Why Barnet will turn blue in May 2026

 Back in May 2022 there was a massive, seismic shift in the London Borough of Barnet. The Tories, who had governed the Borough for 20 years, were uncermoniously and most devservedly booted out. The Labour party took control of the Borough for the first time in it's history (they governed in coalition with the Barnet Lib Dems from 1994-2002). They got a record majority and the Conservatives were stripped back to their absoluet core base, in the pleasant, leafy wards across the Borough. 

Having known the key players in Barnet Labour, I was not exactly convinced that they would be a stunning success, but it was pretty clear what they needed to do to get things back on track and having watched the Tories in action, it was also clear that they would be hard pressed to make a bigger mess of running the Borough. 

So here we are, well over half way through their administration. The finances in Barnet Council are in a full blown crisis. Although things were difficult, there were some easy wins. Barnet under both Tory and Labour regimes have somehow managed to make Barnet the most bureacratic and least accountable Borough in London. This has lead to massive inefficiency. Whereas most boroughs have one CEO running the show, Barnet has had three since 2020. Each one of these is on a massive salary. These are as follows.

Barnet Council Chief Executive - This is the CEO who runs the council and has a salary of £201,456 £212,685 (Source: https://www.barnet.gov.uk/sites/default/files/pay_policy_statement_2024_2025.pdf ) 

The Barnet Group Chief Executive - This is the CEO who runs the Council owned housing stock, for the wholly owned company caled "The Barnet Group" which was set up to ensure that democratic oversight of Council housing was difficult, if not impossibe, and they are on a  salary of £218,643 (Source: https://thebarnetgroup.org/download/the-barnet-group-financial-statements-2023-24/ ) 

The Barnet Group was originally set up as Barnet Homes. This is what they say about themselves - In 2004 Barnet Homes was established as an Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO) for the London Borough of Barnet (LBB) to manage approximately 15,000 council-owned properties within Barnet. In 2012 Your Choice (Barnet) was created to receive the transfer of Adult Social Care services from LBB, and The Barnet Group, a Local Authority Trading Company (LATC) was created as the parent company to both Barnet Homes and Your Choice (Barnet). Later in 2012 the Council’s Homelessness service, Housing Options, transferred to Barnet Homes.

This was done to receive government grants to refurbish the housing stock, over two decades ago, under the Blair government. For some reason, they believed that a private company could manage council housing more effectively than councils and offered bungs to councils to do this sort of thing. In short, it hasn't worked. I know a lot of people who live in housing managed by the Barnet Group and what they have shown me is truly shocking ( a theme we will be returning to later this week).

This is born out by their own website which says this about "stage 2 complaints" 

Stage 2 complaints 

Most of the Stage 2 complaints were about service failure, quality and customer care. In Quarter 1, 19% of complaints were escalated to Stage 2. Our Repairs service received the most Stage 2 complaints with 23, and we also received 6 about Housing Management, 6 about Housing Options, 6 about Gas and 1 about Property. Our performance in time declined compared to the previous quarter and did not meet our target of answering Stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. This remains an area of focus for improvement.

Barnet Education and Learning Skills Chief Executive. For some bizarre reason, the last Tory administration also set up another CEO post with a salary of £138,303 + other benefits of £33,368 (Source: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12724128/filing-history)

Barnet Education and Learning Service (BELS) is a limited company wholly owned by Barnet council. They are in a strategic partnership with the council to provide its education services. This is what they say about themselves "Educational progress and achievement have improved consistently in recent years in Barnet.  97% of Barnet schools are good or outstanding and Barnet is now in the top 10% for almost all measures of achievement in schools and the top 5% for many of the measures. Barnet Education and Learning Service delivers the council’s statutory education services, including school improvement, special educational needs, admissions, school place planning, post-16 education and skills.  BELS also provides traded services to schools and settings in Barnet, equipping them with the latest tools, training, and programmes to improve school standards and pupil outcomes."

In short though, it just does what Barnet Council always used to do with one less CEO.

There are too many examples of such wasteful bureacracy in Barnet to list in a short blog, having three CEO's and all of the infrastructure to support them is just one example. The scandalous aounts of money that are still being payed to Capita by Barnet Council as they try and extracate themselves from the contracts is truly staggering. A recent post on the Barnet Unison website laid this bare

1. Capita spend.

In 2023 one of the big, outsourced Capita contracts ended (Re)  with staff returning to Barnet Council on 1 April 2023.

In September 2023 Capita Estates service came back in-house.

The few remaining services delivered by Capita for Barnet Council are as follows:

• IT services
• Customer Services
• Revs and Bens

Barnet UNISON understands that all the above services will cease to be provided by Capita by March 2026.

Barnet UNISON was shocked to discover that Barnet Council paid Capita in one financial year £24 million. That works out as £2million in payments to Capita every month.

As you can see from the table provided by Barnet resident and local Blogger Mr Reasonable, Capita has received £670 million from Barnet Council since payments first began in 2013.

What is disturbing about the £24 million is that Capita is only being paid to deliver three services.

The sad truth is that Labour administration has not got to grips with the financial crisis. It had the opportunity to end this madness two and a half hears ago to get rid of the bureacracy and waste.  

Labour swept into power on a wave of disgust at the shenanigans of Boris Johnson in Downing Street and chaotic government. The local Tories were in disarray and completely botched their campaign. The wind will be blowing in a very different direction in May 2026. The only weapon in their armoury will be their record and how they've run the Borough of Barnet. The sad truth is that they've botched the running of the Borough for the last two and a half years and they've only got eighteen months to get their act together. Sadly for Labour, they wasted the goodwill they had to take tough decisions and fiddled whilst Rome burned, as the saying goes. Now they have to make harsh choices and they probably won't be around to reap the benefit even if they do,