Ricky and the Stooges Live at Barnet Town Hall

Don't be deceived. This is the season of goodwill, the fourth day of Christmas, but already some of us in Barnet are looking forward to May next year. There will be council election, where we get to decide who will administer the contract with Capita to run Barnet Council. In 2010, I stood for the council, as I believed it was the most important election ever facing the people of Barnet. Unlike the majority of people in the Borough, I was fully aware of the plans to turn Barnet into "Capitaville", surgically removing all democratic accountability from local people and turning provision of local services into a commodity. Now the contracts have been signed. There are 63 councillors, but in truth there is nothing much for them to do. We've signed a ten year contract with Capita and so they can sit back and count their allowances. Of course there are still plenty of civic receptions to go to, with plush buffets. There are still the perks of the job, such as free parking permits. There is just nothing much for them to do. Capita are responsible for administering licensing, cemetaries, business licensing, collection of council tax, call centres and planning. Areas such as Social care have been outsourced to Your Choice Barnet. Parking control has been outsourced to NSL.Even the running of the legal side of the council, which adminsters all of this has been outsourced to Harrow Council. In short, the Council no longer exists in any real sense of the word. If Barnet have done the job properly with the outsourcing, they shouldn't really have any employees left in any of the above areas.

You may ask what the council still does? Well it runs schools and it has kept household waste collection in house. So the question is, why do we need 63 councillors. The question becomes even more interesting when you consider the way that these councillors have voted since the last election. To the best of my knowledge, only on one occasion has a Conservative Councillor not voted the way they were told to by the whips. That Councillor was Kate Salinger. In August 2010, she decided that the decision by the Tory Councillors to award themselves a payrise was immoral. She refused to follow the Party whip. Lets be 100% clear. This wasn't a policy that the Tories had put in their election manifesto. This wasn't a policy they'd discussed on the doorsteps. Nope, they simply got back into power and decided that "hey ho, we can vote ourselves a pay rise". What happened to Councillor Salinger. In open Council, all her Tory chums vindictively stripped her of all responsibilty in a succession of votes. Which brings us back to the question "Why do we need 63 Councillors, when the Council doesn't do anything". The answer is we don't. They are a bunch of Stooges, a bunch of passengers. Are you familiar with the lyrics of "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop

Oh, the passenger

How, how he rides

Oh, the passenger

He rides and he rides

He looks through his window

What does he see?

The sad truth is that this bunch of passengers have spent the last four years riding around the Borough, closing their eyes. They have seen nothing. When they raised the cost of CPZ parking permits, they closed their eyes and didn't see the huge pain and expense this was causing local residents. They closed their eyes, so they didn't listen when local campaigners told them it was illegal. As a result, they lost a court case and tens of thousands of residents were entitled to CPZ refunds. They closed their eyes when they hiked High Street parking charges and scrapped Pay and Display parking. Local businesses were driven to the wall. The local Conservatives stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted "La La La". Then in may 2012, there was an election for the GLA and the local Tory, who previously had a massive majority, was uncermoniously booted out. After some panic, High Street parking charges were cut and pay and display restored. Then there was the cuts to Adult Social care, brought about by the Your Choice Barnet botched privatisation. This company is a private company, fully owned and controlled by Barnet Council. This has been a fantastic resource for some people in Barnet, namely the directors and executives of this company, who's pay has been removed from democratic oversight. Sadly for the local disabled people, reliant on its services, it has been a disaster. Cuts are order of the day. Front line staff are subject to wage cuts. Services for people reliant on the council have been slashed and some of the most vulnerable people in Barnet have had their quality of life decimated. How did the passengers react? Well despite all of their distortions, the truth came out, when Your Choice Barnet required a £1 million payout to stay afloat. An emergency committee of councillors was set up to sort the mess out. A meeting was held, where these councillors took representations from local carers, people such as John and Ida Sullivan who have hundreds of years experience at the coalface of caring for the disabled. What did the passengers on the committee do? They shut their eyes, closed their ears and shouted "la la la", ignoring all of the representations of the local residents.

