The lazyness of the Leadership of Barnet Council

I am truly disgusted by some of the things I've heard this week. I have been corresponding with the Deputy Leader of Barnet Council regarding the One Barnet program. In his latest response he said 

"I have a feeling based on past experience that this conversation could go on and on with you making all sorts of assumptions based on your interpretations of my responses, claiming you're baffled and confused when actually what I'm saying is quite clear. So I'll end my part of this dialogue now with the above example as my last attempt to explain how I believe it is easy to see that BAPS and the administration do not agree. "

Councillor Thomas was simply asked to state whether he agreed with sentiments expressed on another blog. Rather than give a sensible answer, he used all manner of silly ploys to avoid answering. That is bad enough, but the sheer intellectual laziness of the man is incredible. It is plain to every soul on the planet that BAPS and the Barnet Tory leadership do not agree with each other. If they did, BAPS would not exist.





Councillor Thomas does not seem capable of understanding that I was seeking a justification from him for the rejection of the request from BAPS to enter discussions with the Association for Public Service Excellence, with a view to assessing whether an in house solution may be cheaper and less risky than outsourcing. It seems that for whatever reason, this is beyond the wit of Councillor Thomas.

Barnet Council has never sought to compare the costs and risks of an in house solution vs Outsourcing. As a result, no one knows if they are being taken for a ride. Councillor Thomas seems to not understand that he can't say he's getting value for money, if he hasn't done the due diligence.

Neither Thomas not his boss, Richard Cornelius even bothered to attend the APSE briefings to discuss the matter. Why? I don't know, but the intellectual laziness of Cllr Thomas reply gives us a clue, doesn't it.

One Barnet - the facts that the Barnet Council do not want to listen to

On Satuday 7th July, the Barnet Alliance for Public Services held a conference, featuring presentations by Andy Mudd from the Association for Public Service Excellence, Professor Dexter Whitfield who is an expert  on the subject of outsourcing in local government and was originally engaged by Barnet Council to assist the local trades unions get to grips with the issues of outsourcing and John Dix, AKA Blogger Mr Reasonable, who is a consultant who advises organisations on outsourcing and management transformation.

Each speaker gave interesting and informative presentations. As you will see from the highlights presented here, none of these speakers are wild eyed lunatics,  speaking beyond their pay grade. All gave reasoned arguments to support their case that transforming Barnet into an unaccountable and opaque commissioning Council presents a huge financial risk to the people of Barnet.

How has Barnet Council responded to repeated attempts to engage in a grown up discussion? Councillor Robert Rams described APSE as a left wing organisation, despite the fact that it works with over 300 local authorities of all political persuasions and is generally held in high esteem. Needless to say that Councillor Rams didn't attend the presentations given by APSE. How he formed this opinion is a mystery. It is clearly not evidence based (unlike the information presented by Andy Mudd).

Here is a section of Mr Mudd's presentation, where he outlined the risks of outsourcing and how commercial companies have largely abandoned the strategy as a means of achieving efficiency.


Here is John Dix explaining the One Barnet program in lay mans terms. This is probably the best description of the process I've seen. Every Barnet resident should watch this clip, as it sums up what is happening and what how we are spending £20 Million pounds of taxpayers money


Here we have Professor Dexter Whitfield detailing how similar "experiments" at other councils have floundered. Of 44 major outsourcing projects, 11 have failed. That is a 25% failure rate. As Professor Whitfield asks, would you buy a car which had a one in four probability of going wrong?


Not a single Barnet Conservative Councillor attended the conference. They do not want to listen to the potentially calamitous risks associated with the project. They are planning to spend another ten million pounds (on top of the nine million already spent) purely on consultants reports into the process. The project has been running for four years and no savings at all have been delivered. The figures and business case are based largely on finger in the air guesses. Barnet has a poor record of dealing with private companies. We have seen major scandals with both the Metpro contract (£1.4 million) and RM Countrysides (£2.4 million). We are also hearing reports of major issues with the NSL parking contract, which is another major outsourcing, which was completed this year as part of One Barnet.

We urge all councillors to watch these presentations and get in contact with APSE to schedule a proper presentation for the Barnet Council decisionmakers.

How many Barnet Councillors care about council efficiency?

Tomorrow, the councillors of Barnet have been invited to a seminar featuring a presentation from Andy Mud,   who works for an organisation called The Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE). Who are APSE? Their website (http://www.apse.org.uk/) says this

APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) is a not for profit local government body working with over 300 councils throughout the UK. Promoting excellence in public services, APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority front line services, hosting a network for front line service providers in areas such as waste and refuse collection, parks and environmental services, leisure, school meals, cleaning, housing and building maintenance.

APSE are engaged by many councils to advise on efficiency and are highly regarded by both Conservative and Labour councils committed to efficiency up and down the country. The seminar has been organised by UNISON. It may seem strange that a Trades Union should organise such an event, which may presumably result in efficiencies, which could result in job losses for Union members. I asked the branch secretary, John Burgess to explain "We live in a world where cuts to public services are a fact of life. The government has removed huge chunks of finance from local government. It is no use burying our head in the sand. If we have to have changes, we must all work together to ensure that these are done in the least damaging way possible". John emphasised that whilst opposing such cuts is a vital part of the work of Trades Unions, when faced with a Conservative government and a Conservative council, with two years until the next council elections, a pragmatic approach to efficiency was needed. An organisation such as APSE, with a track record of delivery and  a highly respect reputation, clearly represent an opportunity to get the best out of the existing and shrinking resources.

What concerns me is the fact that the One Barnet program, which Barnet Council are promoting, which is the wholesale privatisation of the whole council, is viewed as an extremely high risk option by APSE. This was the reason for John Burgess engaging them. APSE believe that far lower risk approaches to efficiency are the way forward. As the Union have clearly bought into these, there is no risk at all of industrial disruption as a result. It is the job of the councillors to ensure that the council executive are kept in check and to listen to viable alternatives. Failure to do so, amounts to negligence. There is absolutely no reasonable excuse for any councillor who can attend such a briefing to miss it.

The Barnet Eye is today emailing all Councillors to ask whether they will be attending the seminar. If they are not, we will ask for the reason. The results will be published on this blog. If your local councillor cannot be bothered to attend a free seminar, detailing ways to save your money, given by a highly respected and trusted organisation, I would suggest that they really should not be doing the job.

I believe that failure to attend, without good reason is tantamount to negligence.