather frozen car, I arrived just as the meeting was starting, so missed out on the chance to chat to the other business owners, which is one of the main reasons for going to these meetings. Grabbing a quick cup of tea and a pastry, I entered and sat down. Deputy Leader Andrew Harper bounded enthusiastically towards me and said "Good morning Mr Tichborne". For a second I thought Lynne Hillan had asked him to escort me from the premises, but he carried on straight past me to the front of the room. Councillor Harper started introductions. He confided that he'd never been to North London Business Park this early (7.30am). He then gave Leader Lynne Hillans apologies. It seems she is unwell, nothing too serious, we all hope. Councillor Harper looks and talks like a  Leader of the Council. I suspect that if Councillor Hillan falls under a bus or some other tragedy befalls her, he may well step up. He's jovial, self-deprecating and assurred. I rather suspect that his method of securing the Leadership would be to tell everybody that he didn't want it and would be useless at it. I suspect that he might be rather better than some recent Council Leaders, but thats another story.

Anyway, Councillor Harper then introduced Neil Basu, The Borough Commander. Chief Basu was quite a charismatic speaker. He started by giving us his CV. He started in Corporate Finance at Barnclays Bank. He moved to Mars to become a sales manager. He told us that this was not fulfilling so decided to opt for a career in the Metropolitan Police. He started as a regular South London Cop, rising to seargent at Brixton. He then had a job in the Anti-Corruption squad. He moved to investigating deaths in custody, on to the Trident murder squad (black on black murders), from there to the serious organised crime squad, then to the Commisioners assistant. He then took over Barnet on June 29th. He proceeded to give us a few interesting stats about Barnet. 340,000 people. Second most populous London Borough after Croydon( projected to become most populous in 2012). 4th geographically largest, 8th safest, 16th most diverse and one of the lowest rates of assault.

He then gave us the good news - Hate crimes down, vehicle crime down, violence down. Then came the bad news - Burglary up, gun crime up, armed robbery up. He told us that the Metropolitan Police were the model for the worlds police force. He told us that 60% of people though the met were doing a good job, but only 27% of people thought that the Police liaised effectively with Barnet Council. Q&A followed. Commander Basu dealt with these in a calm collective manner. I raised the issue of anti social behaviour in Mill Hill Broadway and how one of my employees had been told that this wasn't a priority and to contact the Council Leader if I wanted this changed. The commander agreed this was a poor response and suggested we raised a complaint if we got fobbed off. A lady from a High Barnet Jewellers told him that Barnet Police were far better than the police in her native South Africa. That was that. I was rather hoping Commander Basu would have told us tales of vice and corruption from the days doing his old jobs, but no such luck.

Councillor Harper then introduced the Deputy CEO of Barnet, Andrew Travers, who gave a brief presentation about the Barnet Council Budget. Mr Travers had the disadvantage of following a charismatic speaker talking about matters we all understand, to give a chat about figures, budgets and statistics. The gist of what he said was that only 18% of council spending was actually raised by council tax. The council has frozen this amount, so £15 million of cuts has to be found.

Then it was Councillor Harper. He took the Q&A.  Councillor Harper asked for questions. He scoured the happ, only to see that I was the only person with their hand up. "Yes Mr Tichborne" he asked. I explained how I'd been out asking the Mill Hill Broadway traders their opinion of parking charges and whether they supported the Lib Dems proposal that the first hour should be free. I explained how the "free after three" scheme had been perceived as a success. One of the council officers piped up that although it had been a success it cost the council £100,000 which was a lot of money. I pointed out that the Council spent £209.5 million on housing benefit and anything which helped local business would promote employment, which would reduce housing benefit. Mr Harper responded that the government funded housing benefit, just giving it to councils to distribute. I replied that it was still funded by tax, therefore would ease the burdens on households.

With the local traders, there was pretty universal support of a cut to short term parking fees. I believe that Councillor Harper realised this was a sensible move, so lets hope the (deputy) Leader Listens!

There were several other questions. One gentlemen explained at length how the council did nothing to help small landlords rent properties. He suggested a more progressive policy would encourage business. Then the subject of Business rates were discussed. I raised the point that the whole process was badly communicated and causing widespread distress within the small business community. Councillor Harper asked the Business Link Officer (Hemand Ahmed was his name I think) to investigate ways to make this easier to understand.

Barnet Traders then explained how they were implementing a Crouch End Project style promotion for the High Street. This sounded like a rather good scheme. Something to roll out across the Borough.

Finally we had a guy speak who works for a company which keeps the streets of Barnet free of grafitti. He told us that Barnet Council was marvellous and was a model for other London Boroughs. Councillor Harper beamed with pride. The guy then said that sadly Barnet had just made the bloke redundant who was responsible for this. Councillor Harper stopped beaming. A council official tried to explain that the guy had taken "Early retirement which is his right, and there is a succession plan in place". the guy from the company said he sincerely hoped so.

At that we all went home. What did I get out of the session? Well I got a good insight into the priorities of the police in Barnet. I was impressed by Commander Basu. I know many policemen and he certainly isn't old school. I had a chat with him afterwards and I think we've got a decent guy in the job. Councillor Harper? He has always struck me as one of the more sensible Tory cabinet members. I suspect that he'll be a competent leader of the Conservative group in the not too distant future (assuming he's not knobbled). But what about the real power in Barnet? The Council officers? The more I see, the more I realise that they rule the roost. My worry is that I really don't think they understand small business. Why do I say this? Well for a start, the budget presentation would have made far more sense if it had concentrated on the elements of the budget which had a direct impact on small business. I noticed, for example, that trading standards and community safety gets a budget of £3.6 million. Surely a bit more detail on this aspect would be of great interest to legitimate businessmen. Maybe we could provide some meaningful feedback. There was also a big dollop called "central expenses" of £49 million. Again, some of this might be of interest to the small business community. The council spends £7.3 Million on Tax collection and finance. Is there any way that the small business community could suggest cuts to this? Again there is £6.7 Million on IT. Again, has this been spent efficiently.

The only way that Barnet Council can improve is if they get feedback. That is why I actually think these sessions are useful. I have been contacted by some non Business ratepaying small businesses who complained that they were excluded from this meeting. I think that this was a short sighted move by Barnet Council. There are many things I disagree with Barnet Council and Andrew Harper about, but when he does something useful, I think he deserves a bit of praise. Thank you for a good session Andrew and pass on my thanks to Commander Basu for his time.