Beware if you want to do business with Toxic One Barnet Council

Yesterday the Barnet Eye posted details of a DPR assigning a contract of not more than £74,999 to Addleshaw Goddard, a legal firm.This is what Addleshaw Goddard say about themselves

Welcome to Addleshaw Goddard. If you want to find out more about us, you should find it here. Our key facts give you a snapshot about us and our external profile, our Client Serviceswill tell you what we do, who we do it with and how we've helped them, and our international pages talk about our global capability. 

I was interested to see that the Barnet Eye had about 20 hits yesterday from the Addleshaw Goddard domain. This isn't surprising, given that we'd mentioned them in a blog. Most companies are very keen to see what is being written about them and hope that all coverage will be as positive as possible. According to the Barnet Council DPR, the firm had advised Barnet on a contract to replace street lighting and were again being engaged as this contract had run into issues with European tendering rules. Barnet have re-appointed the firm to advise on the issues raised. The Barnet Eye asked the question as to whether they were the best firm to take forward the case, given their previous involvement. It may come as no surprise to Barnet Eye readers that we have our own legal advisers (who give us free advice in exchange for the odd beer). They called yesterday to inform me that this was actually quite right and proper in this case and would be the most cost efficient way forward. The reason being that they are fully conversant with the contract and could hit the ground running. Another firm would have to start from scratch and incur a huge cost to the taxpayer, coming up to speed. Such legal issue crop up all the time and firms are not instantly dropped whenever there is a problem. If they were, then nothing would ever get done and legal costs would be enormous.

This seems to be a reasonable explanation as to why the firm were used. As was also pointed out, we have no idea at this stage whether the issue is a minor technicality or a major problem, that will presumably only become apparent as the complaint is processed.

What the issue does highlight is the way that the One Barnet project has become toxic for all involved. Barnet has a team of five highly committed political bloggers who pore over every One Barnet related DPR and other council paper. They have a huge team of informants within the council (and it's suppliers) who point us in the direction of the things Barnet don't want us to know. We use FoI requests to glean information and have become adept a making sure no stone goes unturned. We also get bundles of secret paperwork delivered to our doorsteps. Sadly Barnet Council consider information that other more open Tory Councils such as Windsor and Maidenhead put in the public domain, to be to important to share with the taxpayers.

Companies spend a fortune on PR and advertising, to ensure that potential clients and business partners know that they are good firms and do a good job. What any firm wishing to get work from Barnet Council on any One Barnet related outsourcing project should realise is that there is an enormous amount of public scrutiny in Barnet. Any firm involved in any project which goes pear shaped is extremely likely to find itself mentioned when the problems come to light. In this day and age, any sensible customer will at least do a quick google search on potential suppliers to see what sort of public image they have. This blog typically gets a very high rating, as you'd expect with over half a million hits and links to it from the Guardian, the BBC and a stack of other respected media outlets. Every blog we post gets displayed promenantly on the Guardian's London pages. The Barnet bloggers have dozens of other hits on a daily basis from various local, regional and national news organisations. Over 30 stories broken on this blog have been featured in other established media. Two of these have been on Prime Time TV - The parking protests on an ITV Tonight documentary and the Friern Barnet Library protest on the One Show on BBC 1.

Barnet Council has never released details of the business case for the One Barnet program. In fact, their own accountants said there wasn't one. Every major detail of the program which the Barnet bloggers have analysed appears to be flawed. The Association for Public Service Excellence described the project as flawed and risky. If you are involved in a company bidding for work on the project - Capita Symonds, BT, EC Harris, etc, you run the risk of all manner of bad publcity. Do not for one second believe that issues will be swept under the carpet, because they won't.

The Barnet Eye knows for a fact that Barnet Council has had to have many meetings in the offices of it's legal advisors for fear of leaks to bloggers. What does this tell you? Surely if the case stacked up, they would be shouting about it from the roof tops. The Barnet Eye believes that the One Barnet project is toxic and the reputational damage which firms face should be a primary consideration for these companies when bidding on it.

