Friday, 18 March 2011

Barnet Council - Future Shape Business case (or not)

Barnet Council have released the first stab at a Future Shape business case. To be brutally honest, it's quite laughable. They admit that they don't have "robust" data to base calculations on (albeit 48 pages into the analysis). It is clear from the figures and the wordings, that all savings are finger in the air guesses. Here are a few potted highlights.
You can read the whole sorry saga here :-
http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/documents/getdoc_ext.asp?DocID=90846

Just a word to the wise. An accountant friend advises that where a document contains savings that are all multiples of 5% :-

a) They have been rounded up or down by up to 2.5%. On these type of projections, with no firm benchmarking data, most business models would allow a + or - 75% error of margin, which means in many cases there could be no real savings at all.

b) Without firm benchmarking data and with no relevant case studies to justify the claims, they are pure guesswork.

This document is meant to be a business case. I'd call the whole project a Basket case. I can't believe that there are no Tory Councillors who can't see this.

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