If there is nothing to hide, why are the One Barnet Procurement Principles a secret document?

Yesterday, five Barnet bloggers sent the following communication to Barnet Councillors to draw their attention to a secret council document, with a restricted viewing list, which details the One Barnet Procurement Principles. We did this so that at the very least, our local Councillors are taking this huge punt, with your money, with their eyes open and no excuse that they didn't know about the risks. The time has come for these councillors to stop burying their heads in the sand and to start doing the job they get paid to do. Here is the letter we sent :-
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The One Barnet Programme: a high stakes gamble

Dear Councillor,

As you know the Council is embarked on a massive outsourcing project, the One Barnet Programme. This programme has never been put before the borough’s residents for their comments let alone their approval. It was not in the manifesto of the winning party at the local government elections.

No Conservative councillor or senior Council officer has ever appeared in a public forum to defend the programme. It has been left to concerned residents such as ourselves to make their own investigations into the scope and implications of the planned changes.

We have recently seen a copy of the procurement principles adopted by senior council officers in March 2011, early in the process of beginning the outsourcing. They would alarm any resident who cares about the state of the borough. You can read the document here: http://barnetfutureshape.blogspot.com/

We do not know whether these principles have been modified in the course of the process. The fact that that we do not know is in itself a matter for deep concern and only highlights the problem that residents are being kept in the dark about what the Council is doing with their services and their money. We must insist on residents’ right to know more about One Barnet.

It might well be that councillors themselves are also in the dark about what the Council is doing. Yet you have a duty to represent your constituents and we think you should therefore seek out and share information about One Barnet with them. You should feed back any concerns residents have to the Council Cabinet and senior officers.

The document was produced before the MetPro and other existing procurement failures came to light. Nevertheless and in spite of this, we think that the principles we have seen probably are those along which the One Barnet Programme is proceeding. Those aspects of them that alarm us most and which we think particularly need public discussion are detailed below.

One Barnet is likely to cost jobs in the borough

The Council appears to have decided that there will be no requirement on the companies awarded contracts to create new jobs within the borough. Moreover, they have decided that services do not have to be delivered locally: that is, staff currently employed by Barnet Council could be made redundant and their jobs done by people in another part of the county or even overseas, most probably in a call centre.

Staff made redundant will be offered basic TUPE terms, which, as we have already seen with outsourced services in Barnet, usually means that sooner or later staff will be re-employed on worse terms. That is bound to affect the quality of the service to residents.

There is a high risk that residents will foot the bill if One Barnet fails

The document is shot through with anxiety about who will bear risks, including financial risks. For example, the Council is looking into taking out insurance against contract failure, and it is worried about the implications of outsourcing for paying the pensions of transferred staff. Here is one particularly startling quotation regarding the pension fund:

“At the end of the contract period, there are risks of potential large deficits being built up by the new employer during the contract period. A recovery plan will need to be put in place well before contract ceases.”

The ostensible reason for going down the outsourcing path is to save money, but if contracts fail in any way, it will cost us money and disruption in our services. Other areas of provision will wind up needing to be cut to make up gaps in the Council’s budget.

The quality of our services is in jeopardy

In the document senior officers acknowledge that contractors are interested in the One Barnet Programme for one reason alone: to make money. Take this, for example:

“There are... many examples of long-term partnerships where the commitment and enthusiasm of the provider has waned over the duration of the contract. Major... organisations will generally resource extensively during the first year, or two, of a new contract but this level of resourcing diminishes as the contract moves to a more stable business as usual position.”

Residents, however, care about the quality of their services, and councillors should too.

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We believe that councillors have a duty to inform themselves about these issues as a matter of urgency so that they can discuss them with constituents.

The One Barnet Programme has major implications for the future of the Borough’s services and finances and for the way it is governed. One day the discussions behind closed doors must spill out onto the streets, as residents feel the impact of the changes to their services. That will be too late for them and you suddenly to be involved in the debate.

We therefore urge you to take an active interest in One Barnet now. Speaking for ourselves, we oppose the programme; we believe One Barnet will jeopardise local finances, the quality of services and democratic control over them.