It is worth also making the point that the Street Lighting contract which Addleshaw Goddard advised on was not a One Barnet outsourcing project. It was a small (in comparison) deal of several million pounds. The One Barnet deals are £250 million an £750 million. The sad truth for all companies working on all outsourcing projects is that they are likely to be tarred with the same brush. Mud sticks

ProDemocracy Public Services Rally on Saturday 19 May from 11 – 1 pm outside Osidge Library

This Saturday 19 May from 11 am to 1 pm  local campaigning groups including the Save Friern Library campaign, Barnet Alliance for Public Services(BAPS) and a host of other groups will meet outside Osidge library and leaflet residents in Brunswick Park area. BAPS Leaflet leaflet warns residents about the One Barnet mass privatisation policy which is currently being rolled out across all council services. 

All who value public services are welcome to join us outside Osidge Library, Brunswick Park Road, London, N11 1EY

Barnet & Camden GLA rep Brian Coleman creates 28 new jobs - in Croydon !

Yesterday the Deputy Leader of Barnet Council, Daniel Thomas issued a grovelling apology to the people of Barnet for totally misleading them about the effect of the outsourcing of parking control in the London Borough of Barnet to NSL. Having previously claimed that there would be no redundancies following the decision to move the contract to Croydon based NSL, Thomas had to issue the following statement.

"I have to apologise to staff, the statement was prepared quickly and officers did not check with HR before issuing it. 

(the full story can be read here) - http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/news.cfm?id=8399&headline=Outsourced%2520staff%2520could%2520face%2520redundancies

It beggars belief that the Deputy Leader of the Council could issue statements without checking the facts. Thomas was forced to issue the statement, only when it became clear he'd been telling whoppers. You would think that a man who is so totally discredited, would consider his position, if his boss Councillor Richard Cornelius isn't considering it for him. This wasn't some minor little technicality. Thomas issued the statement claiming no jobs would be lost in the middle of an industrial dispute about redundancies, with the express aim of misleading staff and undermining the dispute.

Whilst I am stunned at the fact that a senior member of the cabinet could be so "splapdash" (let's give him the benefit of doubt about it), the real culprit in the story gets away without so much as a mention. This is, of course, Councillor Brian Coleman. It was Coleman who championed the policy of outsourcing the parking contract. A man who is the GLA rep for Barnet and Camden has created 28 jobs in the London Borough of Croydon. At a time of economic despair, he has exported them from Barnet, leaving staff to pick up the pieces. What sort of economic illiteracy removes jobs from Barnet at a time when the economy is reeling. It is widely accepted that for every public sector job destroyed, up to five other jobs elsewhere will also be lost as local shops and businesses see their takings diminish. Of course, Croydon will be booming. I sincerely hope that every resident of Croydon is grateful to Councillor Brian Coleman for his largess with the tax receipts of Barnet Council, in creating a mini boom for them.

In one way though, Daniel Thomas has at least shown Brian Coleman a good example. He has apologised for his behaviour. Something Coleman seems to find impossible.

Barnet Council spends £70,000 on resolving chaos

On my weekly trawl through the what Barnet Council are spending your cash on, I stumbled upon a document that tells me they are planning to spend £70,000 resolving chaos. I kid you not.

Here is section 5.2 of the DPR which explains how the cash will be spent

£40,000 funding has been awarded by the Department of Health as part of the ‘Resolving Chaos’ pilot. A further £30,000 has been awarded from One Barnet funding. Project budget forecasting projects this project to be delivered within this £70,000 total budget.

Here is section 8.2 from the DPR

The second phase of Community Coaches will develop from this initial prototype,  building on the results from the first phase. It is also one of the pilots being undertaken by ‘Resolving Chaos’ a social enterprise commissioned by the Department of Health to  test the ‘Chaos Index’ which has been developed to identify families with complex multiple needs who would benefit from early intervention.