The leader of the Council is Richard Cornelius. In many ways he is a very pleasant chap. Unlike some, I don't believe him to be Evil. I don't believe he spends his days planning new ways to harpoon the disabled with new schemes, designed only to drive them from the Borough. I suspect he'd be horrified if he knew the just what some of the parents of local disabled people had said to me about him and his intentions. I just think that Tricky Ricky is in many ways a passenger and all of this has simply passed him by. He is relatively well off and he moves in the upper echelons of Barnet society, so how can we expect him to understand the plight of the people he is meant to have a duty of care towards. When the likes of John Sullivan speak of the distress that the Council policies have caused his disabled daughter Susan and her friends and peers, Mr Cornelius thinks "Here we go again". He doesn't listen. People may say he doesn't care, but how can you care if you don't bother to listen and you don't know the story. We are all guilty of not listening and not caring to some extent, but whilst most of us can't do anything about it and most of us aren't paid to care and listen, Tricky Ricky is paid to care and he is paid to do something about it.

So what has been the response of the local Conservatives to the plight of the disabled in Barnet? Well the local Conservative machine is a very efficient political organisation, that has delivered some stunning election results at the last general and council election. Two Labour MP's seats in parliament were taken and the on the Council, gains were made. The local Tory Councillors like the perks of their job. Who can blame them? Allowances are generous and there are plenty of opportunities for social networking. Now it wouldn't be very nice to openly attack people such as John Sullivan and Tony Solomons, who have disabled children and clearly simply want the best for them. There are however, other ways to cook an egg. Two weeks ago, the local disabled community took over this blog. They spent two weeks publishing blogs describing the issues they were having with Your Choice Barnet. John Sullivan organised this, contacting many people in the disabled community and getting them to document their experiences.

A promenent local Conservative ex Councillor, used their twitter account to propogate a succession of lies about this. They suggested that this blog had been "bought". They suggested that the local people who participated in the series of blogs were orchestrated by the Barnet Alliance for Public Services and they suggested that the authors of the blogs were "CRANKS". First this person posted this message to me

So who's bought your blog for next week? Unions? Other cranks? Labour Party?

This was followed up by another tweet to me saying

Clearly been taken over by the cranky 'anti Tory' @barnetalliance this week. Maybe you waive ur fees to SETs?

As you can see,  the author of this text made 100% clear, he believed the "Your Choice Barnet week" guest blogs to be the work of "Cranks" associated with the Barnet Alliance. Anyone who didn't know the people involved would clearly be mislead. As John Sullivan is not a member of the Barnet Alliance and clearly not a CRANK, to imply such things is truly despicable. Mr Sullivan was truly enraged when he saw these comments. He contacted the person who placed the comments and demanded an explanation. He received a response, which was truly unbelievable. Despite claiming it was clear that the Barnet Eye had been "taken over by the cranky 'anti Tory' @barnetalliance" the author of these tweets claimed they'd not actually bothered to read the blogs (so much for accuracy). Furthermore, having been completely caught out, the author of these comments then challenged Mr Sullivan to state whether he was a member of the Barnet Alliance Executive ( I should also make clear that the Barnet Allliance simply an organisation for local people who are opposed to the destruction of public services. It is also part of a wider campaign of denigration to portray them as "Cranks"). Mr Sullivan is not a member of BAPS or on its executive. He has a full time job caring for a disabled daughter. It was quite interesting to note that when challenged, the rather cowardly individual, who had previously been so bold and sdrident in his comments about the YCB week, actually asked Mr Sullivan, who contributed two blogs for YCB, including one on the day of the offensive Twitter messages, to prove the comments referred to him. Mr Sullivan is a man in his '70's and in very poor health. The author of these messages also accused Mr Sullivan of "trying to intimidate him" by requesting a face to face meeting to correct any inaccuracies. It all left Mr Sullivan rather bemused. His response to me was to ask why someone would bother posting offensive messages on Twitter, when they hadn't read the blogs, and why someone would claim to be terrified of someone who was so ill he couldn't even address an important council meeting recently (there is Youtube footage of Mr Sullivans speech being delivered by a friend on his behalf, to the Council meeting). I can only speculate. Were the comments simply an off the cuff remark or were they part of a wider agenda against Mr Sullivan and the other carers fighting for justice? After much thought, I have decided that we shouldn't be shooting the messenger. If it was a stupid off the cuff remark, made by a complete idiot, then it is probably best to ignore it. If however, the messages were planted as part of a more sinister agenda, it is not the monkey we should take issue with, but the organ grinder. Which means ultimately that Richard Cornelius has to distance himself and his administration from such comments, if he wants to retain credibility.

This is the Barnet Conservative Party in 2013/4. We have detached councillors, who don't listen to the people most in need of Council services. We have marginal figures on the fringes, doing the dirty work, for reasons we can only speculate.

