Barnet Council - Another day, same old cr*p

Barnet Council have just published the One Barnet framework :-

A few initial thoughts :-

- Still no detailed business case, with worked examples of savings to be achieved

- Cost of OneBarnet/Future Shape/EasyCouncil implementation £9 million, so no real savings for 3 years, by which time project may have failed and need unwinding!

- Savings calculated down to extremely accurate figures, ££1.175 million -  "other"

-  £1.27 mill saving through procurement - The better procurement may materialise but is based on squeezing contractors and one can't assume future savings from this. I am not sure if any inflation assumptions have been built in, among other reservations regarding budgeting on future negotiation

Here's a nice quote from the press release :-

Councillor Robert Rams, Cabinet Member for Customer Access and Partnerships, commented:

"One Barnet shows how we can provide better services for many residents even as we make cumulative savings of £100 million over the next decade."

As ever, it seems that judging from this comment, Young Ramsbottom hasn't read the actual document (I suspect he had trouble reading the press release put before him to announce the release). If he had, he'd realise that the document shows nothing of the sort.

One Councillor who has seen through the BULLSHIT is my old friend Brian Coleman. Apparently he read the papers and promptly announced that the figures were all made up. For all his faults (which are many and extensively catalogued) Coleman (unlike most other Barnet Tories) knows BULLSHIT when he smells it. Let's hope he has his revenge on young Ramsbottom who is his bag carrier at the GLA. Maybe Brian could take 5 minutes out of his busy schedule to explain to him that if you don't want to look stupid, read documents before you open your mouth. Of course we all know Ramsbottom's attitude to reading, given his comments about turning Barnets Libraries into branches of Starbucks.

One Barnet Framework papers -  read the papers here for One Barnet

Whilst we're on the subject of Saving Barnets Libraries, today we hit a milestone on the Online petition. We now have over 500 signatures, to add to the 3,400 we've got on paper. Please sign this if you haven't already. The Link is in the sidebar at the top. Please make sure you've Facebooked it, Twittered it, emailed all your friends with the link. 3,900 signatures is good but there are plenty of you still to sign.