You must act now.


Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

2nd November 2011

One Barnet - Transforming Barnet Council - into Steptoe and Son

And on the theme of Steptoe and son, a large document just appeared on the doorstep. I've scanned the first four pages. It's entitled "One Barnet Procurement Principles" and placed these on the Future Shape Leaks blog - http://barnetfutureshape.blogspot.com/2011/10/barnet-council-secret-documents-one.html - for your perusal.

Section 1 rather ironically says "with the number of staff involved in the process managing confidentiality will be very difficult" - No s**t Sherlock. Barnet are always good for a snigger, if not proper punctuation !

Section two gets into the meat of how the Council want to sell us down the river. It proudly announces "The Council does not have to accept a variant bid if it is the highest scoring, so long as it has reserved this right in advance". In other words, we can take a worse bid, so long as we tell everyone the bidding scoring system is a complete joke.

Section 3 talks about new jobs created by the One Barnet project. It seems to say "We don't know if we want these to be in Barnet or not". My guess is that when cash is king, not is the likely outcome.

Section 4 is a lot of "newspeak" waffle which seems to say "We haven't really got a clue how this will work, so we'll cross our fingers and hope for the best".

Section 5 goes into a lengthy discussion of how the whole process is all about shafting the pension rights of Barnet Council employees.

Section 6 says that local jobs only need be protected if there is no other choice.


I guess it is section 7 that gives the game away "Accomodation can be provided free of charge or at market rental, either way, the cost of hosting services will be a charge to the Council".


It really is a horrible document. Part II will be analysed later this week. When it comes down to it, it is clear that Barnet wishes to apply the Albert Steptoe management principle. Viewers of the series will remember that Albert Steptoe employed his son. His son was welcome to do whatever he wanted, just so long as it completely suited Albert. This is exactly the same attitude as Barnet Council have to their staff.


It is disgusting

Barnet Council - Secret Legal advice for OneBarnet bidders - more analysis

Here is the next installment of our analysis of the secret legal advice for Barnet Council. My secret mole, who is a highly respectable person (with secret Trotskyite tendencies and a sense of mischief/ and a concerned and decent person who is sick of lies and subterfuge  - delete as appropriate) provided this analysis of what Trowers and Hamlins have to say :-

Trowers and Hamlins legal advice

Rog, It is no surprise to see that one of the main sections of the legal advice warns about a number of officer roles within the bundle that simply cannot be outsourced. The advice gives four examples but the list is not exhaustive. All manner of people and organisations have been raising this issue since the very start of the Future Shape /easy Council/ One Barnet programme all have consistently been ignored by the Council. 

You will remember how this legal obstacle was not taken into account at the Options Appraisal stage. It is deeply concerning to see that these issues have still not been resolved as the project approaches round two dialogue with bidders. How many times have I sat in meetings where concerns have been raised and dismissed as "detail" or be put off until "a subsequent phase".

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Let me just say a word here on the subject of leaks from the council. I have been informed of some rather OTT steps taken regarding the locations of meetings to try and avoid "leaks" such as this. Happily for the people of Barnet, there are enough people with consciences who are completely hacked off to ensure that most of these steps fail to prevent the information surfacing. As you can see, this information is highly damning and should be in the public domain. My "deep throat" contact tells me that they are sick to death of the whole Barnet culture. Executives have no interest in hearing genuine concerns of people with huge amounts of experience. The only constraint I have in what I publish from the material I've been passed is the fact that I don't understand most of it and need advice as to what it all means. This either comes from a) the team of moles or b) my friends who have legal training who understand the implications. I've queried many of the passages, once analysis has been provided, only to be told "actually it's more complex than that". 

What is pretty clear to me is that it's a minefield and it will be the taxpayer who loses their shirt when it goes bang.

Barnet bloggers look forward to meeting Cllr Daniel Thomas to discuss Barnet council’s priorities

Dear Councillor Thomas,

 

We, bloggers of Barnet, are most pleased that in your recent YouTube broadcast you express yourself keen to engage with local residents and discuss ways to improve Barnet. 

