Barnet Council Cabinet - All very civilised in the Post Brian Coleman world

Tonight was a minor milestone in the evloving history of the Barnet Council Conservative Council. It was the first cabinet meeting of the Post Brian Coleman, Post Brunswick Park byelection era. Oddly it seems as if Richard Cornelius actually seems to be the Leader now. He's the fourth Leader of the Barnet Eye era. The others were Freer, Hillan and Harper (although Harper wasn't really leader, he was just Hillans stand in).

Freer was the opposite of Richard Cornelius as Leader. He would fidget wildly when under pressure. His right leg would deliver a mind of its own. At cabinet meetings his eyes would scour the room room, seemingly trying to wither enemies with a hostile stare. He gave the impression of not being comfortable with power but enjoying the trappings immensely. I would often ask cabinet questions, Freer would attempt to be as dismissive and patronising as possible. I soon found his weakness when following up with the subsidiary question. Freer hated people laughing at him. This was his achillies heel. Out of respect to Lynne Hillan RIP, I'll keep my own counsel about her tenure. Andrew Harper was jovial enough, but not comfortable in the job. He became tetchy. He is far happier as a cabinet member. He has returned to his former reasonably likeable persona. Which brings us to Richard Cornelius, the current incumbant. He is always civil, polite and friendly to the public. No hostile stares, just a warm smile and a friendly greeting. He is the opposite of Freer, comfortable with power, but seemingly not really enjoying it. He is never patronising or dismissive. His tacticc for dealing with questions is to agree with the questioner. Freer would employ a mean device to get rid of public questioners. He would suddenly interject "No" as they spoke. He would then dismiss them and tell them he'd answered their supplimentary. Richard Cornelius would never do such a thing. Tonight he did his best to agree with all of the points in my public question. He also doesn't mind it when people laugh at him. In fact he joins in. People are given a fair crack of the whip and then go on their way.

It seems to me that he's twigged something Freer never really got. That is the fact that you can't control the general public. You are better to go along with them at these meetings, because that way you get less hassle in the long run. The entire meeting took a mere 43 minutes. at seventeen minutes to eight, Councillor Cornelius wrapped things up. 43 Minutes to take public questions, debate policy on helping young people back into education, discussing schools policy and discussing the regeneration of Church End in Finchley.

What did we learn? Well there were two interesting parts of answers. In response to my question, the Leader agreed that small business should be engaged when drawing up council policies which are aimed at the sector. He also agreed that the One Barnet program needed to be open to small business (although I'll believe that when I see it). He also told Mr Ron Cohen that the council would be crazy to ignore the APSE report.

The really important question to be answered is this. Now that the cabinet have agreed these points, what will they do about them? We await the answer.

Illiterate Barnet - An update

This morning I posted a blog detailing the difficulties Barnet Council have writing in English. I thought that the fact that people on highly paid jobs do not seem capable of writing even the most simple sentence as part of their job, warranted proper consideration by Barnet Council.

It seems Barnet Council disagree. Here is there reply. I've redacted the name of the Council officer charged with telling me, because at The Barnet Eye we don't believe in shooting the messenger. Of course you may think that acceptance of such shoddy work by the Council is acceptable. Please leave a comment if you do, explaining your reasons as I'd love to know. Here's what Barnet had to say.

It seems you can't ask for the cabinet of Barnet Council to ensure staff are properly trained, it isn't their responsibility ????. Lord help us all !!!!

--------------------------------

Dear Mr Tichborne,

Thank you for your question for Monday’s Cabinet meeting.

Your question will be accepted subject to your agreement to delete the paragraphs struck through below.  These paragraphs constitute separate questions concerning:

-          staff training, which is a matter for the General Functions Committee; and

-          the performance of individual officers, for which the appropriate route for raising complaints or concerns is through the council’s corporate complaints procedure.

The final paragraph is accepted, but constitutes a separate question and has been amended as such to reflect the above deletion.

With your agreement of the below changes, the question will be considered at Cabinet.

--------------------------------------------

In the cabinet report concerning the Community Library Process - http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=11018, Section 9.12 (page 401) states

------------------------------------------

"Officers met with representative of the Save Friern Barnet Library Group on 8/2/2012 to explain the council’s position in relation to the unaffordable nature of their proposal and that the Library will move to the Arts Depot. In relation to the possibly of a community library in the area, discussions are still on-going. A further verbal update may be provided at the meeting if required."

------------------------------------------

I initiated a petition which collected over 7,000 signatures, from people wishing to preserve Barnets libraries. This was included as part of the submissions for th strategic library review. At the relevant Council meeting, I requested that Councillor Robert Rams keep me informed of all developments with regards to the process and closure of the libraries. I stated that I would feed back all information to the people who signed the petition.

Since this commitment was made, Councillor Rams has failed to provide a single update. I now read in the papers that the proposal by the "Save Friern Library" group was deemed "unaffordable". Please can you provide the following :-

A) An explanation as to what "unaffordable" means? Please specify exactly what sum is required to make the proposal "affordable".

B) A breakdown of all help and support given to Friern Library Group by Barnet Council, in relation to their proposal.

I have been a long term supporter of Barnets libraries on the grounds that they support literacy and education. I wish to also place on record my disgust at the appalling grammar and mangling of the English language in paragraph 9.2 and other sections of this report. As a dyslexic (please excuse my appalling written English) who couldn't read until aged 10, I am only too aware of the importance of literacy. I deplore such use of English in an official council paper and can only conclude that this indicates a total disregard for good grammar and use of English within Barnet Council. I formally ask Barnet Council to launch a programme of education for all staff writing official reports, to ensure that they understand the basics of the English language. It is quite ironic that such appalling English appears in a document which spells the death knell for a library. Even more worrying was the fact that at the bottom of the page it says :-

Finance: MC/JH

Legal: HP/CH

This implies that two people from the finance team and two people from the legal team read this paragraph and signed it off as acceptable. What possible faith can this give us in quality of work performed by  the Barnet Council finance and legal teams as the Council is in the process of drawing up contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds as part of the One Barnet project?

