Best laugh I've had all week. Whilst I may not be "respectable", it is great to see Lynne Hillan transform her Conservative group into a laughing stock.
Firstly an update on the progress for the film. I've had an unprecidented amount of interest in it so far. I've been inundated with suggestions, offers of footage and offers of locations and suggestions to shoot the film at.
My primary concern is to make the film watchable and interesting. If it is "worthy but dull" I will have failed. The feedback from the trailer has been good. People have said that the trailer has been great.
Here's a little wish list of things I want.
* Someone with a helicopter who can take me for a spin, so I can film Mill Hill, Brent Cross, Hendon, Stonegrove and Totteridge Valley
* A fat suit
* Video footage of our local councillors in action
* Young filmmakers who have clips etc
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Now on to Councillor Brian Coleman
Our local hero, Councillor Brian Coleman has become a worldwide star - courtesy of this blog!
Listed below are the top five most popular blogs of all time on this blog. The third most popular is "Brian Coleman finally defeats Rog T". I was alerted to this because this morning it suddenly leapt to the top of my "Most Popular Blogs" list in the sidebar (which is this weeks most popular blogs)
Further drilling showed that of the last 500 hits, 44 have come from searching on the keyword "Jabba the Hut". Here are the top ten seraches (excluding barnet eye and Rog T)
Number Percent Search
44 27.85% jabba the hut
5 3.16% shannon powell
5 3.16% john prescott
3 1.90% imelda may
3 1.90% iranian woman
2 1.27% barnet blogs
2 1.27% new labour isn't working
2 1.27% twatman strikes again
2 1.27% broadway bikes west hendon
2 1.27% "Labour Isn't Working"
These Jabba searches have arrived from all over the world. I do wonder what they make of it all when they find a piece on Londons finest public servant.
On to the week ahead. Tuesday is the big one. That is the day when Barnet Council meet to approve the Budget. One of my moles at the Council has informed me that the Cabinet are in a state of panic at the prospect of disruption. They have put in place elaborate plans to adjourn to "private rooms" if necessary.
The plan involves making use of fire escapes and a form of lockdown of the Town Hall. My kindly source has leaked all of these plans to me. Now if I was an urban terrorist who believed in anarchy and insurrection, there would be no budget set on Tuesday. The plan is rather weak and rather flawed, especially as I now know what they are doing. In fact the whole concept of their plan is based on several rather dim assumptions. It was quite fun working out a way to completely stymie it.
Happily for our esteemed Councillors, I believe in democracy. I don't believe in civil insurrection to stop a council meeting. I think that what will happen will reflect far worse on them than if we stopped the lawful, legal process of setting a budget.
What amazes me is that Barnet Council Cabinet seem to think they are under attack from a rabid lynch mob. They need to man up. If they can't cope with a few OAP's, pensioners, middle class yummy mummys and a few bedraggled Trades Unionists shouting at them occasionally in a meeting, they really are a complete bunch of knobheads.
Lets just say that if I really wanted to knobble this bunch of idiots, I'd just get up rather early in the morning with a tub of superglue. Hasn't it occurred to them that all of their employees are rather fed up with them. If you can't open a door, you cant go in.
If I was them, and I really believed that there was a problem, I'd get a new plan !
From our near neighbours in "Not The Harrow Times".
****** Updated 27/02/2011 ****** Following comments from Dan Hope and emails from readers of the blog, here is some extra info on the career of Eric Pickles. What I love about blogging is that we learn more about such figures as a result of these posts.
I was tidying up my mailbox and I found the original email from Barnet Council Adult Services. The issue behind this email was why I started writing political blogs. As you can see, this email details the reality of outsourcing - the political motivation for One Barnet / Future Shape / Easy Council
I believe that the stress caused by this change considerably shortened my mothers life. It demonstrated to her that her "independent living" was an illusion which could be taken away from her at any time. I didn't expect to find myself at the centre of a political storm, to stand for Barnet Council, to write a blog acknowledge by medial outlets as diverse as the BBC, ITV and the Guardian (quite an achievement for a thick dyslexic). I just started writing stuff because I was angry and I wanted to stop other peoples mums and dads having to endure the shit my mother took. My mum worked all her life. She was born in Oldham in 1925, lived through the depression, was nearly killed by a diptheria outbreak when she was 12 in 1937. Most of the children taken to hospital with her died. She told me she'd wake up every day and say "Where's my friend today" and anurse would reply "She's gone to heaven". She worked in London, at Barclays Bank offices during the war. She survived stomach cancer in 1970. She raised six children, was an active member of the community, volunteering for many charities, until a stroke robbed her of her speech and mobility in 2000.
