The 2016 Barnet Council governance project - No 19 - Project Chicago - follow up request

Here is the second in a series of requests concerning Project Chicago. 

From: Roger Tichborne
Sent: 10 February 2016 13:29
To: 'Sarah Laws' <barnet@mail.icasework.com>
Subject: RE: Information request (ref: 2491597)

Dear Ms Laws,

Thank you for your response.

As a follow up, please provide the following

1)      Details of dates of all briefings for councillors on Project Chicago

2)      Details of invitees for all briefings for councillors on Project Chicago

3)      Copies of all briefing packs for councillors on Project Chicago

4)      Details of any impacts on Barnet Council identified as part of project Chicago

Many thanks

Roger Tichborne

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Here is the response from the council to the original request. In short, Capita are reorganising the way they are running Barnet Council but have provided no written briefings to Barnet Council staff as to how this will actually work.

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5 February 2016
Our ref: 2491597

Thank you for your request received on 1 February 2016, for the following
information:

Please provide details on Project Chicago and copies of minutes of the meetings at
which Barnet Council staff were first briefed on Project Chicago.
We have processed this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response
I am writing to inform you that we have searched our records and some of the
information you requested is not held by London Borough of Barnet.
Project Chicago is an initiative led by Capita Group Plc to update its operating model
to focus on service led work streams that are organised nationally. These relate to
services being managed under a common management structure that looks to
provide strategic leadership and consistency of operational delivery to provide a
better service to clients.
The council does not hold minutes of meetings at which staff were first briefed on
project Chicago as no minutes were taken by the council. The briefings were
informal oral briefings provided by Re to a small number of senior council staff . The
council commissioners of the services were verbally briefed out of courtesy on these
proposals.

Further information
If you are interested in the data that the council holds, we recommend that you take
a look at Open Barnet, the council’s data portal. This is an important tool in pushing
forward Barnet’s Transparency Agenda, bringing together all our published datasets
and other information of interest on one searchable database for anyone, anywhere
to access: http://open.barnet.gov.uk/

Your rights
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled, you
can request a review within the next 40 working days by writing to the FOI Officer at:
The London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South,
London, N11 1NP (email foi@barnet.gov.uk).

If, having exhausted our review procedure, you remain dissatisfied with the handling
of your request or complaint, you will have a right to appeal to the Information
Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF (telephone: 0303 123 1113; website
www.ico.org.uk). There is no charge for making an appeal.

Time to face up to the reality of rape

It seems that rape is a rather hot topic at the moment. Page 12 of the Daily Express today has a large story under the banner "Why did police turn a blind eye to this gang of rapists". Being the Daily Express, it seems to be under the impression that rapists exclusivey come from Pakistan. It seems that the Express can only find imbeciles who have lived in a hole and have no knowledge of geography to write columns for them. The author Chris Roycroft-Davis bizarrely states "Notice that I said “Pakistani” and not “Asian”, the euphemism beloved of those in the race industry and the broadcast media who believe that facts can somehow be racist and therefore must be suppressed. To label them Asian insults Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Singaporeans, indeed all citizens east of Istanbul." Sadly this rather silly man doesn't realise that Pakistan is a thousand or so miles East of Istanbul, which is at the Western most point of Asia in Turkey. Sadly the concept that Pakistanis are the only men who form gangs and rape women is a sad myth. It is a matter of fact that over three million women were raped in Berlin when it fell to the USSR in 1945.

Earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported details of a meeting set up by a "seedy pro rape campaigner" called Roosh V. The Guardian reported how this individual actually turned out to be a rather sad and pathetic individual who still lives with his mum. He had planned to hold a series of meetings to promote his rather sad agenda that women are there simply for the sexual gratification of men.

There are three reasons why I find such views abhorrant. The first is that like every other human on the planet, I was born to a mother. The logical extension of Mr Roosh's view is that my mother was fair game for any man who so fancied it. When my mother was 80 years old, and was recovering from a stroke, she got to the point where she could walk down the road and buy a paper. She was proud of herself, having fought back from being totally paralysed. This all came to an abupt end when a drunk attempted to molest her in the shop. It was only the kind intervention of the pakistani shop owner that prevented a far more serious incident occurring. Sadly it made my mother feel vulnerable and she would not go out on her own after the incident. How could I find such behaviour anything other than sickening. Had I witnessed the assault, I would probably be in prison right now, as I can honestly say that I would have reacted in a way that would have seen no end to my wrath. I am not proud of that, but to this day I feel angry about the incident.