Did the Cabinet Member responsible read the paper prior to issuance and what is his opinion of the grammar and use of English in the above mentioned paragraph 9.2?

With many thanks,

J****** W******
Business Governance Manager

Corporate Governance DirectorateLondon Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 2***

Mobile: 07*** 7** ***
Barnet Online: www.barnet.gov.uk
P please consider the environment - do you really need to print this email?

---

From: Williams, Jeremy
Sent: 16 February 2012 10:28
To: Roger Tichborne
Subject: RE: Question for Cabinet Meeting on 20th Feb

Dear Mr Tichborne,

Confirming receipt of your question.

With many thanks,

Jeremy Williams
Business Governance Manager

Corporate Governance DirectorateLondon Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 2042
Mobile: 07949 753 721
Barnet Online: www.barnet.gov.uk
P please consider the environment - do you really need to print this email?

---

From: Roger Tichborne 

Sent: 15 February 2012 23:30
To: W*****, J******
Cc: Rams, Cllr Robert Conservative; Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative; Walkley, Nick
Subject: Question for Cabinet Meeting on 20th Feb

Dear Mr Williams

I have a question for the cabinet regarding the communities library program.

--------------------------------------------

In the cabinet report concerning the Community Library Process - http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=11018, Section 9.12 (page 401) states

------------------------------------------

"Officers met with representative of the Save Friern Barnet Library Group on 8/2/2012
to explain the council’s position in relation to the unaffordable nature of their proposal
and that the Library will move to the Arts Depot. In relation to the possibly of a
community library in the area, discussions are still on-going. A further verbal update
may be provided at the meeting if required."

------------------------------------------

I initiated a petition which collected over 7,000 signatures, from people wishing to preserve Barnets libraries. This was included as part of the submissions for th strategic library review. At the relevant Council meeting, I requested that Councillor Robert Rams keep me informed of all developments with regards to the process and closure of the libraries. I stated that I would feed back all information to the people who signed the petition.
Since this commitment was made, Councillor Rams has failed to provide a single update. I now read in the papers that the proposal by the "Save Friern Library" group was deemed "unaffordable". Please can you provide the following :-
A) An explanation as to what "unaffordable" means? Please specify exactly what sum is required to make the proposal "affordable".
B) A breakdown of all help and support given to Friern Library Group by Barnet Council, in relation to their proposal.
I have been a long term supporter of Barnets libraries on the grounds that they support literacy and education. I wish to also place on record my disgust at the appalling grammar and mangling of the English language in paragraph 9.2 and other sections of this report. As a dyslexic (please excuse my appalling written English) who couldn't read until aged 10, I am only too aware of the importance of literacy. I deplore such use of English in an official council paper and can only conclude that this indicates a total disregard for good grammar and use of English within Barnet Council. I formally ask Barnet Council to launch a programme of education for all staff writing official reports, to ensure that they understand the basics of the English language. It is quite ironic that such appalling English appears in a document which spells the death knell for a library. Even more worrying was the fact that at the bottom of the page it says :-
Finance: MC/JH
Legal: HP/CH
This implies that two people from the finance team and two people from the legal team read this paragraph and signed it off as acceptable. What possible faith can this give us in quality of work performed by  the Barnet Council finance and legal teams as the Council is in the process of drawing up contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds as part of the One Barnet project?
Did the Cabinet Member responsible read the paper prior to issueance and what is his opinion of the grammar and use of English in the above mentioned paragraph?
-------------------------------------------
I have copied the leader of the Council, CEO  and the cabinet member for Libraries into this communication. I trust they will take immediate and appropriate action to ensure that if nothing else, reports are written in decent English. Surely this is not too much to expect from a Council which claims to be Conservative and well run.
Barnet Council has suffered from many financial losses recently due to lack of attention to detail. This report shows that this is still an endemic problem within the council
Regards
Roger Tichborne

Pinkham Way Sepcial - Barnet Council Cabinet Meeting - Why they don't want it filmed

I thought you may enjoy this video I shot at the Town Hall today, of a resident called Mr Scott asking a few questions about the Pinkham way incenerator. There were a 100 or so residents outside. The Leader of the Council, Lynne Hillan was not present for the Cabinet Meeting (she gets £35,000 a year to attend these), neither was her Deputy, Andrew Harper (He only gets £27,000 as deputy) so Councillor John Dan Thomas chaired the meeting.

I asked a question about the Library project. Because I didn't foam at the mouth or call Councillor Ramsbottom a twat, he congratulated me on my conversion to the One Barnet religion (it is without doubt a religion as you have to believe all of the figures. There are no actual facts to back up any of the theories they postulate or the schemes they propose).  I suggest young Ramsbum visit the ENT centre (if he can find a hospital the Tories aren't shutting) as he clearly didn't hear the bit where I congratulated the Council Officers and pointed out that the report was far better than any produced by Future Shape Consultants. I asked if he planned to keep the Save Barnets Libraries campaign informed of any changes to the strategy. It was a fairly easy question, but beyond Ramsbum's pay grade to actually answer it, so he said "We will consult with residents" Whatever that means.

As you can see and hear from the video, it was a fairly lively event. I was asked to stop filming. As I was off at 7.45 anyway (had a recording session) I couldn't be bothered to argue with Councillor Thomas. One day I will. That will be fun. What was interesting was the blind faith that Barnet Cabinet have in the rather dodgy scientific data about the incinerator.  I wonder if any of them live in the fallout zone?