I think she deserved better than this. I think all of Barnets pensioners deserve better than this.
Sadly it seems to me that the Tory Councillors of Barnet disagree.
I have redacted the name of the Council Officer who sent this, as he was only the bearer of bad news. If you don't want to read the whole email, the last paragraph sums up the truth of outsourcing
From: ***** *****
To: Roger Tichborne
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 10:51 AM
Subject: The Meals at Home Service
Mr Tichborne, I am sorry that there has been a delay between your email to some of our councillors and my response today. We have been working with Sodexho to ensure we have an acceptable service and this has taken a priority over the past few days. Nonetheless, I did still want to take the opportunity to respond to you formally because the service in general, and the service for your mother in particular, has not been acceptable during these early stages of this new contract. I want to apologise for that and below I set out some specific responses to both the issues and questions you raise.
Interestingly, I personally delivered the meal and desert to your mother on Tuesday of last week and I assume it was your sister who answered the door. This was delivered at 12.55pm. I took the meal because the round that included her address was not going to leave the depot until about 12.30pm and Mill Way was in the middle of the round. Your mothers meal would probably not have been delivered until1.30pm or later. In an ideal world, the round would be leaving at about 11.45am and the meal, if the round were to remain the same, would be delivered at about 12.45pm.Once the meals rounds and the new contract settle down, there will be a 'routine' in terms of meal delivery. No-one - either us or a private contractor - could guarantee an exact delivery time but, in general, once the rounds are efficiently organised your mother will receive her meal at approximately the same time every day. But this will not be before 12 noon. A practice had developed over the past few years whereby meals were being delivered from 11.30 am and both ourselves and Enfield (with whom we have a shared contract) have specifically stated that no meals can be delivered before 12 noon, nor after 2pm as 11.30am is too early for lunch. This was also the feedback we received when we consulted older people using the meals service. When the contract is working properly, your mother will get her meal between these times and it should be at a similar time each day and a 'routine' will develop. Last week, given the problems, being able to guarantee a meal between 12 and 4pm would have been a success since some meals were delivered at times far outside the 2-hour window agreed in the contract with Sodexho.You make a number of valid additional points but the fundamental issue about the 5pm delivery time is a totally unacceptable practice. It is my considered judgement that Sodexho have considerably underestimated both the importance of the 'transition' from our in-house service and the planning required to 'get it right' from day one of the new contract. In this, I believe, they failed to fully understand the complexity of the task. Despite being a £10bn company with over 330,000 employees working in 80 countries (as you indicate) they have got this handover stage wrong. I am still confident they will turn it round but I really don't think we will see the real benefits of this until next week. I wish I could say this would be earlier but it would be unrealistic of me. There is now a recovery plan in place to address the fundamental issues and we have contributed, substantially, to this. There are more Sodexho management staff in the two centres (Enfield and Barnet); they have introduced additional equipment to keep the food warm and they have introduced specialist, cooking staff into both centres. This will improve the cooking process and mean the meals will be ready to be transported by the time required.However, the issue of the rounds and the drivers is still being resolved and it will still take a few more days to 'get right'. We have stated very clearly that their expectation that drivers can deliver 40 meals in 2 hours is a false expectation - especially from day one when they are delivering, in most cases, to new locations. Furthermore, their computer generated delivery rounds are not producing the best routes for people to deliver - and in many cases they have added an hour and more to the delivery time. I think they have eventually recognised this but it has taken a lot of time and effort by a number of us to get them to accept that this is a major contributor to the failure of the service. And the fact, as you point out quite succinctly, that the drivers were not provided with the opportunity for 'dry runs' was another contributory factor. If this had happened Sodexho would have known that the routes were badly organised and, in many cases, far too long. In the end, they only discovered this on the first day of the contract with all the consequences we are facing.I cannot explain why your mother did not receive a menu. They were delivered, by hand, to all service users about 3 weeks ago. A menu was sent in the first class post last Tuesday and I hope that this has now, rather belatedly, been rectified and that she will have a choice for her future meals. I cannot comment on the quality of the food and I do not know what meal she actually received on the Monday but it must have been mince beef as I am told that chilli mince was not an option.The meals are not allowed to be delivered if they have been more than 4 hours out of the oven. We have had this tested and approved by our Environmental Health Officers and the containers in which the meals are transported provide the required protection and they maintain heat to the required temperature for this period. Obviously, your mother's meal was delivered close to the limit but none of the meals actually left the Meritage Centre on Monday before 1pm - which was yet another factor in the problems with delivery times. On better days, all the meals will be delivered within 2 hours which will be easily within the limits necessary to ensure healthy and safe