As you are no doubt aware, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles recently commended the bloggers of Barnet for their great work exposing the MetPro scandal. The subsequent investigation has highlighted all manner of problems with Barnet Council's procurement procedures which we are promised will now be rectified.

 

Since we are all motivated by the desire to help you improve Barnet still further, we are pleased to invite you for a live, televised discussion, to be broadcast on www.GotSeeN.com, at a time to suit you.

 

We are sure that there are many subjects about which we could have an interesting and informative discussion.

 

As public spirited citizens we are willing to meet all the costs of staging this event and broadcasting it live on the internet. We also guarantee to afford it maximum publicity and coverage through our blogs.

 

We are happy to discuss any topic and suggest that if you let us know in advance the topics you want to cover, we will do our homework so as to ensure a fruitful discussion.

 

We would be happy to broadcast either from the Barnet Council offices at North London Business Park or a venue chosen by us.

 

Subjects we think you might be interested to discuss are: One Barnet, Cabinet Members’ allowances, executive pay, waste within the council, the number of highly paid contractors working for Barnet, cost overruns on projects such as Aerodrome Road, CPZ charges, Icelandic investments, overdevelopment and the strain it puts on infrastructure.

 

We look forward to hearing your response.

Best wishes,

 

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Vicki Morris

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Barnet Council - Toxic OneBarnet legal advice from Trowers and Hamlins

Follow up on this blog - 
http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/09/barnet-council-exclusive-expert-legal.html

This document is an extract from specialist legal advice produced for Barnet Council by legal firm Trowers an Hamlin. It was not intended for public distribution. The Toxic One Barnet project is the right wing Tories mad scheme to outsource all of it's functions to large corporations. This document highlights the risks. I am amazed that Barnet Council have persisted with this scheme in light of this. I wonder if CEO Nick Walkley read this. If he has, I do wonder if he understood it.

As you can see they can hand over vast sums to private companies, but they retain all the risk, as any other entity is not legally recognised. For matters pertaining to Environmental Health, the authority is ultimately responsible. A whole new layer of bureaucracy will be needed, just to ensure the company does their job. the Local Authority will have to pick up the tab for this bureaucracy. It is also clear that the lawyers are rubbing their hands.

I had intended to do far more on this document, but life has got in the way. Expect more at the weekend and next week.

Barnet residents respond to Barnet Council’s MetPro audit report

On Thursday 16 June 2011 the Audit Committee of the London Borough of Barnet met to discuss the internal audit report into the MetPro scandal.

The report was commissioned as a result of pressure from Barnet residents, who alerted the Council to problems with the MetPro companies that the Council’s own procedures had completely failed to identify.

While the audit committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Monroe Palmer, did an excellent job of identifying many serious problems with this vendor account, many issues which residents were concerned about were deemed out of scope of this investigation. Furthermore, the committee has no powers to impose any remedy, and can only aspire to “inspire the executive to do better” (to quote Maryellen Salter, Assistant Director - Audit).

In addition to the serious concerns about Barnet Council’s relationship with the MetPro companies, there are wider implications of this affair for the Council as a whole. The problems which remain to be addressed are:

A) Legal issues. The Council’s Internal Auditor cannot exclude the possibility that fraud may have taken place. The Director of Corporate Governance Jeff Lustig indicated that since there was no evidence of fraud, there was no need to investigate. This is a highly unsatisfactory response and appears to be in breach of the council's own policies and procedures.

The Council’s financial regulations are clear on this point:

“Any suspected irregularity involving any asset, or the exercise of any function, of the Council must be reported by the appropriate Chief Officer to the Chief Internal Auditor to inform the overall assurance that can be delivered and to the Corporate Anti Fraud Team (CAFT) Manager for investigation.”

B) Contract procurement and monitoring. Barnet Council are pushing forward with the One Barnet Programme, a major outsourcing scheme, even though the audit team has identified serious and fundamental flaws in the Council’s contract procurement and monitoring processes.