As I said at the start of this blog, given the long contracts with suppliers and the destruction of the in house teams, the next Council elections will not be as significant as the 2010 elections. Rather than making a series of key decisions, affecting the long term future of the Council, the next administration will simply be "managing the decline of Barnet".  That doesn't mean that it is not important. Do we want a council with a proven track record of ignoring the concerns of residents and riding roughshod over their requirements? Do we want a council to be run by a party which uses third party proxies to attack those who say things they don't like.

I must admit I have completely lost faith in most of our local politicians. I have seen no evidence at all that the people of Barnet and their needs are being met either by the administration or the opposition. I was at a social event recently and a very senior local Tory told me that "all the proper opposition is actually within the Conservative group". Whether this is true or not I have no clue, but it is clear to me that if it is, this "internal opposition" is equally ineffective.

What we really need is a whole new crop of councillors. There is too much dead wood being paid too much money and not doing their job. A truly brave and honest Council would slash the number of councillors to reflect the fact that at the Council doesn't actually exist anymore. I invite any Councillor of any Party to submit a guest blog detailing why they deserve to keep their job. As with all guest blogs, assuming it isn't defamatory or libellous, I will publish it without comment. Will any have the balls to actually take the offer up? Or is the situation as I suspect. Do we have Ricky and the Stooges at the Town Hall, giving the longest ever performance of  "The Passenger" in history. For those of you, like me who are partial to a decent tune, here is the Ig with his fine rendition.

Mass redundancies as Capita takes over - Press release from Barnet Alliance (BAPS)

In a move that will dismay the community and distress the many individuals and families directly affected, Capita today announced its plans to relocate council services around the UK, making mass redundancies inevitable. Jobs lost to Barnet will go to Belfast and Bromley, Chippenham and Chertsey, Carlisle and Darwen, Sheffield and Swindon.

Barnet Alliance spokesperson Barbara Jacobson says: ‘This is just what the Barnet Alliance feared when it campaigned for the consultation that was unlawfully denied to Barnet residents. What Capita describes as “driving towards Barnet plc and a successful London suburb” completely ignores the facts that the people losing their jobs are part of the community, that the community is not a  public limited company, and that Barnet was a successful London suburb before the takeover. ‘

People who move to retain their job might feel compelled to do so despite the fact that their children’s schooling will be disrupted, they will have to move away from close family members and friends to an area where they have no connections, they might find it difficult to sell their home or find appropriate new accommodation, and they face a future of lower income and pension contributions.

The people who are made redundant because they cannot afford to uproot their families for these reasons will suffer the stress of finding new employment in the depressed labour market. If they remain unemployed, the money they would have spent in the community is lost, affecting local businesses. If they eventually need to receive benefits, they will suffer more hardship and not only will the state have to pay those benefits but the council will also lose their contribution to council tax.

No one wins, except Capita, who will employ cheaper labour elsewhere and cream off millions of pounds in profit at the expense of hard-working people and the local community, as it has been revealed they have done in Birmingham. Instead of ‘a successful London suburb’, Barnet will become an increasingly depressed area of angry and resentful residents. 

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The Barnet Eye is always pleased to publish information of public interest from local organisations. Please submit via the email link in the sidebar on the right hand side of the blog

Not to be missed: Barnet Alliance AGM - Monday night!

It's the final countdown... to the Barnet Alliance AGM. Details below - please come if you are free.

You don't have to be a member to come to the meeting, though, hey, why not join while you are there?! It's only £5 for a year.

We will review the work of the Barnet Alliance over the last year and make some plans for the coming year - hmmm, council elections looming in the spring. Wonder what impact we can make there...

There will be the election of officers, free refreshments, an overview of Barnet Council's One Barnet privatisation programme, and, the guest speaker will be... Gerald Shamash, Maria Nash's solicitor. (The appeal date for the Judicial Review is Monday 15-Tuesday 16 July at the High Court on the Strand.)

Come and hear a top lawyer talk about the case for the Judicial Review of One Barnet. Gerald has local connections as well: he was a Labour councillor in my own, beloved, Burnt Oak for some years. I'll see you there!

BARNET ALLIANCE FOR PUBLIC SERVICES ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Monday 1st July, 7-9pm

Greek Cypriot Centre, Britannia Road, London N12 9RU (North Finchley)

This will be an opportunity to join BAPS as a member or renew your membership and contribute to the community campaign to defend and improve public services in Barnet.

The business part of the AGM will be followed by a talk by Gerald Shamash Maria Nash’s solicitor in her Judicial Review: ‘One Barnet’ Council On Trial

Refreshments provided. Entry is free but we will take a collection for donations.