Has it not occurred to the people who write such reports that on many occasions it is the policies and spending priorities which cause the chaos in the first place. Have they considered how the closing of childrens centres across the Borough, the withdrawal or cutting of grants to charities and sacking of staff involved in vital community building activities may have affected the "chaos index".

All of this talk about "early intervention" is complete nonsense. What is needed is properly funded services, which are staffed up to deal with problem families and a proper strategy to address the Borough wide issue of poverty and social exclusion.

Here is the whole document,

DPR Resolving Chaos

Or you can find it here on the Council website

http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=11007

I am intrigued that £30,000 comes from the One Barnet project budget. If ever there was anything which deserved a bit of "Chaos resolution" it is this toxic POS project.

Basketcase Barnet Council - The organisation nobody wants to touch with a bargepole

Do you want to know just how much of a basketcase Council Barnet have become? They invited tenders for companies to take over the Community Advice Service. This was over £1 million worth of business. Eight organisations asked for the information pack to submit a tender. So far so good. Can you guess how many actually tendered for the business, when they saw what Barnet Council were like? Let me quote you what the Council's own report into the debacle says :-

5.5 Despite receiving eight requests for tender packs, only one supplier submitted a tender. The tender does not meet all the council’s aspirations. However, it is recommended that the tender is accepted for the reasons set out in the background section.

So what are these reasons and who are the lucky organisation who bid? Again to quote from the Council's report :-

8.5 There is only one substantive tenderer, namely Barnet Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) with Barnet Law Service as subcontractor. The tentative conclusion is that this is because the market is already weak; suppliers who expressed an interest and who may otherwise have bid were put off by the relatively small size of the contract compared with others tendered nationally; and critically for some of those eight suppliers who did express an interest, the costs of implementing the TUPE transfer and particularly the redundancy costs as budgets fall over three years were, in the final analysis, considered to be prohibitive. It is also likely that, if the contract were to be re-tendered, the TUPE costs may be less of an issue, but only one funding has stabilised. Given that the annual budget falls each year through to 2013/14, this will not be for some time.

In other words, nobody apart from the good old Barnet Citizens Advice Bureau were prepared to come in and do the dirty work (ie take the staff off the Councils books and sack them). As ever with privatisation in Barnet, once the hatchet has been swung, companies which are interested in making a quick, hassle free buck are expected to start taking an interest. I propose an alternative scenario as to why no one, apart from an organisation already entrenched in Barnet would bid. Because Barnet Council and the One Barnet program is a completely Toxic brand and no sane private company would want it's name associated with such a Toxic proposition.

Here is the full paper, it makes shocking reading.
DPR-5

If it doesn't display, you can see it on the Barnet Council website here :-

http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=10724

Just in case you are wondering what the people who won this contract will be doing :-

8.1 The primary aim of the Community Advice Service is to support people in being independent by enabling them to deal with their civil legal, financial and other problems by providing high quality social welfare advice and informing them of their legal rights and responsibilities. This is to be done through providing a high quality advice, centred on welfare benefits and debt, but also other social welfare issues; and a second tier service to support other frontline workers in assisting their clients and act as the local expert adviser on welfare benefits and debt.

To summarise what it says in the report. This service, which is vital for the most disadvantaged members of the community in Barnet, has been given to an organisation which fails to fully meet Barnet Councils requirements. This is because no one else would touch Barnet Council with a bargepole. The service will get worse over the life of the contract because they want to get rid of staff and cut costs.

This blog has been saying Barnet Council has become a pariah Council for some time. This report proves it. The truth of Toxic One Barnet is that no one wants to do business with Barnet Council unless they can have zero risks, massive profits and they are already established in the Borough. You may not believe me, but you can't argue with Barnet Council's own report. Leader Richard Cornelius and CEO Nick Walkley should hang their heads in shame.

The views of a sane Tory about One Barnet

I had a very interesting conversation today with a friend of mine, who happens to be a Tory Councillor in another part of London. He's up in Manchester for the Conservative conference. The reason for his call? Well primarily to discuss the inept performance of Manchester United, who he nipped along to see on Saturday. The conference gave him a good excuse to visit Old Trafford. He's not a United fan, but the chance of a ticket from a friend and  the excuse of the conference provided compelling logic. 