The second reason I find this sickening is that a former girlfriend of mine was raped in Stockholm by a stranger in 1980. She was an extremely attractive lady and the effects on her were devastating. I didn't know her before the incident, but her friends explained to me quietly just how devastating it was. She explained to me the sheer brutality of a stranger grabbing her, dragging her to a quite spot, violentlyripping her clothes off and violating her, then walking away with a sneer. It was sickening. I know some people may find it titilating but for me it was horrific. After she told me, she broke down in tears and asked what I thought? I said it was horrible. She was worried I'd find her less attractive. I told her I just saw her as a totally innocent victim and it wasn't her fault. It just put into sharp focus just what a vile crime it was and what horrible men commit such a crime.

The third reason is that I have daughters, who I dearly love. I don't want men to see them as fair game. I want them to find partners who love and cherish them and appreciate their beauty. As far as I am concerned, being a real man means having a family and responsibilities. This family means mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, cousins and friends. To me anyone who denies any of these the basic human right to say no to an invasion of their body is a repulsive bully.

The truth is that rape has nothing to do with sex. It is about power and domination. Sex is a beautiful thing. It is at its very best when two people want to share a beautiful moment and make each other as happy as they possibly can. A sexual act where one person has no regard for the other can never be a fullfilling and satisfying experience. It is simply a desperate act of a sexually repressed and immature being, who is so emotionally stunted that they cannot interest a woman enough to consent to share something good. It is clear that they are unable to achieve a staisfactory relationship wihhout use of force. How can such individuals be seen as anything other than vile and disgusting, full of emotional insecurity. As a society, we need to wake up to the fact that we have far too many such individuals in our midst. We need to start educating men at a young age that such behaviour isnot only unacceptable, but a sign of a weak and pathetic person.

To simply blame Roosh V. or men from Pakistan is a simplistic and stupid action. The problem is far deeper and far more serious.

The monster in the mirror

It isn't alien monsters that are the threat

When I was a small child I was terrified of the monsters on Dr Who. It got to the stage where I was unable to sleep as I was scared that monsters would come in the night. My Dad, as was his want took me to one side and explained that these monsters were made up. He explained that monsters would only really be a threat if they were more intelligent than us, and if they were more intelligent than us, then surely they would behave themselves. He then picked me up and said "Shut your eyes, I am going to show you the scariest monster in the world" He kept saying that I must keep my eyes shut. He took me upstairs and then said "you can open your eyes now". I did this and I was staring in the mirror. He said "people do far worse things than any monsters. If a tiger eats you its because he's hungry, but people do bad things because they are filled with evil". He then spent some time telling me about the atrocities that the Nazi regime perpetrated (my father was a WWII RAF pilot and former prisoner of war).

I was reminded of this last night. There is a new series of X-Files. This was one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It seems that the new series takes a different slant. It isn't the aliens that are evil, it is our own government. In the program a whole list of conspiracies were listed. I watched it rather incredulously. I don't really believe in such conspiracy theories. The real threat to us isn't the government concealing alien technologies and using these to subjugate us. The real threat is what our governments are doing to us in plain sight. Whole swathes of legislation and changes have been brought in. When I was at school, the life plan for myself and many of my friends was quite simple - Get good A Levels, go to University, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, start the whole cycle again, keep the human race going (I didn't go to Uni, I bought a guitar instead, but most of my friends did). 


Lets fast forward to the current day. If you enact that plan, you leave Uni with tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt. Get a job? Sure there are plenty of jobs, the Conservative government spends its time boasting about these. Minimum wage, zero hours contracts jobs with little prospects. Get married? Well it seems that 50% of those who do will get divorced. It isn't "till death us do part". It is "until I get a better offer on Tinder". Now a rampant sex life may be a marvellous thing, I am sure it's something we'd all deep down fantasise about, but sooner or later we all grow old (over the last couple of years, I've come face to face with my own mortality in a way I'd never anticipated. It is boring and mundane). Casual flings may scratch a sexual itch, but when we have a crisis, it is damn handy to have a partner who has a commitment to a relationship. I don't think too many people will take up your offer on Tinder to come along and hold your hand whilst you wait for your catheter to be removed after cancer surgery.

Then there is buying a house. I bought mine aged 25 for £48,000. I'd saved up £10K and I had a salary with BT of £18,500. I was told that I'd have to pay 10% and tehy'd give me three times my salary. No problem. My house is now worth £750,000. So on the same math I'd ned to save up £75,000 and have to be earning circa £250,000. When I worked for BT my salary was a fairly standard one for people who'd been at the company for a few years as engineers or IT staff. My guess is that to have a £250,000 salary you need to be a divisional head or a board member.
In short, the ordinary Joe has no chance of buying a property (without help from the bank of mum and dad).

