Nick Walkley announces that your senile Granny represents an opportunity !

From: "First Team" First.Team@barnet.gov.uk;
Date: 29 June 2012 14:59:01 GMT+01:00
To: "AllStaff"  

Subject: Weekly message from the Chief Executive

I was in Birmingham for part of this week attending the Local Government Association (LGA) Conference. The overriding message of the conference was that local government faces an extended period of budget reductions and increasing demand. The LGA has set out its cross-party view on what this means and much of it will be familiar to those of you who have attended a budget briefing here in Barnet in the past couple of years.

Not all was doom and gloom although this was not an ‘upbeat’ conference. There seemed to be three responses which councils from across the country were exploring that go beyond the efficiency agenda we are all familiar with.

Firstly, the troubled families programme and finding new ways to ensure young people do not end up in cycles of deprivation and high demand on local services. As you know, Barnet is recognised nationally for its work in this field but, as the director of the national programme said, we have to move from small ‘boutique’ projects to mainstream authority. The strategic review of early intervention work needs to set its sights on delivering exactly that.

Secondly, that our growing elderly population must be seen as an opportunity. Engaging these citizens in using their skills and experience to support others delivers for the individual and for communities.

Finally, that councils have a key role to play in promoting the economic growth that ensure the UK economy begins to improve. The council took its first significant steps in this area, agreeing a Skills and Enterprise Action Plan last week. There is a £1million package to support local business and help young Barnet residents back into work. Guidance for businesses wishing to access the scheme is available on our new web page for business. However, I want to encourage all staff to get involved in signposting local businesses they know to the proposals as we look to significantly improve our business engagement.

Nick

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This is Nick Walkleys weekly proclamation to all Barnet Staff. I am really not quite sure what to make of his comments about the elderly population being an "opportunity". Having supported several elderly relatives through illness and dementia, I actually find the statement to be offensive. If Walkley is actually saying that Barnet Council should be seeking to employ over 65's who are fit and well, then I would agree that is a sensible idea, but as far as I'm aware, Barnet have no positive policy of employing over 65's. I suspect that what Walkley actually means is that it is a good idea for everyone else, because as we all know, if he gets his way, Barnet Council won't actually employ anyone at all. 


Then we have the last paragraph. This is of special interest to me. I asked a question at the Barnet Council Cabinet meeting about this very subject. Barnet Council has drawn up a £1 million scheme aimed at small businesses, yet they didn't bother to consult small businesses about it when they were putting it together. There are many organisations they could have spoken to such as the Federation of Small Business, the Barnet Chamber of Commerce, etc. They didn't bother.  When I asked the question, Nick Walkley looked at me as if I'd ordered a bacon butty at a Bahmitzvah. You don't need to be psychic to read his mind "why should we speak to them" was written all over his face. 



What is hilarious is Mr Walkley imploring staff to tell local businesses to get in touch about the scheme. He obviously wasn't listening to a word I said. Why doesn't he use the organisations which already exist? I sometimes wonder why I bother going to these meetings at all. I make perfectly reasonable points, in this case the cabinet of Barnet Council agreed with me, yet they don't actually bother to do anything about it. 


Yesterday I alluded to something rather disturbing going on in Barnet. Mrs Angry detailed this in her blog yesterday - http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/exclusive-new-poster-prosecution-threat.html - Finchley Traders rep Helen Michael has been asked to visit the Police Station for a chat about a poster the traders put up as part of their campaign to reverse the parking policies of Barnet Council. At the moment we have no idea who instigated this investigation. It is quite clear from the information Helen has been given, that the Police have called her in on what is lovingly known as a fishing expedition. This means that they haven't got enough evidence to prosecute her, so they are hoping she'll drop herself in it if they pile enough pressure on her. I suspect that this is likely to backfire spectacularly. I am sure that they are unaware that Helen is a qualified solicitor. She used to work for a top legal firm, but jacked it in when she had kids to run Cafe Buzz as this was easier to fit in with her childcare arrangements and she wanted to do a job which didn't involve staring at paperwork all day. Many of her friends from University are top lawyers and she's got a few of them to go through the paperwork (as it stands at the moment) to make sure her interpretation is correct.