More details: barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com or 07534 407703

(The more eagle eyed of you out there will note that I lifted this verbatum from Vicki's Citizen Barnet blog - http://citizenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/not-to-be-missed-barnet-alliance-agm.htm  - I hope she doesn't mind. I wanted to post something and as she'd said it rather well, I saw no point in trying to fix what ain't broken !)

Residents march for public services and a ‘Barnet Spring’

Barnet residents will demonstrate this Saturday 23rd March in defence of public services and against cuts and the One Barnet outsourcing programme. The ‘Barnet Spring’ march, organised by Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS), will assemble between 11am and noon at Finchley Central tube station to hear speakers, then proceed to Friern Barnet Community Library for a final rally and celebration of Friern Barnet Library’s 79th birthday. There will be a bus available for those who prefer not to walk.

BAPS coordinator Tirza Waisel said:
“BAPS was at the High Court this week supporting Barnet resident Maria Nash’s application for Judicial Review of the One Barnet outsourcing programme. We heard the Council say they did not need to consult residents about whether the bulk of our services are run by a private company or in-house as at present; they said our input on such questions was not useful. It is attitudes such as this that we want to challenge with our march.”
“Residents are right to be worried about what will happen if One Barnet fails to deliver the expected savings and means further cuts in services. This is already happening with Your Choice Barnet, set up under the auspices of One Barnet to make a surplus. Now it is making a loss the management want to cut service levels and are asking Barnet Council for a bailout. “Part of the evidence in court was how Barnet Council banned us from discussing policy matters at our own residents’ forums. Barnet residents have a right to be consulted about the services we rely on and pay for. We need more democracy in Barnet; we call for a Barnet Spring!”
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This message is a press release from the Barnet Alliance for Public Services

Pre-Action Letter - Proposed Claim for Judicial Review was served on Barnet council.

A Barnet resident, Maria Nash, has instructed lawyers to seek Judicial Review of the One Barnet Programme.   A pre-action protocol letter was sent to the Council today, prior to the Cabinet meeting tonight which plans to approve the appointment of Capita plc as preferred bidder for the first of the One Barnet contracts, worth £320 million.

The letter details the grounds on which a Judicial Review will be sought:

1.         Breach of the Council's duty to consult Barnet residents, businesses and community organisations about its plans, the result of which is that it has spent millions of pounds – the Agilisys contract alone has cost over £4m and is likely to rise to £6m – on professional consultants helping it to run the procurement process, but has not once asked local people for their views.

2.         Breach of councillors' duty to the residents in their area, to make sure that their decisions represent the best available value for public money. In order to be sure that they are getting best value out of this or any other contract the Council must compare the costs, benefits and risks of outsourcing with the costs, benefits and risks of retaining services in house but reforming the way they are provided to optimise value. Despite having been urged to do this, and despite the fact that it has been done by other local authorities, like Edinburgh, Barnet has refused to do it.

3.         Breach of the public sector equality duty: the Council must take issues of equality into account when making important decisions which affect people’s lives, like making radical changes in the way Council services are run.  The “equalities impact assessment” done in the One Barnet case was a pure paper exercise, which took no account of the views of people who would be affected by the changes.

4.         Breach of public procurement law, which requires that this contract be awarded to the company submitting the “most economically advantageous tender from the point of view of the public body”, i.e. the provider that gives the “best value for money” , taking into account the council’s responsibilities. Lack of consultation with local people, lack of consideration of equalities and lack of an in-house services comparator means the council cannot state that Capita gives the best value for money.  Such a breach of the public procurement rules leads to cases like West Coast Main Line.

5.         Breach of councillors’ duty to make up their own minds: Individual councillors must by law make up their own minds how to vote after informing themselves on the issues.  They are not allowed blindly to follow the party line.  Councillors have been starved of information and have not had the opportunity to understand the highly complex proposals for the contract, so they cannot legally vote to do anything other than defer a decision so that they can inform themselves and come to a proper view. 

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This is a press release from Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS), for more details

http://barnetalliance.org ; Barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com

Guest Blog - Make a stand and take action for change by Tirza Waisel

By Tirza Waisel

In response to Friern Barnet Library lives to fight another day.

So, for the record: I left the room with Dan Thomas when I learned he is not staying till the end of the hearing, in order to invite him personally to the BAPS organised public meeting on 8th of November (7 pm Greek Cypriot Centre North Finchley).

The meeting is titled One Barnet Programme of Privatisation – how will it affect you?