 Then there is having kids. Now I'm old fashioned here. There are all manner of parents in non nuclear families who do a stirling job bringing up kids, but it is hard enough if you have a stable relationship, a good salary and nice house. I could well understand how any sane rational person would avoid it like the plague in todays world. The trouble is that if we don't have kids, the country has no future. Who will look after us when we are old? The Daily Mail rants and rages against teenage mums and families on benefits. It makes me sick, given that they support the government that has foisted this inequality upon us. There is all of this talk of how social housing should not be available to households with an income of £40,000 or more. Well on the 3 X multiplier this buys a house worth £120,000. Show me any property in London that you can buy for this? To get on the housing ladder, a household would presumably need an income nearer £100,000 per annum. so don't demonise hard working families who just want a home.

You don't need to be a genius to see that our society is reaching the stage where it simply doesn't work and will break down. And who created this nightmare. As my Dad told me back in 1967, go and take a long hard look in the mirror.

Planning in Barnet - Council hypocrisy exposed

There are two rather interesting stories on the local paper website at the moment, which concern planning. The first of these concerns a man who built a three a side football pitch in his garden in Totteridge. This amounted to putting up some floodlights, so his kids can have a kickabout in the garden. Apparently neighbours said "the floodlights shine into their homes and the noise from the ball banging against the pitch’s wooden panel is “irritating”". It seems that the proper planning permission was not sought. The council re demanding that the pitch is torn down.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/14256675.Football_pitch_will_have_to_be_torn_down__say_planning_committee/ 

Then we have the story that Saracens are planning to accomodate 15,000 people at a European cup game, in breach of their planning permission which states that the maximum number of people who can attend the stadium is 10,000. According to Mil Hill Councillor Sury Khatri, the club have been given the green light by the Council to ignore the normal rules. this was confirmed by Council leader Richard Cornelius, who told the Times "In this very special case the council has used its discretionary powers to allow a one off exception to expand the capacity  to 15,000.The impact of this one day facility will show us all if the traffic issues can really be controlled. Full safety measures to protect the fans will be rigidly enforced."

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/14247161.Fury_over__secret__plans_to_cram_15_000_people_into_Saracens___without_consultation/

Now don't get me wrong. I think Saracens are proving to be an asset for Mill Hill and the Borough of Barnet. I'd be quite happy to see them achieve their ultimate goal of a 25,000 seat stadium. The thing is though that this should be achieved through following the planning rules and making adequate plans for getting people to and from the ground. I'd like to see the Northern Line extended to Saracens as part of this plan. There is a disused rail line that could easily be reopened and this would be an important link, joining Mill Hill with the east of the Borough.

But by giving Saracens a green light to ignore the rules, how can they then impose the rules on anyone else. A decent barrister would make mincemeat of the council in a future planning hearing, if enforcement action was taken.

It is instructive that the gentleman with the pitch in his back garden is in Richard Cornelius ward and he clearly takes the view of the residents there seriously. His wife who is Cllr Alison Cornelius, who sits on the committee, said: “It was not an appropriate development – it sits in the Totteridge Conservation area and there were various other policies it contravenes. The committee, as a whole, do not like retrospective planning applications.”

Well it seems that if you run a powerful interest and are mates with the council, these considerations don't really matter. In my book that is hyporcisy and double standards. 

The Tweets of the week in the London Borough of Barnet - 7/2/2016

So here we are again. It's time for the tweets of the week in our lovely little corner of London.


1. There were many contenders for the Tweet of the week, but I really could only pick this one.

Mark Green ‏@MarkGreen88 22h22 hours ago

Pub garden in Edgware - me &,4 chaps; three of them had done a stretch. One said: straight now, no more burglary. Just sell weed and coke

2. I rather like this one as well.

Mark Amies ‏@Superfast72 3m3 minutes ago

https://londonist.com/2016/02/video-london-s-lost-railways-mill-hill-east-to-edgware-branch …

3. Looks like West Hendon is set to become famous.

Adam Langleben ‏@adamlangleben 11m11 minutes ago

1hr BBC One documentary about the Tory destruction of the West Hendon estate due to be broadcast in the coming weeks http://www.twostepfilms.com/films/tewi.html

4. Some great work at Hendon School
 

Citizens UK ‏@CitizensUK Feb 4

Wow! @Hendon_School's inspiring mental health day in preparation of our July 13th Barnet mental health conference




5. Lest we forget

Our West Hendon ‏@OurWestHendon 23h23 hours ago

Remembrance service @OurWestHendon Saturday 13th Feb 11am https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=781278428650799&id=462079237237388 …

6.  I just love this picture. A bygone era. Wonder what happened to the trainset?

Rob Baker ‏@robnitm Feb 4

Mill Hill School c.1935. 