The big question is who is responsible for the decision to go after Helen Michael. If it is anyone to do with Barnet Council, then this is a disgrace. I nipped into Cafe Buzz yesterday to offer Helen my support. As I chatted to her, a Tory Councillor (I won't embarrass him by naming him) nipped in to offer his support as well. He explained that he thought it was disgraceful that the Police were harrassing Helen. He said that he intended to ensure that if the complaint was being driven by Barnet, this stopped immediately. I asked him whether he thought this was good for the relationship between  Council and small businesses. He replied that it was ridiculous.

This weekly proclamation reminds me of the old days of the Kremlin, when party bosses in Ivory Towers issued proclamations, harrassed those who disagreed, using the tools of state to destroy the opposition. The Barnet Eye blog started because of neo Stalinist behaviour by Barnet Council. It seems that this tendency is getting worse, not better.

Exclusive : Open letter to the Leader of Barnet Council regarding political harrassment of local traders campaigner

From: Roger Tichborne

To: Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative

Cc: Nick.Walkley@barnet.gov.uk ; cllr.b.evangeli@barnet.gov.uk

Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 7:10 PM

Subject: Open Letter - Harrassment of Barnet Traders

To : The Leader of Barnet Council

Dear Councillor Cornelius,

This afternoon I witnessed the most shocking thing I have ever seen in all of my time covering politics in Barnet. I had arranged to meet A.M. Poppy, the Green Party candidate at Cafe Buzz in Finchley to record a video interview for the Barnet Eye blog, as part of our news coverage of the GLA elections.

As I was conducting the interview, with the video camera running, in the middle of the Cafe, an officialf Barnet Council arrived, approached Helen Michael, the owner of Cafe Buzz, and served an official notice on Ms Michael, in relation to distribution of posters concerning the traders protest about Barnet Council parking charges. 

This was done in a most humiliating and embarrassing way, in front of a whole cafe full of people, whilst I was in the middle of an interview with the Green Party candidate. This is clearly an attempt by Barnet Council to intimidate Ms Michael in the run up to the GLA elections. Ms Michael was clearly upset and refused to discuss the incident with me, until she has spoken to a lawyer, although it was crystal clear what was happening.

It is 100% clear to me that this is a highly political action and the timing is not a coincidence, with the GLA election next Thursday. As Ms Michael told me last week that she had spoken privately to you concerning the matter, I cannot believe that you would seek to publicly humiliate her in this manner. You could easily have rang her and asked her to receive the notice in a less embarrassing manner.

The behaviour of the council you are running becomes more like a repressive Stalinist regime each week. I believe that you should hang your head in shame at such behaviour, as this is clearly a politcally motivated act. Thousands of posters are put up every week in Barnet looking for cats, advertising drug fuelled raves and money lending services in all manner of places. How many of these people receive a visit in such a manner?

I believe a full apology to Helen Michael is in order. Needless to say that if Barnet Council persist with this attempt to silence a vociferous critic, they will doubtless find themselves on the receiving end of yet more awful media coverage. The traders of Barnet are a huge asset, one which is clearly not valued by your administration. I am deeply upset at what I saw today, and I sincerely hope you will be too.

Regards

Roger Tichborne

www.barneteye.blogspot.com

Councillor Robert Rams forced to back down over A Tale of Two Barnets poster ban

A right Rams FACup

Councillor Robert Rams bowed to public pressure and lifted the ban on posters advertising A Tale of Two Barnets at local public libraries. This was revealed in a Tweet in response to the Barnet Eye. Here is what Rams tweeted
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Cllr Robert Rams ‏ @CllrRobertRams

@Barneteye I will not allow the leaflets as in easy reach of children, but happy for the posters to go back and have informed officers that

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It is quite clear that he takes responsibility for censoring the posters and leaflets. It is also quite clear that he has bowed to the immense public pressure in reversing the ban on the posters.The excuse for the ban was  leaflet distributed by the Barent Alliance for Public Services BAPS. The exact text that Rams says is offensive goes as follows :-

“As a user of social services my view is that Barnet councillors don't give a sh...t about disabled people and their carers; how would they feel if they were in our situation?!" (a disabled person)

For the sake of clarity, the two .. in the word Sh..t were present in the leaflet. The Barnet Eye believes that Councillor Robert Rams is using a very lame excuse for imposing an ill thought out move. I asked Barnet Council to provide guidelines as to what leaflets and books could say in a Barnet library. They have not responded. Maybe tomorrow I will borrow Lady Chatterlys lover from Mill Hill library. I can assure Mr Rams that there is far more eye watering langauge in this book than any leaflet BAPS have issued. Maybe Councillor RAms would care to tell me whether the book is suitable?

