Mike Freer's Future Shape - More like Project OMEN !

Why?

This is a question that vexes me more and more these days. I get told more and more things, shown more and more documents, asked more and more questions. Mostly it's fairly obvious as to why people are dealing with me, but about 10% of the time, I genuinely don't understand their motivations. Maybe they just feel the need to confess their sins, maybe there is some other agenda, maybe they want me to do their dirty work or maybe they want me to get myself into trouble.

A rather senior Council official has been in touch, rather covertly. I've seen a couple of rather interesting documents. The subject - Future Shape. "What do you think of this?" they ask. Now bear in mind that I'm a dyslexic Punk rock musician, not a £1,000+ per day consultant. I said "Maybe it's just me but actually this is a pile of crap, have I missed something?". No answer just a knowing smile.

"It's like this. Walkley has come in and he knows that this has got a bit out of control. Maybe 10 or 20% of this has actually resulted in something useful. Much of that could quite easily have been done in house." We are discussing the huge bills for external consultants. Again, I'm sure that some people at the council will read this and roll their eyes, but I thought that these highly paid consultants were experts, people at the top of their jobs with years of experience. People who'd been there done it and had skills far above and beyond those available to the council in house. It seems that this isn't the profile of many of the consultants. It seems that many are learning all about local Government as they go.

I ask "Have they overseen Future Shape style projects elsewhere?". No they haven't. Here's the rub. Either the council already have the staff in place to oversee this, in which case they didn't need many of the consultants, or they are not in a position to successfully roll out the program. It is all very well planning huge changes, but if the organisation doesn't have the skills to implement it, then it is not likely to succeed. We have to ask, does the public sector have a good track record of overseeing change and realising cost savings? I saw a quote that a shadow minister said that the only major Government IT project in the last 10 years to come in on time and under budget, was the introduction of the Post Office Cardholder Account.

So what happens if it all goes wrong? Well, it's likely that by then Mike Freer will have long departed as Council leader. The next leader will have to deal with consequences. Nick Walkley as CEO didn't initiate the project. He has the choice, scale it down into something sensible now or reap the consequences. No one in the senior echelons of the Council is going to admit just how much of our cash has been wasted on these consultants and their reports. That was made quite clear to me.

So why did my mystery informant have this conversation? "Nick Walkley needs some encouragement" He wouldn't elaborate any further. "Don't expect any public pronouncements though".

And what about Mike Freer "Well you have to ask, is he part of the problem or part of the solution? He knows what's been delivered wasn't what he was hoping for. He's spinning it so that it's a great success, but a simple management review of the council a couple of years ago, with the appointment of more dynamic leadership would have been far more cost effective."

The biggest problem is that the existing management of Barnet Council are fine with change, until it affects their own little empires. Many people within Barnet Tories thought Mike Freer was the messiah, leading them to the promised land of lower taxes, better services, a safer green belt. I'd conclude that his policies are more reminiscent of the Omen.

The most worrying thing is that some of the top bods in the council agree with me. To quote Monty Python - "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy"