Barnet Council One Barnet Document states that In House Staff provide better value for money !

There is an interesting report on the council website. Barnet have spent a kings ransom on legal fees with Trowers and Hamlins LLP to support the One Barnet program. It was revealed yesterday that they've also had two solicitors in Barnets legal team working on the project. They are now creating a dedicated post of "One Barnet Legal Officer" to oversee the work performed by Trowers and Hamlins
http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s4996/1738%20-%20Creation%20of%20Solicitor%20Post%20for%20Fixed%20Term.pdf

Perhaps the biggest irony for a post created to outsource the council, is the admission that in house resources are cheaper. In section 5.3 is says

Performance and Value for Money:  the use of its own Legal staff to provide legal advice and assistance to its One Barnet Programme provides the council with value for money. 

Need I say more. The report carries on with some other rather interesting information.



BACKGROUND INFORMATION

8.1 In 2009, external lawyers, Trowers and Hamlins, were appointed as the Council’s legal advisors to the One Barnet Programme.  However, from the outset, it was identified that a level of internal legal resource would be required to support the legal work being carried out by Trowers and Hamlins. 

8.2 Two permanent members of staff from the Legal Service are, presently, ‘seconded’ to the One Barnet Programme, whilst further, internal, legal support is being provided by an ‘As and When’ member of staff. 

8.3 The use of internal legal resources to support the One Barnet Programme provides good value for money.   

8.4 The Development and Regulatory Service and the New Support Customer Services  Organisation One Barnet Programme projects are, presently, in dialogue and are due to go live in April/May 2013.  The current level of internal legal support for the One Barnet programme will, therefore, be required in the period close to when   these two projects go live.  Consequently, the fixed term post is being created to 
continue until 31 March 2013.

8.5 As it is anticipated that the Council’s Legal Service will transfer to the London Borough of Harrow with effect from July 2012, or such later date if appropriate, to become a shared legal service with the London Borough of Harrow, the new post and post-holder would transfer to the London Borough of Harrow  if the service transfer takes place on July 2012 or such later date at which the fixed term post is 
still continuing.

Helen Michael Police investigation - Head of Barnet legal claims Brunswick Park leaflet legal

Dear Mr. Tichborne,

There were reasonable grounds for the Returning Officer to conclude that the poster which was referred to the Police was in breach of election law. There were no grounds for concluding that the “Brunswick Park Ward” leaflet was in breach of election law or any law.

I have already referred to the responsibilities of the Returning Officer in circumstances where he believes that election law regarding the publication of election material has been contravened. The Council has no locus in this matter and would not pursue “a case” in any circumstances. The investigation is properly and exclusively in the hands of the Police.

The action taken by the Returning Officer was entirely consistent with the responsibilities I have referred to. If I had been Returning Officer, I would have taken the same action. The other matters you refer to are irrelevant. The Police will investigate and the investigation, including whatever ensues as consequence of that investigation, will be entirely without influence from the Returning Officer.

Yours sincerely,

Jeff Lustig
Director of Corporate Governance

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Today I received this response from Jeff Lustig, Head of Barnet Council corporate governance, in response to a question I asked concerning the Brunswick Park Conservatives leaflet.

I reviewed the response from Nick Walkley regarding the Brunswick Park breach on the Barnet Bugle website. It seems that careful reading is required.

http://www.barnetbugle.com/journal/2012/5/25/the-returning-officer-for-the-brunswick-park-by-election-req.html

The Returning Officer’s concerns with the leaflet related to the following statement.
“Following a successful campaign by your local Conservatives, parking will remain free at the Ward’s two car parks”No such decision had been published by the Council on this matter and, as that is the only decision which can be relevant for these purposes, the statement was incorrect. In that regard, he requested that no further leaflets were distributed, or otherwise published, incorporating this particular statement or any other which might convey or imply that the Council has confirmed a decision in relation to free parking at the car parks in the ward.
The concern was that a wrong perception may arise that the Council has assisted others with regard to publicity and, as such, acted contrary to the law regarding local authority publicity during the “purdah” period.