products.Finally, the contract change has not been driven by money. We believe the new arrangements are just about cost neutral but there are a number of improvements and benefits that they bring. Such as culturally sensitive meals for an additional 7 ethnic groups in the borough. A choice, for the first time, in meals and deserts. Better quality control over portions, content, protein, vitamins etc. and compliance with EU regulations around labelling and health and safety when compared with our traditional service. Whilst the benefits have not yet been realised I am confident Sodexho will get the management and organisation right and, as you can appreciate, we are addressing the current failures with considerable urgency. I hope this information is helpful and I only wish it was a better picture I could paint. Sodexho are an internationally successful company and we expected a much higher level of compliance and success at this early stage given their track record. Please come back to me if I can be of further help.**** *****Adult Social Services
The Barnet Eye is pleased to announce the most exciting project yet undertaken. I am making a film. It is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. As there have been more than 1/4 million page views of this blog since I started, it strikes me that there are a few people interested in our Borough. When I started The Barnet Eye, the idea was to try and keep people informed of what is happening locally in a readable, snappy format. I made a deliberate decision to lampoon those who deserve to be lampooned, stand with the people who deserve to be stood with and to try and bring a few things to you about Barnet which you might not have known. I hope that where possible an element of humour comes through. I knocked this trailer up from some Library footage last night, just to give you a flavour of what we'll be covering. Much of the stills will be replaced by live footage and there will be dialog - this is just the taster !
For those of you who don't know much about me, other than my blog, I run a very successful music services company in Mill Hill. I will be putting all of my resources into the film. Now in keeping with the ethos of the blog, I'll also be welcoming contributions from the whole community. If you have something you want to say about Barnet, you are a film maker and you have some footage or you can help me in some other way, please get in touch.
The film will be a documentary. It will be shot on video camera and will either be 25 or 55 minutes long. Here's what I'm looking for at the moment.
People of all ages, who are willing to be filmed talking for approx 30 seconds about some aspect of living in Barnet, what makes Barnet great, what is bad about Barnet, the best joke they know about Barnet.
Short films of up to 2 minutes about some aspect of Barnet. They must be of suitable technical quality and the sound quality must be of a broadcastable or near broadcastable quality.
Short clips (up to 30 seconds) of video/ mobile phone footage, which we can put a relevant voice over or music to.
Now as it's my film, you will have to be happy for me to use what you do in any way I see fit and sign relevant waiver forms. I am not making the film for profit and after recovering any costs I may incur in the making, any profits (which I don't expect there to be) will be distributed between local charities and causes - don't ask though as the first rule is that if you ask, you won't get.
What you will get if you contribute, is a pair of tickets to the world premier, wherever that may be.
Oh yes, we are planning to doorstep a few people in the forthcoming couple of months.
And one final thing. If anyone bears a strong resemblence to our beloved Councillor Coleman or possess a fat suit, please get in touch as we have a role for you. I'll even make an exception and provided expenses and a free lunch for the filming, so as to ensure that it is shot totally in character.
And just in case you are wondering, no this isn't a wind up. I'm deadly serious - EMAIL ME BY CLICKING HERE
My thanks to Councillor Andrew Harper for (albiet inadvertently) pointing me in the direction of the latest Barnet Council Scandal. You can read the whole sorry story here :-
It details (albiet in a nice sugary way) the fact that Barnet Council has lost control of the way it spends your money. Now maybe you don't think that matters, but I do. This is the reason why Childrens Centres are being chopped, Sheltered Housing wardens sacked and 800 Council workers threatened with redundancy.
Turn to the conclusions on page 15 and you will find this :-
This couldn't be more clear and the conclusion couldn't be more stark. Barnet Council are not spending our money wisely. The computer systems they use are not set up properly. This blog recently exposed how during the reign of Mike Freer, a SAP system was implemented. Mike Freer trumpeted in 2006 that this would "modernise procurement" and save Barnet Council millions of pounds. The system is outsourced (what Barnet want to do to everything else they run). This report says it doesn't work properly. Mike Freer said the system would cost £6 million. Some estimates say it has cost £15 million.
This is a scandal. Council workers are facing the sack, children are being cut loose. Vulnerable adults are losing their wardens. Today one of my friends in the Barnet Alliance for Public services asked me what I have been doing to save those affected by the cuts. I'll tell you what? I've been reading reports like this. I just hope that all of our useless, ineffective Council Leaders such as Lynne Hillan and Andrew Harper have been reading them as well. I just hope that they understand what the reports are saying. If they don't they should be sacked and be replaced by people who do. They cannot keep sweeping these disasters under the table. Just what does CEO Nick Walkley do for his money (£200,000 PA + perks) ? He certainly doesn't make sure our money is spent wisely. His own council report says so
On Monday 14 February an innocuous young man was threatened with expulsion from the public gallery at the Barnet cabinet meeting. His crime? Attempting to make a short film of proceedings on his phone.
