Eight reasons why we need to end the mismanagement of Barnet Council

Where did all the Barnet jobs go?

Anyone familiar with Barnet Council and what has been happening over the last four years will know that our 'flagship' Conservative Council has created a complete mess with its one Barnet outsourcing program. You may not believe me, but there are countless press stories which document the problems. See the links below. 

Barnet Council signed a huge outsourcing contract with Capita, allegedly to save money. Figures detailing the overspend on the contract with Capita and Re show that this now has a cumilitive overspend running total of over £100 million pounds. Huge sums are being spent on agency staff. In short, the council is being run into the ground. 

The Barnet Eye and other Barnet bloggers have identified numerous issues. We have seen countless recovery plans, all of which are sticking plasters, when what we need is to deal with the root cause. That is that this current Conservative regime is completely incompetent. We need a root and branch review of the process, conducted openly. If Capita are proud of their record and believe they can demonstrate that they add value for money, they should be screaming from the rafters about how marvellous their contract is, not hiding behind "commercial confidentiality". 

Fellow blogger Mr Reasonable has published a list of questions for Thursdays audit committee meeting. This is in light of a major fraud, which will be discussed at the meeting. 

You may think that none of this is your concern. We have calculated that the overspend on the One Barnet project, detailed below equates to £300 per person living in Barnet. I don't know about you, but I think that £1,500 for our family budget (a family of five people) would make a substantial difference. My guess is that would fix all of the potholes in Barnet, sort out the problems that OFSTED found in Childrens services,  restore library services and still give you a lower tax bill. When the advert they published stated they cut council tax by £97, they neglected to say that they could have delivered all of their promises and cut it by even more if they ran the council properly.

1. 2017 audit problems http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=144&MId=9401&Ver=4 see point 8 the chairman’s comments.

2.  Capita fined £55,000 for failure to provide details for audit on time  http://www.barnetlabour.org.uk/capita_fined_55k_for_failure_to_complete_barnet_accounts_on_time. Press report of “fine” http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/15657566.Service_fined_for_failing_to_complete_accounts_on_time/

3. Problems with pensions management http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=191&MId=9396&Ver=4 point 9

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/15920264.__39_Serious_failures__39__found_in_Capita_pension_management/

Link to the pension regulator fine http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/press/tpr-issues-first-fine-to-a-public-service-pension-scheme.aspx

4. Major IT problems http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/14671757.Barnet_Council_to_work_with_Capita_to_improve_its_I_T_disaster_recovery_system/

5. Current problems with accounts payable http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s46032/Appendix%201.pdf  pages 4 and 5

6. Planning problems identified by internal audit

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/b29009/Addendum%20Report%20to%20Item%207%20Internal%20Audit%20Exception%20Recommendations%20and%20Progress%20Report%20Q3%201st%20Octo.pdf?T=9

7. Current figures on contract overspend as at 28 February are as follows:

8. Agency spend figures 

Figures, charts and links provided by Mr Reasonable (AKA John Dix)