Nick Walkley's Additional Weekly Message to Barnet Council Staff - Follow the example of SPAIN !

From: "First Team" First.Team@barnet.gov.uk; 
Date: 1 July 2012 14:59:01 GMT+01:00 
To: "AllStaff" 
Subject: Additional Weekly message from the Chief Executive


Over the weekend, like many of you I watched Spain win the European Championships. We witnessed possibly the best display of football by any team in history. What was the secret of their success? Teamwork. I was truly inspired by the way everyone knew where everyone else was, each player covered for their colleagues and players being substituted accepted it in good grace for the benefit of the team.


We can all learn from their example. For Barnet Council to succeed, we must work as a team. We must support our colleagues and if there is no longer any place for us in the organisation, we must accept this with good grace. Perhaps the greatest secret we can learn from Spain is that everyone knows who is the boss and he gets all the rewards and plaudits that a successful boss deserves. The team is successful because they do exactly what the boss tells them.When players do not do what the boss tells them, they are off.

There is another lesson we can learn from Spain. How many of the players are employees of the Spanish federation? Yes, you are quite right, NONE !!!! Nope, they all work for other teams. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester City. The training and development of the team is OUTSOURCED to the organisation that do it best. All that happens in Spain is that they COMMISSION the best players from the BEST TEAMS. Because Spain has the best TEAMS and the BEST BOSS - they win !!!!!

You may also have also noticed that when the Spanish players were substituted, the BOSS didn't come over and pat then on the head, as is the practice with lesser teams. Nope, the boss expected them to go out, give 100% and do their job. Why bother with pleasantaries. The players get a medal for their efforts and they get all the girls when they get home. Why would they want a pat on the head from the boss, when they can have all of these things.

Staff at Barnet Council should realise that like the Spanish players, they are lucky. When they are outsourced, they will have the chance to join the best teams, with world class organisations such as Capita and BT. They will also have the opportunity to work for the best, most dynamic Council CEO in the world - ME!

How could any of you fail to be ecstatic at such a wonderful proposition? And if you don't realise just how lucky you are, then maybe you should consider joining a team in the Conference?

Nick

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Yup, you probably guessed. This isn't really an email from Nick Walkley, CEO of Barnet. It is a spoof which I made up. Sadly I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in some of the sentiments which I ascribed to "Non Stick" Nick. He clearly isn't interested in anyone who has a different view of the changes he's implementing. He clearly thinks he knows best. He refused to attend the Association for Public Service Excellence briefings. Why? we can only assume because he believes that he's the Del Bosso of local Government. He has already publicly stated that the bidders are the "best teams" around. Can Barnet Council learn anything from Spain's victory? I suspect they can. For many years they under achieved at major tournaments. They undertook a root and branch review of the way football was run in Spain. What did they do? They unified a fragmented system and instilled a sense of pride in the National team. The national association was strengthened and improvements brought in to the systems of coaching at all levels.

Sadly Barnet Council is going the other way. They are destroying the systems of control and oversight. Anyone who is familiar with the problems with procurement in Barnet can only draw the conclusion that the system is broken. This must be fixed before they even consider any more outsourcing. Once a strong system of corporate governance is in place, then they can start fixing the problems. Until that is done, things can only get worse. That is why One Barnet must be cancelled.