The audit report into MetPro confirmed that there had been a breach of EU procurement laws which ensure fairness and anti-discrimination as well as best value. The internal audit report is silent on compliance with procurement law; however, given that only the largest 180 contracts out of 9,700 vendors are audited, it is likely that there are other legal breaches. In view of the shocking findings of the audit report and the recognition by the Audit Committee that the focus on change and the One Barnet Programme had been a contributory factor in these failures, we believe that all but essential contract renewals should be put on hold until an effective system of contract procurement and monitoring has been put in place and tested.

The multiple failings detailed in the MetPro report and in the Internal Audit Annual Opinion must be addressed, and Council staff working in procurement fully trained in the Council’s own Contract Procedure Rules before the Council can even consider embarking on an expansion of outsourcing.

The chair of the Audit Committee said that the audit department is unable to perform its duties owing to lack of resources. Barnet Council’s audit team should be strengthened and ways found to ensure that its recommendations are carried out.

C) Project management. In 2006, Barnet Council launched a SAP system to manage procurement, at an initial estimated cost of £8 million. This was done to modernise the control of payments and purchasing.

The cost of this project has spiralled to £25 million, more than three times the original estimate. Not only has this system failed to prevent the problems demonstrated by the MetPro report, it seems that the promised benefits of automation have not materialised. MetPro invoices have had handwritten numbers and notes on them. Payments have been made to non authorised accounts, and it seems that no proper audit trail exists. How can a system that cost £25 million have failed to address all of these issues?

The SAP fiasco shows that Barnet Council cannot manage large projects, cannot control costs and cannot implement outsourcing projects that work. They should not be considering One Barnet outsourcing until they fix the problems with their project management that the MetPro scandal has highlighted.

D) Safeguarding. The issues of safeguarding raised by MetPro have not been addressed. In light of the contact with vulnerable adults and children at Barbara Langstone House by MetPro employees who were neither SIA licensed nor CRB checked, Barnet Council should investigate in conjunction with the police whether there was the potential for or actual incidents of abuse, not only in relation to MetPro, but also in relation to any other security firms engaged by the Council. In addition, Barnet Council should keep central registers of all CRB, SIA and other required checks for all people working with the Council. This issue should be addressed immediately.

Barnet Council should work with residents who were illegally filmed by MetPro at the Council meeting on 1 March to address any data protection issues that arose from that episode, and possible other actions of this nature, instead of, as it has done up until now, trying to wash its hands of all responsibility.

 

E) VAT and invoicing. The Council do not have procedures in place to ensure that invoices meet legal requirements. The example on the Council’s own website is deficient. It is clear that staff are not properly trained in dealing with payments. A training programme must be instituted as a matter of urgency, to ensure compliance.

F) Culture. It is of great concern that the Audit Committee has made similar criticisms in the past, yet there has been a further deterioration. This should be a disciplinary matter for senior management, since it is accepted by the CEO, Nick Walkley, that this is a widespread problem resulting from lack of proper operational management. It is clear that attempts to inspire an audit culture have failed. 

There is a culture of complacency at the top of Barnet Council. Senior officers know that they will not be held to account for any failings that take place under them, and that they can expect huge payoffs if problems are detected. Senior posts are filled by contractors on short contracts, with no vested interest in the future of the Council. No effort is made to replace these interim appointments with permanent staff. Until this culture of complacency is eradicated, nothing will improve. Senior staff should not be contractors on temporary contracts with no vested interest in improving the procurement culture, since it is clear that a root and branch review is likely to uncover more issues which will require addressing.

As concerned residents, we call for all of the issues above to be dealt with immediately. We want an action plan to be drawn up, with short timescales, and published for residents’ information. Without this, the residents can have no confidence in Barnet Council, its executive or its leadership

Signed:

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Adam Langleben

Vicki Morris

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Barnet easyCouncil....don't follow SouthWestOne disaster...

As Barnet Council embarks on its One Barnet/Future Shape outsourcing project, it is worth considering the experience of other councils where similar projects have been tried.