How behind the times Barnet council shows itself to be. They act in a draconian manner to stop their own residents (to whom they are accountable) from using a piece of equipment that has become as everyday and routine as the pop-up toaster. Haven't they seen how people in the Middle East and North Africa are using social media to help them win their democracy?
I invite every resident coming to the council meeting at Hendon Town Hall next Tuesday 1 March to come with their cameraphones at the ready. Perhaps Brian Coleman will learn some manners if he knows that what he says will end up on YouTube for all the world to see before the night is out.
Oh, and who is this agreeing with the call for greater openness? This is a statement made today by none other than Eric Pickles, the Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government:
"Many councils are internet-savvy and stream meetings online, but some don't seem to have caught up with the times and are refusing to let bloggers or hyper-local news sites in. With local authorities in the process of setting next year's budget this is more important than ever.
"Opening the door to new media costs nothing and will help improve public scrutiny. The greater powers and freedoms that we are giving local councils must be accompanied by stronger local accountability.
"We are in the digital age and [the] analogue interpretation of the press access rules is holding back a new wave of local scrutiny, accountability and armchair auditors."
Vickim57 is a blogger, "well known trades unionist" and the heart and soul of most of the good things going on in the Political scene in Barnet. I have the utmost respect for Vicki and I will be writing to David Cameron to recommend her for an OBE shortly. Her blog is http://vickim57.blogspot.com/ - and I heartily recommend it to you, if you don't already know about it. I nicked this blog from her blog without telling her, because I am so tired I can't think and she says everything I would have written anyway.
The problems in Barnet could have been avoided by proper financial management and sound husbandry of taxpayers money, Transparency as implemented by Windsor and Maidenhead would go a long way to preventing Councils such as Barnet playing fast and loose with Taxpayers money. Whilst I agree with the concept of localism, it cannot possibly work if councils shroud themselves in secrecy. As such I urge you to use your powers to agree to meet Barnet Councils defecit, on condition that they appoint a new cabinet made up of people who actually know what they are doing. I would also insist on a fully open and transparent policy of management to be enacted to ensure that "difficult problems" cannot by hidden in the books in future.
It seems like Eric Pickles has got the message. There is a BBC report today which Pickles states the following
He said: "Fifty years ago, Margaret Thatcher changed the law to make councils open their meetings to the press and public. This principle of openness needs to be updated for the 21st Century. More and more local news comes from bloggers or citizen journalists telling us what is happening at their local council."Many councils are internet-savvy and stream meetings online, but some don't seem to have caught up with the times and are refusing to let bloggers or hyper-local news sites in." He added: "Opening the door to new media costs nothing and will help improve public scrutiny."
It is nice when people actually listen to sensible advice. Pickles is right. People like me write blogs because we see that things could be improved. Most of us have things we'd rather do with our time, but are not prepared to see the Council, waste our cash, trash our services and treat us with disdain. Since the inception of the blog, I've bumped into many readers. After chatting for a while, I often hear the same thing "Until I started reading your blog I hadn't got a clue what the Council were up to". Here's a confession, neither had I. The sad thing is that in many ways, I still haven't.
Let me give you one small example of how bad things are. Have a look at this document on the Barnet Council website. It is a report for the One Barnet Overview an Scrutiny panel. There are many things which are amiss with the project, but have been "airbrushed" to look good. It's only when you get to page 24 and look at this table, you see how badly wrong it its going. Here is the income and expenditure table :-
Look at expenditure commitments - Forecast £983,000 - revised forecast £2,087.850 - in other words over 100% and over £1 million pounds over budget. Program management office. Forecast £148,280 - revised forecast £367,147 - nearly 150% over budget and well over £200,000 over budget. And how is it being financed? From the contingency. The "LAA reward grant" (whatever that was) has disappeared, so it is yet more debt.
Future Shape has been running for three years and delivered no savings so far and cost millions. It is well over budget, as demonstrated here. What is the next milestone? (Bottom of page 23) - "Project plan with system build milestones to be finalised" - Yup, all this cash squandered, with no plan and no milestones. This is why it is so over budget.
This is why the Barnet Eye wrote to Eric Pickles. This is why Eric Pickles is right to urge openness and public scrutiny. This is your money they are wasting. The cash wasted on this could have kept several childrens centres open. It could have reduced your taxes. It could have saved the libraries of Barnet. Sadly your cash has just been squandered on waste of money consultants reports, with costs spiralling ever out of control.
That is why Barnet is having to make cuts. That is why we need to stop this blatent waste of our cash
You just can't keep Robert Rams out of the news. Ok, now try and follow this. Barnet Council spent squillions building the finest music auditorium outside the West End. It's called the Arts Depot. I know what a great place it is to play and to watch a band, because I did a gig there recently as part of the Rock Against the Cuts aevent on 31st January, the one where 2,000 people turned up to express their dismay at Barnet Council Cuts.
Now the man responsible for destroying art and culture in Barnet, Councillor Robert Rams clearly knows a thing or two about great venues. He's decided to organise a gig, with a local Band - Fallen Millie. Having got one of Barnets brightest up and coming bands and having the best venue outside central London to put them on at, guess what Rams did next? Yup, he's staging the gig at, wait for it, Chipping Barnet Library. Rams says
“It’s important we continue to encourage our younger residents to explore what libraries have to offer and allow them to see that there is a lot more to them than just books.”
Which is all very well, but as we've got a great music venue, shouldn't we be putting bands on in music venues and literary events in libraries. Rams has bought into the idea of the "Get it Loud in Libraries" campaign, which started in Lancashire. Now I've no problem with the concept of opening up new music venues, it's a great idea, but lets save the ones we've got first.
Even more bizarre is his latest jolly jape. He's started a petition to put pressure on Boris Johnson and TFL to run more 384 buses to serve the JCoSS school. There are two aspects of this which are rather odd. Robert Rams is part of the Tory team at City Hall. He's a Tory GLA bag carrier. He has been telling anyone who'll listen for the last couple of years, that he has "the ear of Boris" and that he's one of the most influential Londonders. If this was true, surely he wouldn't need a petition, he'd just say "Hey Boss, can you get TFL to lay on a couple more 384 buses" and Boris would say "Sure thing Robin". Another thing Rams has done is he's inadvertently exposed the fact that his administration told a stack of porkies about the whole JCoSS project. I supported JCoSS. One of the reasons was because the Council told us that there was "a cast iron transport plan" to ensure that the pupils would have good access to public transport. Clearly this was a complete fabrication. Rams petition states
"We the undersigned, call on Transport for London and the Mayor of London to increase the frequency of the 384 Bus, which runs between Cockfosters Station and High Barnet Station, in the hour before and after school. This would mean more pupils from across London would be encouraged to use public transport to get to school and would mean fewer cars on the roads of East, New and High Barnet."
So much for the cast iron transport plan. At present there are only 180 of the 1,500 pupils which will occupy the school when it is fully running. According to Rams petition, the transport infrastructure is already creaking and there is inadequate bus provision. A further question also springs to mind. Councillor Brian Coleman is the Barnet Transport supremo and also a close confidant of Boris. Has Rams spoken to Coleman about this? Barnet has stumped up cash elsewhere for buses to be provided. Most notably to divert the 186 bus to Graham Park. If Boris doesn't listen to Rams and Coleman doesn't listen to Rams either, hasn't he just exposed himself as a completely ineffectual waste of space.
In Robert Rams world things work like this, you shut the gig venues, and make bands play at libraries, you put libraries in Tescos or on buses, you blame Boris for lack of buses, because your mate Brian Coleman is too inept to sort out a transport plan for a school with 1,500 kids at it. Because Brian and Boris don't listen to you, you start a petition, having totally ignored the petitions signed by thousands of members of the public to Save Barnets Libaries and to Save the Arts Depot, which is really clever because you have now undermined the argument that the petitions have no value. Robert Rams is now publicly exposed for what he is. Twatman incarnate.
For the record, I have signed the petition - I believe in good public transport provision - http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43072.html - my signature is no 103 on the list. You can also leave a comment for Robert Rams on the petition, up to you of course.
Richard Littlejohn today exposes the way Brian Coleman is shafting small businesses and local restaurants with his parking changes and charges. Littlejohn states that he will no longer use his favourite chippy in Finchley (Two Brothers) because Coleman has moved to a pay by mobile phone for much of the Boroughs parking. Littlejohn states that he "can't be bothered with it". He's not the only one. Not everyone has mobile phones, many elderly people use them purely for making emergency phonecalls, being bamboozled by the other features.
The bottom line is that in the middle of a recession, it is yet another kick in the teeth for small business. Brian Coleman is rather keen on many of the restaurants in Barnet. I hope that those who have been hit by these changes don't take revenge in the time honoured manner, when a customer upsets them.