It appears from careful reading of the response that it is perfectly legal to publish a highly misleading leaflet, which is stuffed full of porkies. The only reason the council asked for the leaflet to be withdrawn was not because it contained porkies, but because those porkies put Barnet Council in a dodgy position.

So to summarise, you can tell whatever porkies you like in an election leaflet, so long as they don't drop the council in it. If however you forget to put your name and address on or make any other minor breach of the law, they will immediately notify the police, no matter how ridiculous this may be.

At least we know what Mr Lustig sees the role of corporate governance to be. Thanks to Mr Lustig for clarifying the situation

The Barnet Council Helen Michael Scandal - Jeff Lustig responds to the Barnet Eye

Dear Mr. Tichborne,

I draw your attention to Section 27(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which provides that “the office of returning officer is a distinct office from that by virtue of which he becomes returning officer”. The meaning and effect of this provision is set out in the following extract from Electoral Commission Guidance:

“The duties of the (Acting) Returning Officer are separate from their duties as a local government officer. This follows from Section 27(1) of the RPA 1983, which has the effect of making the office of (Acting) Returning Officer totally distinct from the office by virtue of which they have become (Acting) Returning Officer.”

Accordingly, Local Authority Members cannot give instructions to the Returning Officer in connection with the performance of his duties and it would be improper for them to seek to do so.

One of the responsibilities of the Returning Officer is to maintain the integrity of the election. In fact, it is a performance standard set by the Electoral Commission. This means that the Returning Officer has to ensure that links have been developed with the local Police/single point of contact (SPOC) to enable any concerns around electoral malpractice to be referred. Accordingly, if it appears to the Returning Officer that election law regarding the publication of election material has been contravened, then he is required to pass the matter to the Police. Of course, the Returning Officer does not have exclusivity in terms of making such referrals. So, if a candidate, an elector or other member of the public believes that a contravention of election law has taken place, then they can equally refer the matter to the Police. The responsibility for undertaking any investigation into the alleged contravention rests with the Police.

Regarding the Brunswick Park Ward by-election leaflet, the issue was that information the local authority would not publish because it would contravene the code of recommended practice on local authority publicity was seemingly published by a political party. Whilst this was, of course, highly undesirable and the Returning Officer took immediate and successful action to have the further dissemination of the publication in question stopped, no contravention of either election or general law took place since the local authority had neither published nor facilitated the publication of this material.

If you have any doubt or require further clarification on the legal position as set out in this e-mail, you may wish to consult the Electoral Commission.

I am copying my e-mail to the Returning Officer.

Yours sincerely,

Jeff Lustig
Director of Corporate GovernanceLondon Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP

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I have published this email without comment.

Open letter to Jeff Lustig - Barnet Council legal team regarding conflict of interest

Dear Mr Lustig,

The Barnet Eye blog regularly receives free legal advice from some of the finest lawyers in the land, who are avid readers of the blog. As I am always keen to minimise the costs to the taxpayer, I feel that it is a matter of civic duty to pass this advice on to the council where appropriate. With respect to the issues of conflict of interest, recently exposed by the Barnet Bloggers in relation to

 

I have received advice that the council should consider the two precident setting case detailed below.

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RANDS v OLDROYD [ 1959 ] 1 QB 209
Where the Court specifically ruled on the interpretation of " contracts" , "proposed contracts" , " or any other matter " .
"Any other matter" meant what it says -- it is not to be interpreted narrowly , and not to be applied only to "contracts" or "proposed contracts" but can cover anything --

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What also might be useful , is the Test for Dishonesty , being
Rex v Ghosh [ 1982 ] QB 1053
But used in this case , May 2006 P14 of 22 Pages attached for your information. I attach this , [ but have extracted the Paragraph below for your convenience ] might be worth having as the YARDSTICK for Criminal Allegations --

The test or definition of dishonesty was set out in R v Ghosh [1982] QB 1053. 
Dishonesty describes the state of mind and not the conduct of the accused. 
The test is subjective but the standard of honesty to be applied is objective, the standard of reasonable and honest persons. One first applies the standard and then, having so done, one determines whether the accused must have realized that what was being done was, by those standards, dishonest.

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I hope this is of some use to the legal department at Barnet Council

 

Regards

Roger Tichborne

www.barneteye.blogspot.com

 

 

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Attached document

Test for Dishonesty r v Ghosh May 2006 p14 Of22p (1)

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I also copied Council Leader Richard Cornelius and CEO Nick Walkley. I rather hope they take the whole issue rather seriously.

Barnet Council Exclusive : Expert Legal Advice on One Barnet - Are Nick Walkley and Councillor Richard Cornelius polishing their Bargepoles ?

Today I received a very odd email from the head of legal at Barnet Council. As many of you know, this is Mr Jeff Lustig. To spare Jeff any embarrassment, I won't produce the whole email, but he said one very important thing in it.

Any specific proposal recommending a change from direct service provision to a service being delivered by the local authority through another provider, will require approval by the Executive. The accompanying report would set out the relevant governance issues, including those relating to any potential conflicts of interest, for appropriate consideration.

Now this is absolutely key to the OneBarnet/FutureShape project. Earlier this week Dr Julia Hines laid out exactly what sort of "conflicts of interest" may occur. Given what Julia has described with Capita and her conversation with Martin Cowie, it is clear that the whole area is a minefield. In response to Jeff's email, I have asked for a copy of these reports under the freedom of information act. This blog is lucky enough to have the support of a couple of lawyers, who have on many occasions given me a steer on what the key points are. Once these reports turn up, I will yet again be pushing my friendship to the limit and taking advantage of my friends good nature.

I also have in my possession some rather interesting legal analysis of the OneBarnet project. This has been leaked to me by a source which I cannot disclose. It is in paper form so as to be untraceable electronically. Now due to the fact that I have a life and I don't have time until the weekend to scan the whole document, here is the front page. Let me tell you what we can conclude from this document. We can conclude that the One Barnet program has a very questionable basis for continuing. After three years of work by armies of highly paid consultants, the whole thing is still in a state we can best describe as questionable.

Let me quote just one sentence from section 5.8 "There is no definition of how much scope there is to do third part work in percentage terms, suffice to say that the majority of work would be expected to be undertaken for the authorities which participate in the company". This is part of the analysis of service delivery.

Or how about this extract from section 3.9 "Local Authority decisions, particularly those which relate to novel or innovative project, or the creation of an external entity, are particularly vulnerable to scrutiny, to determine whether or not there has been compliance with the public law framework. Auditors may need to be consulted on proposals at an appropriate juncture". What does this mean in plain English. My legal friends explained "It means that it is likely to be extremely expensive to oversee and may be extremely prone to legal challenges, resulting in huge and unanticipated costs.

I have stacks of notes on this. These are just two of the more easy to understand (for us thickies) bits. Now my friend, Jeff Lustig doubtless understands the whole thing. What is he telling Barnet CEO Nick Walkley (currently mysteriously on leave) and Council Leader Richard Cornelius? Well if he's telling them what my friends tell me, then they should be polishing their bargepoles for this expensive can of worms. They damn well should be.

Barnet Council - Metpro Rapid Response scandal - Email from Metpro director to local resident

The following email was sent to a local resident who left a comment on the Metpro Rapid Response website following the ill fated recent council meeting. I'd suggest that Mr Jeff Lustig, Borough Soliciitor and Mr Nick Walkley, CEO read it - as well as the Councillors who are meant to oversee the executive.

Dear Mr Clayman, I am writing in response to your enquiry posted on our website regarding the events in Hendon Town Hall last Tuesday.

 

We have provided our services to Barnet Council since March 2006; we have worked extensively for all areas of the council including public offices and receptions, Children’s Service, Council Hostels, and Libraries across the borough, contact centres and the Town Hall. In this time we have successfully provided a flawless 100% safety record to both staff and public with no allegations of misconduct against any of our Officers.

 

As a matter of course we normally provide 4 officers to the Town Hall, however due to recent events in other Boroughs of London where town halls were over run and damaged by protesters it was decided to supplement our officers with a further 3 from our emergency response section of our company.

I believe these are the ones you refer to in your complaint?