 

A discussion between residents, councillors of all parties and experts in public administration. It will be a Question Time type meeting, because we want to give the council's leaders, councillors and the public an opportunity to meet with each other and have a  genuine discussion about the One Barnet Programme. We want to give councillors an opportunity to explain to their electorate directly the considerations and reasons that drive them to support this extreme privatisation and to hear first hand from their constituents the anxieties, fears and concerns the notion of One Barnet raises with residents. At the same time we want to provide an opportunity for the public to hear from experts what exactly is One Barnet, and what risks this programme entails for us. This programme will determine our future in this borough for the next 10-15 years, yet the council have never facilitated such a discussion. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal it from residents.

The idea for this meeting was born in an impromptu public meeting during our lobby of High Barnet and Underhill ward councillors on Saturday 15 September. When leafleting and collecting signatures on the petition calling for a referendum about One Barnet outside Chipping Barnet library, we witnessed yet again that 99% of the Barnet residents don't know of the council's plans, despite the fact One Barnet Programme will no doubt affect every resident's life. When the time came to go into the surgery as some of us had planned, many more people came in with us spontaneously, appalled by what they just learned and angry. What followed was a rather thorough discussion, even if somewhat too lively at times, with many powerful arguments and serious concerns brought up by High Barnet residents. It became clear that this spontaneous meeting represents a need of residents to discuss the issues face to face with their elected representatives, and we (BAPS) offered to organise a proper public meeting. The confused young councillors from Underhill, Strongoulou and Turner were completely lost (Cllr David Longstaff was the only one who made any attempt at all to engage in discussion, though his arguments were far from convincing), and Cllr Richard Cornelius was called in urgently from his own surgery.

In the conversation of some of us with Cornelius he agreed that a meeting with the public is a good idea and even offered to organise and publicise it, and we agreed to liaise in the next few days as to whether to organise the meeting jointly (the council and Barnet Alliance), or how to go forward.

Sadly, none of the email that we sent to the leader of the council upon his request were replied, nor did he agree to meet Janet Leifer and myself when we tried to see him in his NLBP office to pursue the matter.

Thus, as time is pressing and the anxiety levels about the future amongst residents growing, BAPS had no choice but to organise the much needed meeting, and invite to the panel Cllr Richard Cornelius the council's leader or his deputy Cllr Daniel Thomas, Cllr Robert Rams, who is the Cabinet member in charge of the 'political leadership of One Barnet' along with Thomas, or Cllr Longstaff, a Cabinet member, who agreed in the above mentioned meeting to do his best to take part in a meeting with the public.

This was the reason I followed Dan Thomas out of the court room. Although I knew the email invitations to the panel speakers had been sent, I wanted to take this opportunity to invite him and to tell him how much we, Barnet residents, really want him or Cornelius and the other Cabinet members to join us on the 8^th of November at the Greek Cypriot Centre, and how much it is important for THEM to accept our invitation if they want to be re-elected. I spoke frankly with Cllr Thomas and told him what I told his leader a few weeks earlier, that the perception among residents is that they do not lead the council, do not make policy decisions, but rather are being led by the nose by the now departing chief executive Nick Walkley and his group of highly paid, vested interested consultants and senior management, against the better of their senses and residents' interests. I shared with him what he must know already, the notion of deep mistrust the public in Barnet feels towards the current administration, and offered the 8^th November public meeting as an opportunity for them to show residents that they care and to engage in a much needed, long overdue, genuine discussion about our future. I sincerely hope Cornelius, Thomas and Rams will accept our invitation.

By the way, this coming Saturday, 13 October, at 11 am, we are going to meet with Mill Hill councillors Suri Khatri and John Hart in Mill Hill library. All Mill Hill residents are welcome to join us. Before and after the meeting we will talk with residents and collect signatures on the said petition in Mill Hill Broadway, outside Barclays Bank (from 10 am).

And last point of comment on Roger's blog from 10 October: I am not BAPS 'leader', I am just the coordinator of the organisation. This is because BAPS is a direct democracy non-hierarchical organisation, where every resident and council staff member can become active according to his or her ability and not according to any other measure. We operate with some elected officers and many members taking part in subcommittees and actions. Those of our activists who are better known, are simply those who speak up and commit more of their time and skills to the campaign.

Barnet Alliance for Public Services is a good organisation, but it is merely a vehicle for Barnet residents to voice their views on our local issues, make a stand and take action for change.

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Tirza Waisal is the coordinator of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services. Guest blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye

The lazyness of the Leadership of Barnet Council

I am truly disgusted by some of the things I've heard this week. I have been corresponding with the Deputy Leader of Barnet Council regarding the One Barnet program. In his latest response he said 

"I have a feeling based on past experience that this conversation could go on and on with you making all sorts of assumptions based on your interpretations of my responses, claiming you're baffled and confused when actually what I'm saying is quite clear. So I'll end my part of this dialogue now with the above example as my last attempt to explain how I believe it is easy to see that BAPS and the administration do not agree. "

Councillor Thomas was simply asked to state whether he agreed with sentiments expressed on another blog. Rather than give a sensible answer, he used all manner of silly ploys to avoid answering. That is bad enough, but the sheer intellectual laziness of the man is incredible. It is plain to every soul on the planet that BAPS and the Barnet Tory leadership do not agree with each other. If they did, BAPS would not exist.





Councillor Thomas does not seem capable of understanding that I was seeking a justification from him for the rejection of the request from BAPS to enter discussions with the Association for Public Service Excellence, with a view to assessing whether an in house solution may be cheaper and less risky than outsourcing. It seems that for whatever reason, this is beyond the wit of Councillor Thomas.

Barnet Council has never sought to compare the costs and risks of an in house solution vs Outsourcing. As a result, no one knows if they are being taken for a ride. Councillor Thomas seems to not understand that he can't say he's getting value for money, if he hasn't done the due diligence.

Neither Thomas not his boss, Richard Cornelius even bothered to attend the APSE briefings to discuss the matter. Why? I don't know, but the intellectual laziness of Cllr Thomas reply gives us a clue, doesn't it.

Open Letter to all 63 Councillors in the London Borough of Barnet

Dear Councillors,

It must be a challenging task to make decisions on behalf of all the residents in theLondon Borough of Barnet. These decisions involve so many areas of our lives – education, social care, health, housing, the environment. It must be even more difficult at a time of austerity when you are forced to make such difficult decisions about how to spend our money wisely and to the benefit of all of us. On 29 November 2010 those of you who were members of the Cabinet approved the programme sponsored by the Chief Executive, the One Barnet programme of privatisation, which will award two contracts worth more than one billion pounds to private companies for a period of 10 years. In November 2012 all of you will be asked to approve this programme of privatisation. What a heavy burden of responsibility it must be to make such a huge financial commitment on our behalf.

It is inevitable that residents will assume all of you are equally responsible for decisions made regarding the One Barnet programme of privatisation, and will hold you all accountable for its impact on their lives, its cost and its success or failure. Experts in local government and on the impact of privatising services, as well as residents and council employees, have voiced concerns, but there seems to be a great reluctance on the part of representatives of Barnet Council to discuss or reveal details about the One Barnet programme of privatisation, despite residents, Unison and the Association of Public Services Excellence inviting them to attend discussions on the implementation of this programme. Have all of you been given the information needed to understand the impact of the privatization plan? Have all of you had enough time to debate the issues and difficulties in effective implementation of this plan? When a new policy is implemented, there is always the risk of something going wrong and, with the amount of money being committed to the One Barnet
programme of privatisation, any failure could have a huge impact both on Council finances and on services. Is there a Plan B if the One Barnet programme of privatisation is found to be unfit for purpose? If, as part of the privatisation programme, 70% of council employees become employees of a commercial company, how many staff will the Council retain to help put things right if or when something goes wrong?

When we elected you, we put our trust in you to make wise decisions on our behalf, using our money, but  we did not give you the right to introduce new policies without consulting us. As you weigh up the pros and cons of committing us to the One Barnet programme of privatisation, with all its financial and legal implications we implore you to act in the best interests of all of us, residents and council employees alike.

We, as a group of residents, voters and taxpayers, are not satisfied with the proposed privatisation of services, as we believe the quality of our services will diminish. Ask yourselves this question: you will no doubt put the interests of the residents you represent first, but will a private company be concerned about our best interests as much as the interests of their shareholders and making a healthy profit?

Yours sincerely,
Barnet Alliance for Public Services
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The Barnet Alliance for Public Services meets on a Wednesday evening at the Greek Cypriot Centre in Brittania Road, North Finchley at 7pm. All are welcome and the alliance is not associated with any political party, it is an organisation with the sole aim of improving the quality of public services in The London Borough of Barnet. The Barnet Eye supports the aims and objectives of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services.