The pronouncements and policies of the Barnet Tories get stranger by the day. I sometimes wonder if Rams and his chums are secretly a bunch of Trotskyite infiltrators, hell bent on destroying the credibility of the Conservative party in Barnet. Did he really believe he'd get away with such a Stalinist attempt at censorship without the staff in the Library service telling anyone. Surely Rams realises that of any department in Barnet Council understand the value of free speech it is the Library service. does he realise what a TW..T he looks?

Stalinist Barnet Council bans posters for A Tale of Two Barnets from Barnet Libraries

I heard the most extraordinary news yesterday. Barnet Council have ordered all posters advertising the Premier of "A Tale of Two Barnets" to be removed from public libraries in Barnet. I deplore this ban. It is completely unacceptable and reminiscent of Stalinist Russia. What is the next step? I shudder to think.

I sent this email to the local press this morning and copied the
Leader and CEO of the Council. I have also separately emailed Nick Walkley, Richard Cornelius and Robert Rams (Libraries boss) to offer a private viewing of the film, so that they can see how unjustified this ban really is.

I cannot hide my disappointment at the actions of the Council, which are reminiscent of the worst examples of artistic censorship in Soviet Russia. Is a Conservative Council really prepared to tell us what we can and cannot watch?

Here is the text of the letter.

Dear All,

 

We have had a report that Barnet Council have ordered the removal of all posters advertising the Premier of A Tale of Two Barnets from all Barnet Libraries. Apparently an email was sent by H***** R***** (name redacted by me) [Divisional library manger, Children & Young People].

 

This move is quite extraordinary, given that the Leader of the Council Richard Cornelius and the Chief executive of Barnet Council Nick Walkley appear in the film and were more than happy to cooperate with the making of the film. Both Richard Cornelius and Nick Walkley have been featured in the film giving talking about the Borough, the green spaces and their aspirations for the way it will develop. The film "A Tale of Two Barnets" has been made by American Film Director Charles Honderick, who is not affiliated with any UK political party or organisation. Linda Edwards, who is helping to organise the film and appears in it, has written to all Barnet Councillors asking them to attend. We sincerely hope that as many as possible come along. I am sure that when they see the film, they will agree that this ban is ridiculous. Mr Walkley is also invited and I suspect he'll be happy with how he is portrayed.

 

We presume that the action by Barnet Council is in response to the Barnet Trades Council agreeing to help stage the premier of the film at the Phoenix and by heavy promotion of the film by the people who appeared in the film promoting the views they expressed. This response from the Council is deplorable and shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the film Charles Honderick has made. Nobody who appears in the film (including Mr Walkley and Mr Cornelius) has been portrayed in anything other than an honest and sympathetic manner.  The film is of genuine interest to anyone who lives in Barnet and is interested in the area, as well as anyone who may be interested in the wider issues portrayed. When people talk about the problems encountered in dealing with the Council, Mr Walkley is featured explaining how he has to make difficult decisions and how he has the job of balancing the issues. Councillor Corneilius explains how he is limited in the scope for making changes and talks of his affection for the green spaces in the Borough. Both Mr Walkley and Councillor Cornelius were supplied with the questions before the interview with Charles and a Council Press officer was present to ensure that the protocol was followed.

 

If the council has taken this decision, purely because it doesn't agree with an independent film maker interviewing residents of Barnet, then this is deplorable.

 

Finally may I clarify my role in the film. I joined Charles project in the role of producer. The job of Producer is to obtain funding and make sure the film gets made. I operate a music rehearsal and multi media facility in Mill Hill. In April we are opening a video and photographic studio, hopefully generating jobs in Barnet. I got involved as a means of promoting the new division of our company. I have supported Charles in every way I can and used all of my contacts to try and ensure that the film is successful. I have not been responsible for the artistic content of the film or the editing, although I have assisted Charles with several technical issues. I documented this in this blog - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2012/02/tale-of-two-barnets-film-you-really.html - Anyone who has worked with Charles will know that he has very strong ideas about his projects and the idea that anyone could tell him what to do in a film he's directed is ridiculous. I will be writing to all Barnet Councillors today to ask them to support the removal of this Stalinist attempt to stifle creativity and freedom of expression in Barnet. I find it truly bizzare that such an action has been taken by a Conservative Council.