It may surprise readers of this blog to know that I probably have more friends who are Conservative supporters than any other party. I've run a business for 31 years, I'm a reasonable active member of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) and many of my friends are also in business in one way or another. Some of them are quite well for themselves as Conservative Councillors. Generally we don't discuss politics (why would you when there are beer and football to entertain you?).

They do keep an eye on the blog though. Anyway, as we neared the end of our conversation, my friend suddenly and unexpectedly announced "I met a few of your Barnet lot. They are a bit odd, aren't they?". I just sniggered. He carried on "I can see what you mean now". I had to ask "What were they up to?" His response "Well lets just say after a day at the conference and a couple of beers it's nice to unwind a bit. You really wouldn't want to be stuck with some of them".

I daresay in that next time we go for a few beers, I'll hear the full gruesome story. He's a pretty easy going chap and gets on with most people. We briefly discussed the OneBarnet situation a few months ago. He said "When we knew how much we were being screwed by the government, we called in the Unions and had some workshops. We all agreed that it would be better if we could work together to find some savings. Wasn't easy but we got there. I don't think we got what we wanted or they did, but we managed to avoid the problems some other councils had, just be having a sensible grown up conversation". I asked him if they considered the OneBarnet mass outsourcing route. "We look at services on a case by case basis. If something isn't working or isn't efficient and we can see a saving by putting it out to tender we do. Sometimes that scares the shit out of the Union and we then get the issue sorted, sometimes it goes to a third party if there are clear savings. You have to be pragmatic and practical. If you try and go to far, too quickly, you just end up at war with your staff and everyone loses. We had a look at Barnets model and it looked to risky to be worth the trouble".

I've thought long and hard about repeating these comments. The final comment on our Barnet politicians (before a discussion on the delights of Rusholme Currys) was this "We had a few people like that at one stage, but we soon got rid of them. They are a real pain in the arse".

The One Barnet pledge

As you know, Barnet Council is planning to outsource huge swathes of Council functions. There are two massive contracts. One is worth £750 Million and the other is worth £250 Million. These contracts are likely to be copper bottomed, guaranteed profits +. Anyone familiar with the situation in previous Barnet Council contracts - Catalyst got another £9 Million because they weren't making enough money. Aerodrome Road Bridge contractors got another £11 million, will know how this will go. When I back a horse, I check it's form. Barnet has form with contracts and contractors.

Now this blog most certainly doesn't give financial advice. It does however occur to us that in the event these contracts are placed, it would be a rather good thing to have as many shareholders in Barnet as possible, who could attend. Maybe we should set up a pledge on pledgebank to get 500 small investers from Barnet, who are prepared to attend the shareholders AGM and hold the companys to account.

I believe that in a capitalist democracy, small shareholders should get organised and make sure companies behave honestly and responsibly. I think it would be a great thing if the companies bidding knew we'd be joining them at their next AGM, should they win.

This blog has referrred to the OneBarnet project as the "Toxic One Barnet project". I suspect that the private companies bidding may find that they too may suffer from the Toxic Shock Syndrome associated with it.

Toxic One Barnet Strike Update

Reports are reaching the Barnet Eye that Barnet Council staff are being told that if they go on strike for 1/2 day, they will be locked out for the rest of the day. A classic Toxic One Barnet solution. If it is bad, make it twice as bad  - Durrr !!!!!!

Do you suppose that if Toxic One Barnet CEO Nickerless Walkley stubs his toe, he hits the other one with a hammer to make it better?

And who suffers. Ultimately the taxpayer who is relying on these clowns to manage a service on our behalf.

Could you make it up? Read my post on Saturday regarding leadership -  http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/09/barnet-council-leadership-special.html - they haven't got a clue. It is likely that if they prevent staff coming in, they'll have to pay them anyway as they have a contract of employment that says they can take industrial action without suffering this crap. So we'll be giving the staff a free half day. It's called the law dummies !