This email was sent to all 63 Councillors of Barnet Council

A Tale of Two Barnets - Don't forget to watch ITV Tonight program at 7.30pm

Just a quick reminder that footage from A Tale of Two Barnets will appear in the ITV Tonight program at 7.30pm. The title of the program is how much is your council charging you?

I see that the Leader of the Council, Richard Cornelius has told the Barnet Press that "The questions were quite general and had been taken out of context" in an article today.


http://www.edgware-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=10613&headline=Filmmakers%20clash%20with%20council%20leader

I have discussed this accusation at length with the director of the film, Charles Honderick. Charles is quite affronted that Richard Cornelius could make such a comment, without seeing the film. Richard Cornelius was provided with the questions in advance. He had a press officer to mind him throughout the interview and Charles turned off the camera when he asked him questions which were not on the list. He was interviewed before most of the film was edited and the most interesting and relevant things he said were used. His interview lasted approx 8 minutes and about a minute of his talking was used.

The subjects Charles chose to use were as follows :-

RC talking about the statue La Deliverance at the start of the film.

RC saying Barnet is a green Borough and a pleasant place to live at the start of the film

RC saying that he hopes commuters with big fat pay checks will spend them in the local High Streets in the section on local high streets.

RC saying that the elderly are the top priority of the council in the section on the elderly

RC talking musing on what he does as leader at the end of the film, in the middle of a photo montage section

RC talking about his aspirations at the end of the film.

Of the six clips used, only two are actually interspersed with other people speaking.

Whilst I personally am completely mysified as to why Richard Cornelius is so upset, after a lengthy discussion with Charles, we decided that the only way to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to see the exact context of his statements is to post the whole, unedited interview. I'll let you draw whatever conclusions you like. I just ask one question. Do you think Councillor Cornelius should have taken up my offer to see a copy before the screening, if he was so worried? He never even responded
I like Richard Cornelius. I don't think he's covered himself in glory by trying to pretend he's been hard done by. Here is the whole interview




And here are the next forthcoming community viewings, where you can decide whether Charles edited the film unfairly (staged by Barnet Alliance for Public Services)


Tuesday 27th March - 7-9 pm,
St. John's Church, Somerset / Mowbray Roads,
New Barnet,
EN5 1R

Wednesday 28 March - 7 pm
Greek Cypriot Community Centre
2 Britannia Road, North Finchley,
London,
N12 9RU  ‎
Tuesday 3rd April - 7:30 pm
Larches House,
1 Rectory Lane,
Edgware,
Middlesex,
HA8 7LF

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The Wilson Room
The House of Commons
London,
SW1A 2TT

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Rev Adrian Benjamin - A very stupid man indeed

The Ham & High has covered the story of how Rev Adrian Benjamin "disposed" of the Barnet Alliance for Comminty Services banner.

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/hampstead_archdeacon_called_in_over_row_with_minister_1_1009722

To quote the article :-

Rev Benjamin, chairman of the event’s organising committee, said: “If someone came in with explosives then it would have been me who was responsible for disposing of it and as far as I’m concerned it’s as predacious as a bomb.’’ He referred to Mr Silverman as ‘‘a rogue, a rogue.”

As Benjamin is clearly a little bit dim, lets explain to him the difference between a bomb and a community banner.

A bomb is something which :-

a) You cannot simply ignore if you don't like it

b) Has the potential to kill, injure and maim people

c) Is constructed solely with the intention of damaging people and property

The Barnet Alliance for Community Services banner is :-

a) Something you can ignore, with no risk to your person or property

b) Has no asscociated risk to life, limb or property

c) Is constructed solely to prevent political decisions which will put the safety of the elderly, the young and the infirm at risk

I would suggest that if Benjamin is too stupid to be able to work this out, he's probably about as much good at being a priest as the BAPS banner would be if you wanted to use it to blow up the East Barnet Festival.

As for Benjamins comment that Julian Silverman is a Rogue, let me just say this. If he thinks that it is OK to abuse an OAP who gives up his time for free to try and save people from the effects of cuts to public services, he is a disgrace to the office he holds. He should be sacked. I personally will be writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury and requesting his dismissal. I know Julian and he cares passionately about his community. I am sickened that a supposed holder of a clerical office could say such a thing.

I had thought Councillor Robert Rams was the biggest twat in Barnet. It seems like someone is set on stealing his crown.