 

I call on Barnet to remove this offensive ban on artistic freedom in Barnet.

 

Regards

Roger Tichborne

 

Please note that Charles Honderick asked me to send this on his behalf as well. He is currently in Greece researching his next project.

Welcome to the Barnet province of the Peoples republic of Londonski-Borisov

Ok, so tell me this. We live in Barnet. It is run by the Conservatives? It is part of London, which is run by a Conservative Mayor. We have a government which is Conservative (albeit propped up by a bunch of Lin Dem collaborators). So I guess this means that the people of Barnet really want to live in a regime run under Stalinist principles, doesn't it? Well I don't know how we got to this situation, but read this DPR (Delegated Powers Report). I don't think I've ever read a more Stalinist document in my life. For those of you who don't know what a DPR is, it means that a bloke at the council is allowed to sign it off with no debate by his democratically elected colleagues.
Icon
I suppose what put the icing on the cake is the fact the document is simply called ICON on the Council website - http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=10954 . And we all know that Russia was famed for it's ICON's

What exactly are Barnet spending this £374,000 on?

Barnet Council are at it again. They are planning to spend £374,000 of our money, to buy a load of gear for a play scheme to put into storage. Once they've bought it, they will spend another £10,000 per annum on storing it. You can read the full sorry story on the council website here - http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=10913 -

I've loaded it up onto Scribd and here it is in it's full glory.
Youth Spending

You may wonder how Barnet Council can be so profligately wasting our money in this time of cuts. The answer is simple. They are so disorganised that they have been unable to organise a proper use of the money, that if they don't spend it by March they'll lose it. The tragedy of this is that there are all sorts of
local youth groups which would hugely benefit from some of this cash.

My son belongs to a local scouts group, which did a bagpacking exercise at Waitrose in Mill Hill before Xmas. They raised £2,000 towards replacing the troop's camping gear, much of which was over 30 years old, smelly and falling apart. Why on earth didn't the council contact such groups and ask if they needed some equipment. There are all manner of youth groups.

As it is, they are going to buy over 1/3rd of a million quids worth of equipment and store it. This is absolutely criminal.

The financial tale of woe is in section 5. It says :-

5. FINANCIAL, STAFFING, ICT AND PROPERTY IMPLICATIONS
5.1 Staffing
The proposal set out in this DPR will not have any impact on staffing levels within
the Youth Support Service. Oversight of the equipment will be maintained by the
Youth Support Service.
5.2 Finance
The Playbuilder’s funding has been allocated to LA’s to develop and provide
activities for children and their families. We propose to use the £374,000 capital
funding to purchase equipment which will support community groups in delivering
Positive Activities. This funding must be spent by 31st March 2011
5.3 Property
Equipment will be the property of LBB and stored at existing Youth Support Service
or provider/partner property.
5.4 Sustainability
Purchasing this pool of equipment will support a more sustainable approach to
Positive Activities. By Barnet supplying high quality equipment and relevant
training, the cost to the third sector in establishing engaging and innovative
programmes will greatly reduce. Any hiring charges made to groups will support
ongoing maintenance costs. Ongoing running costs (c£10k) will be met out of the
Positive Activities Budget.

They give the game away in section 8.

8. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
8.1 The service has developed the ability to reach large numbers of young people
through a range of engagement methods including positive activities. However, the
Youth Support Service currently has very few resources that can be loaned out to
groups within Barnet. By making available a central pool of resources it will enable
the service to target needs within the community and to quality assure the activities,
ensuring agreed standards are met.
8.2 The Local Authority has been working with third sector partners to identify
appropriate equipment that will best enable them to meet the needs of children and
young people. This includes equipment that will support the delivery of activities
such as tools, sports and media resources to reduce economic disadvantage by
increasing young people’s knowledge, skills and increasing employability.
8.3 Equipment will be allocated and agreed by the Positive Activities Steering Group.
The Positive Activities steering group brings together a range of partners such as
the police, schools and the voluntary sector to share information and data to ensure
that we focus the resources at targeted groups.
8.4 The Youth Support Service is committed to supporting capacity building within the
third sector. As well as making available a central pool of equipment it will deliver a
training programme to support the use of the equipment, facilitate the Positive
Activities steering group, and identify, train and support a group of young people to
become ambassadors for Positive Activities across the borough. This group have
already supported in identifying relevant equipment to be purchased.