You may have seen the Southwest One ITV West documentary made 18 months ago detailing the IBM takeover of services in Somerset. The project was beset with controversy. Somerset County Council back then was a Lib-Dem Council; however the Deputy Leader found himself subject to a large number of Standard Board charges. This councillor was objecting to the Southwest One project. It took him two years to clear his name.

Somerset UNISON fought a campaign to expose the secrecy surrounding this Project and surprise surprise the branch secretary was suspended for almost six months. I am pleased to report he is back in the UNISON office.

For those of you who saw the ITV West documentary will know the project was shrouded in secrecy and very few people actually saw the Business Case for the project. I have a copy of the documentary if anyone would like to view it.

Bridgewater MP Ian Liddell-Grainger (Con) has been campaigning against Southwest One for over two years and fought hard to have access to the Business Case.

I imagine Somerset County Lib-Dem councillors wish they had demanded to see the Business Case as the Lib-Dem’s were later ousted by the Conservatives in the last elections.

Interestingly a contingent from SouthwestOne paid a visit to Barnet during the summer. I don’t know what they discussed but after viewing this latest news I really, really hope they haven’t been advising Barnet Council on the benefits of partnerships with the Private Sector

Professor Dexter Whitfield was the consultant providing expert advice for Somerset UNISON Branch. Dexter said at the time “The Somerset strategic partnership with IBM was a classic example of ideologically driven outsourcing. Somerset UNISON warned about the declining level of savings and higher contract management costs. The increasing annual losses of the joint venture company serve to illustrate the high risks involved in these contracts."

Dexter has and continues to provide expert advice for the branch.

Take a look at this report

From Local Government Chronicle

Somerset joint venture loses £16m in its first year

21 October 2010 | By Ruth Keeling

A controversial joint venture between Somerset’s councils, police force and IBM has made a multi-million pound loss for the second year running.

Southwest One posted an operating loss of £16.1m in its second year of operation, according to accounts lodged with Companies House earlier this month.

The 2008-09 accounts state that the loss – a significant increase on the £2m it lost in its first year – “was larger than originally budgeted” because its investment period had to be extended and because it failed to attract new customers. A credit facility from parent company IBM means it will continue to operate for the “foreseeable future”, according to the accounts.

The joint venture was set up in September 2007 by IBM, who own three-quarters of the company, and Somerset CC and Taunton Deane BC to provide back office services including HR, finance, estates management and IT. Avon and Somerset Police later joined the partnership but it has been dogged by arguments from the first.

Most recently, it emerged that the two councils would be fined because of the extra checks that the Audit Commission had to make on their accounts prepared by the firm. Taunton Deane said it would pay its £15,000 charge itself while Somerset CC, whose leader is currently considering an internal review of the Southwest One contract, said it would pass the charge on to the company.

The contract, worth £585m over 10 years to the company, was set up with the aim of finding efficiencies for the three customers, although those savings have been downgraded from the £200m originally quoted to £144m “pipeline” savings listed in the most recent accounts.

In a statement, Southwest One emphasised that the 2008-09 figures were “a reflection that first of a kind ventures like this require up-front investment in the early stages” and stated that there had been no negative impact on the service. In fact, it added, a new customer contact centre had call waiting times for residents.

Southwest One’s accounts blamed its failure to attract new partners on the “adverse UK economic environment, coupled with a high degree of political uncertainty”.

However, the company said it was in discussion with a number of potential customers and argued that the spending review and the communities secretary’s enthusiasm for shared services would provide “significant opportunities”.

It stated: “South West One, as a pioneer in this field, is ideally-placed to help public bodies respond to this challenge”.

But Bridgewater MP Ian Liddell-Grainger (Con) branded the partnership a “failure” and questioned whether they would have any success in attracting new partners. “They’re such a tarnished outfit that short of changing their name there is no point in talking to anybody,” he said.

Somerset CC said it had no further comment to that provided by Southwest One.

"I bet they had no comment."

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I nicked this from the Unison blog with a few small amendments - here's the original

http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/509