Nomura Banker attacks the Barnet Alliance for Public Service Leaflet - BAPS response

The Barnet Alliance for Public Services received an Email from a Nomura email account this evening. Nomura is a Japanese Investment Bank. The full text is available on the Barnet Future Shape website :-



http://barnetfutureshape.blogspot.com/2011/01/nomura-banker-attacks-barnet-campaign.html


The email criticises the fiscal policies of the last Labour Government (without acknowledging the role of Bankers in creating the crisis). It attacked the campaign for not being able to create wealth ???? It stated that the Barnet Council cuts will make no difference to anyone. It stated that University is an excuse to "Drink Cider and blackcurrent for thee years and then go backpacking around Thailand at someone elses expense". It ended up by claiming that there was a likelihood of violence on the march on the 30th January.


I personally found the email disgusting. Everyone is entitled to express their views, but to do so in such an abusive way, was for me beyond the pale. It is the policy to put such things on the Future Shape blog without comment. Let people make their own minds up.


This is the blog where I give my opinion. Unlike many people, I don't have a down on Bankers. Banking has helped build prosperity in the UK. London would collapse without the industry, that is why I supported the bale out. What I don't support is the ignorance and arrogance shown by certain members of the industry. At a time when the industry should be pulling out all the stops to improve it's image, the last thing it needs is people like Colin Hewitt attacking people who have a genuine concern for public services. Mr Hewitt may believe that the Council has no effect on peoples lives, but then he clearly isn't Elderly, Disabled, a Disadvantaged Young person, someone with a Brain Injury or someone who relies on Meals on Wheels.


I took the trouble to politely write to Mr Hewitt to explain why I felt he was out of order in sending his email and using the tone and language that he did. Here is my reply to him, in full :-


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr Hewitt,

Thank you for your response to the Our Barnet Newspaper.

I note with interest that you work for a financial institution. When you refer to the leaflet having a poor grasp on reality, are you aware that the current financial problems faced by the UK are a direct result of poor decisions made within the banking industry, leading to a massive bail out? Whilst you state that this was the result of "irresponsible government", are you aware that the problems were caused mainly by lax regulation, which is a policy advocated by all senior members of the current Conservative administration?

As to your comments regarding the BAPS campaign not being "in a position to generate revenues", the Alliance is made up of private individuals such as myself. I run a successful company, employ nine people and have helped launch several award winning artists who have brought millions of pounds of revenue into the UK PLC. I trust that you actually didn't read the newspaper properly, therefore failed to spot this. All very well, but you should really check your facts before launching a tirade of insults.

You are also unaware of the situation regarding the finances of Barnet Council. The proposed cuts amount to £43 million. Are you aware that Barnet Council has suffered the following financial crises as a result of mismanagement by the local Conservative administration, losing far more than this. You can find full details of these by following this link

http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/01/proper-newspaper-for-our-barnet.html

Briefly though

Failed Icelandic Investments - £27.4 Million
Overspend on Aerodrome Road bridge project - £11 Million
Legal duspute with Catalyst for contract for care Homes £8 million

The Council has also earmarked millions for the Onebarnet/ easycouncil/ Future Shape project. This has employed consultants and cost millions thus far, producing no savings in three years. Given Barnet Councils record of managing contractors, this is likely to be yet another black hole. The Alliance is committed to reducing waste on such schemes.

I am rather diappointed by the abusive tone of your comments regarding students. Surely you accept that the vast majority of the highest wage earners in the UK attended University. Whilst I'm sure many of them enjoyed the odd drink, they also went on to earn significant amounts of money and to pay taxes in copious quantities. As someone who runs a music studio, I would also take the opportunity to inform you that the market for Rap music is a multi billion £ industry. Whilst you may be unaware of the important contribution made by the music industry to the UK economy, I would suggest that a bit of research would be order of the day before making such comments.

As to your comments about the BAPS march breaking windows. May I draw your attention to the fact that the organisers of the event have organised many protests and demonstrations all of which have been entirely peaceful. I myself helped organise a rally at Montrose Park, to protest against the closure of Edgware general hospital. This was attended by people from accross the politcal spectrum and was addressed by the then Tory MP's Sir John Gorst and Sir Rhodes Boyson. Other marches include the one supporting residents of Sheltered Housing who are losing their wardens.

We are all entitled to our own views, but I personally would take a dim view of one of my employees using company time and resources to send abusive emails such as you are offering from your Nomura email account

Regards

Roger Tichborne

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I don't mind if someone thinks some aspect of our campaign is unrealistic, they have every right to say so. I don't believe they have the right to do so in abusive terms and to insult people who have a genuine interest in the well being of the London Borough of Barnet. When that person is a director of a large investment bank, I believe it becomes a matter of public interest.