I've highlighted section 8.3 in red. The reason? Well it is clear they are buying all of this equipment before they actually know what people need. In other words, they are trying to second guess what all of the diverse groups in Barnet may actually need. They will buy the gear and store it. We could have the ridiculous situation where Barnet Council have spent £374,000 on such equipment. They could then contact a group like Edgware Scouts and say "We've got £374,000 worth of equipment for young people, can we help you?" The Scouts would then say "Yes, we need tents for 20 boys for our camps" and Barnet would say "Oh sorry, we didn't buy any of them".

What is most bizarre is that Barnet is a Tory regime. One of the big criticisms the West always aimed at the "planned economies" of the Soviet Bloc is that a bureaucrat would draw up a "masterplan" for producing items for the economy without taking into account what the economy actually needed. This resulted in tractors being built and allocated for areas where there were no farms and beach chairs being built for areas that there were no beaches in. This blog has charged Barnet Council with being Stalinist on a few occasions. We hadn't realised that the Stalinism had spread to procurement in this way.

The tragedy is that there are so many groups who could have spent the cash on something really useful, yet the stuff will all be put in storage. Even worse, they will have to employ a team of bureaucrats to decide how it will eventually be allocated. Needless to say that the "positive action steering group" mentioned in section 8.4 will all be on nice fat salaries, which you my friend will be paying.

Sadly this £374,000 seems to be more about jobs for the boys than toys for the children. Needless to say, all of this was in a delegated powers report, that you'd never have seen if it hadn't been for the bloggers of Barnet.

Stalinism at the Finchley Conservatives - it would break Lady Thatchers heart

Some people are just plain ungrateful. Whilst looking at a few local websites yesterday, I happened to notice that the Finchley and Golders Green Conservatives were running a poll on their website. Sadly as that particular websites primary use is to cure insomnia, their poll had only had 12 people casting a vote. Now as the Barnet eye gets thousands of hits I thought I'd help them out. I carefully checked the page to see if "only Conservatives need apply". Nope, in true democratic style anyone could vote. The two questions which interested me were "which party will you vote for" and "who would be the best Prime Minister". Now even before I publicised it, taking into account the person who set it up had probably voted, The Tories were not winning on either count for the popular public vote. As a good neighbourly act, I posted a little blog asking all of my thousands of readers to take a little trip over and vote.

Now as you may recall, David Cameron made a direct appeal to Lib Dem voters to check out the Conservatives and their policies. You would think that in light of this, the local Conservatives would be over the moon at a Local Lib Dem Council candidate urging readers of his blog to visit the Conservatives website and cast votes in their polls. You would think that they'd think their website was so superbly marvellous that Lib dems would instantly see the light and jump on the "Cam Train".

Sadly, as we've often said here, the local Conservatives have rather Stalinist tendencies. In Stalins time in the Soviet Union, elections were held. Everyone had to vote but there was only one candidate, so Uncle Joe always got the "right answer". In those days, the great Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill used to deride this anti-democratic behaviour. He was a stalwart fighter of rigged polls, bogus elections and dodgy practices. He knew democracy was the way. A former MP for Finchley, Lady Thatcher, lead the fight against the USSR and played a major role in transforming the country into a democracy. As the most famous person, let alone politician ever to be associated with Finchley, Thatcher hated rigged polls with a passion.

Cut forward to the Finchley Conservatives in the year 2010. What happened when their little poll, which didn't say "Only Conservatives need vote" started to receive a popular vote from the readers of the Barnet Eye (many of whom happen to be Conservatives). They removed the poll from their website. What does this tell us about the Finchely Conservatives? Are the current mob the true successors to that champion of democracy, Lady Thatcher? Do they have the backbone for a fight for their principles? One would rather hope that having put their polls up, they'd have at least sent an email around to their activists and tried to rally to the cause. I wonder what David Cameron and the Conservative Central Headquarters would make of this cowardice? It is a sad indictment of the level of support in a key marginal,which David Cameron visited not too long ago.

Lady Thatcher had a way of describing cowardly opponents who used to scurry away when she waved her handbag at them "Too Frit" she pronounced. I rather hope that she hasn't been looking too closely at what her Tory successors have been up to. I wouldn't want to upset the poor old dear, it would break her heart.