 

7. Great to see an old friend on twitter! I do miss Vicky

Adam Langleben ‏@adamlangleben Feb 6

Look who I bumped into at @LabourCllrs conference in Nottingham. Former Barnet blogger @nottsocialist

 

 8. A shoutout to the businesswomen of Barnet

FSB London ‏@FSBLondon Feb 6

Calling all #WomenInBiz! @FSBNorthLondon Buzzing Business Club - 15 Feb, 6pm at Café Buzz, 783 High Road N12 8JY http://ow.ly/XYPQ2

9. Our new Thameslink trains are on test, sometime soon we'll be seeing these stopping at Mill Hill & Hendon.

Robin Morel ‏@13milepost Feb 2

Pic: testing class 700 stock 3T53 Cricklewood to 3 Bridges today #Siemens #Thameslink #westhampstead #DesiroCity

10. And finally. Why we need to support live music

1. MillHillMusicComplex ‏@MillHillMusicCo Feb 6

   #SaveLondonMusic Latest article http://savelondonmusic.org/comment-time-for-music-lovers-to-put-their-money-where-their-mouth-is/ … @DarrenJohnsonAM @London_Venues

The Saturday List #80 - The ten best things in the London Borough of Barnet (and ten we lost)

We haven't had a list for a long time, so here it is

The Mill Hill Observatory

1. The RAF Museum.
2. The Phoenix Cinema
3. La Deliverance at Henlys Corner
4. The Arts Depot
5. Totteridge Valley walks
6. Mill Hill Observatory
7. Burnt Oak Fish Market (Fishmongers)
8. Golders Hill Park
9. Saracens RFC
10. The Welsh Harp



And here is the ten that we've lost

All that is left of Mill Hill The Hale Station

1. Mill Hill Open Air Swimming Pool (Now Etz Haim Free School)
2. Barnet Football Club (Now in Harrow)
3. Church Farmhouse Museum
4. Hendon Odeon cinema
5. The Torrington Music venue
6. The Mill Hill East to Edgware branch of the Northern Line
7. Woolworths
8. Canoeing at Stonegrove Park
9. The 251 Bus to Stanmore
10. Burnt Oak Market


Do you agree? What should have been on the list? What have we lost that should have been on the list?

Funny old world, is that it?

Back in 1979, when we first formed The False Dots, myself and Pete Conway wrote a song called 'Uncle Charlie's Dead'.  It tells the sad story of Uncle Charlie falling down the stairs, in the dark. We were watching a TV program, possibly Nationwide and there was a bloke talking about how his Uncle Charlie had his electricity cut off. He got up in the middle of the nigh and sadly fell down the stairs. He said 'Uncle Fred was asleep and he heard a bang. He got up and there was Uncle Charlie at the bottom of the stairs, dead. I think he hit his head on the banisters'.

So the chorus went

Now Uncle Charlie's dead,

A bannister collided with his head,

He was found by uncle Fred,

Who heard a bump upstairs in bed.

The original working title of the song was 'The electricity board are Bastards'. But we decided that Uncle Charlie's Dead was a far better title.

So here we are, nearly 40 years later and who would have thought that pensioners would still be freezing to death in winter, living in poverty, being advised by the council to go and sit in the library to keep warm.

Funny old world, isn't it?

The Friday Joke - 5/2/2016

Have a great weekend!

The 2016 Barnet Council governance project - No 19 - Street trading contraventions

Today we look at breaches of street trading rules. What are Barnet Council doing to enforce the rules.
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From: Roger Tichborne 

Sent: 04 February 2016 10:41
To: 'foi@barnet.gov.uk'
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Action against illegal/unauthorised street trading in the London Borough of Barnet

Dear FoI Barnet,

Please can you supply the following from Jan 1 2015 to 4 Feb 2016.

1.       Number of Barnet traders identified as in breach of street trading rules.

2.       Number of Barnet traders receiving written warnings from Barnet council for street trading infringements.

3.       Number of Barnet traders interviewed under caution regarding infringements for street trading infringements.

4.       Number of Barnet traders who have been the subject of surveillance operations.

5.       Number of Barnet traders prosecuted for infrigements of street trading laws.

Regards

Roger Tichborne