Yesterday I spoke to local Unison rep John Burgess. John sent an email to all of our Councillors containing two reports detailing serious deficiencies within the One Barnet / Future Shape / BarnetTrack program. The union has paid for a team of experts to analyse the program and Highlight the deficiencies. The job of Councillors is to protect our rights and ensure Council officials do their job. These reports highlight problems which will cost ordinary Council Taxpayers a fortune. All that John Burgess asked of our councillors was that they read the reports and if they felt the criticisms were justified, took action to save the Council money. Surely even the most rabid Tory would agree that this is a sensible approach.
When John sent the report, he put a read receipt on the message. This meant that he could see how many Councillors had actually bothered to even open the email. What he told me sickened me regarding the number of local Conservative Councillors who had even bothered to open the email. Anyway, whilst many of these people, who couldn't be bothered to even open the email haven't read what he said - here's the covering letter. Ask yourself - does the approach taken sound reasonable? Would it save us money if all of the Councillors read it? These people are paid chunky allowances to represent us. Surely we should expect something for our money. Yesterday I wrote a blog detailing how the Leaders of Barnet Council ignored reasonable questions from me. Do they actually do anything? Here's the letter
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When John sent the report, he put a read receipt on the message. This meant that he could see how many Councillors had actually bothered to even open the email. What he told me sickened me regarding the number of local Conservative Councillors who had even bothered to open the email. Anyway, whilst many of these people, who couldn't be bothered to even open the email haven't read what he said - here's the covering letter. Ask yourself - does the approach taken sound reasonable? Would it save us money if all of the Councillors read it? These people are paid chunky allowances to represent us. Surely we should expect something for our money. Yesterday I wrote a blog detailing how the Leaders of Barnet Council ignored reasonable questions from me. Do they actually do anything? Here's the letter
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On Monday 28 March 2011 Barnet Council Cabinet Resources Committee are being asked to agree the business case to privatise Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) by handing them over to a large private sector multinational company. The first group of council services to be given the ‘easyCouncil’ treatment are Cemeteries, planning, Highways, Land charges, Registrars, Environmental health, Building control, trading standards.
The contract could be worth up to £180 million to the successful private sector organisation.
Professor Dexter Whitfield, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Adelaide, with over 35 years experience of planning, researching and analysing local authority policy documents in Britain and overseas) was commissioned by Barnet UNISON three years ago to provide consultancy support for the Easycouncil/Future Shape/One Barnet programme you can view his reports here.
· “The DRS Business Case has a superficial appearance of authenticity but is fundamentally not fit for purpose and elected members have a duty to decide it is non-compliant."
· “There is clearly a high risk that user charges will be increased in order to achieve the income generation targets.”
Adrian Waite (Independent Consultancy Services) was commissioned by Barnet UNISON to examine the financial aspects of the business case. Adrian is a highly experienced and respected local government finance expert. He has held a number of senior roles in local authorities including Director of Finance and s151 Officer and is a fully qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.
Adrian Waite said this about the DRS business case
“During the thirty years that I have worked in local government finance as a local government officer and management consultant, including some time as Finance Director of a Borough Council, I have seen and written many business cases, business plans and options appraisals. This business case is remarkable for the apparent lack of robust evidence to support its main conclusions that £28million of savings and increased income is achievable and that this can only be delivered through outsourcing.”
Barnet UNISON has submitted the two reports (see attached) to all Barnet councillors including the 6 members of Cabinet Resources Committee.
We are recommending the following:
- The Council should recognise that significant additional work is required before the Business case can be approved.
- The formal procurement process should not be commenced until Cabinet Resources Committee has approved a revised DRS Business Case.
- The Council’s template and methodology for preparing Business Cases should be revised to ensure it is compliant with best practice.
- Carry out an equality analysis under the Equality Act 2010 as part of a broader cost benefit analysis of the economic, sustainability and environmental impacts of the DRS proposals.
- Gateway Reviews should be implemented in all major procurement processes as a matter of urgency.
- The Council should immediately exclude Cemeteries and Crematoria from the scope of the procurement and return to the 2010 options appraisal findings.
2 comments:
I suspect you may be right but for the wrong reasons. When the request for a read receipt or a delete receipt appears on my computer I deny it as a matter of policy. It's a bit of a big brother way of going on to check up on people in this way.
I think the problems are that there are 63 Councillors ( can you name any FTSE Company with 63 Directors - I don't think so ) and 1 Councillor alone cannot change anything. The Cabinet system concentrates power in a few hands. Generally the Councillors are part-time and all of their spare time could be taken up in reading Council reports. The recent audit committee report was 144 pages I think. Also the Councillors have conceded too much power to the officers in my view. The DPR limit is set much too high. In these times of budgetary restraint closer control should be exercised by Councillors.
I do agree that contracting everything out isn't the answer. I think that wholesale reform & simplification of the senior management structure of the Council is long overdue.
..maybe a lesson from Canada
" The vote came after a finding by a parliamentary committee led by the opposition parties that Mr Harper's government had acted in contempt by failing to disclose the full costs of spending on anti-crime programmes, corporate tax cuts and plans "
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