 

Firstly I would like to point out that the Officers in question were wearing approved personal protective equipment which is required as part of their job role and is an insurance requirement. Not to mention that as with the nature of their job their physical fitness is a requirement. The Response Officers dealing with the events in the Town Hall were equipped with state of the art body worn surveillance equipment recording both video and audio. At all times the Officers were supervised by the Police to ensure that they operated within the Law and guidelines laid out by the Council.

 

After revue of the recordings it is clear the members of the public were requested to comply with instructions politely and using the correct address such as Sir or Madam, There is an abundance of footage to show the Officers being shouted at sworn at and one was even hit repeatedly with a rolled up newspaper and was ignored when he requested that the gentleman stop.

 

My finding is this, I feel there is resentment by certain members of the public that they were not permitted to do as they wanted and enter the main gallery despite the reason for this being explained many times. As a result they have taken to blaming Staff of this company even though we were acting according to the rules laid out by the client and Police prior to the event. The only complaint I can see is that you don’t agree with the issued uniform that we provide to our staff or that you are judging the character of the officers based on their physical appearance which in today’s day and age I must frown upon this type of prejudice. If you have a specific complaint of the Law being broken in any way I would be more than happy to investigate further, alternatively I would urge you to report it to your local Police station, however I’m sure that in the presence of so many Police Officers if the Law had been broken I trust they would have acted accordingly and arrested the staff member in question.

I Hope you find this satisfactory to your complaint and please feel free to contact me if it is not.

 

Kind Regards,

 

SO K Sharkey

Barnet Council : Metpro Rapid Response, Jeff Lustig and the war on truth

I am going to post two things here. Firstly, I'm going to post an email from Barnet Councils head of Legal, Jeff Lustig. I've highlighted a key passage in Red. I'm also re-posting some video evidence taken at the recent Council meeting where residents were denied access to the meeting.

You can decide for yourself whether Mr Lustig's statement is an accurate representation of what happened. Personally, I am rather disgusted.

Jeff Lustig Email
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From: Lustig, Jeff <jeff.lustig@barnet.gov.uk>
Date: 4 April 2011 11:29
Subject: Response to e-mail regarding the Council Meeting on 1 March 2011
To: adamlangleben

Cc: Leader <Leader@barnet.gov.uk>, "Moore, Cllr Alison Labour" <Cllr.Moore@barnet.gov.uk>, "Walkley, Nick" <Nicholas.Walkley@barnet.gov.uk> 

Dear Mr. Langleben,

The Chief Executive has asked me to respond to your e-mail. 

The Council will shortly be responding to your recent Freedom of Information requests but I note that the statutory period for response has not yet expired. Likewise, the Council will also shortly be responding to all of the further issues you have raised in your latest e-mail.

I do want to clarify that the security arrangements at the Town Hall on the night of the Council budget meeting were arrived at through careful preparation and liaison between Council Officers and the Police. I was personally involved with and represented the Council in some of the preparatory discussions. The Police and the Council in turn had responsibility for different elements of the security arrangements. The security company’s staff provided some support for the arrangements. A number of Council Officers were involved in implementing the arrangements for which the Council had responsibility. Contrary to your assumption, the Mayor and the Leader of the Council were very directly involved in the Council budget meeting itself and were not, therefore, involved in overseeing the security arrangements. Likewise, the Chief Executive was present in the meeting for the most part and was not giving specific orders to the security company’s staff as has been claimed.

It is worth reiterating that, unlike some other London boroughs, the business of the meeting was completed without interruption, all members of the public who wanted to listen to the debate were accommodated, either in the public gallery or the overflow room with audio link, and there were no incidents of disorder or violence.

As indicated, we will be in further contact with you as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Jeff Lustig
Director of Corporate GovernanceLondon Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP

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2. Youtube footage of residents being denied access to the meeting by Metpro & the Police on the instruction of Barnet Council nosses
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One point I will make. Do the people discussing access with the police and the guy from Metpro sound or look as if they are "violent"? Do they look aggressive? Mr Lustig claims the meeting passed without violence, the implication was that keeping these people out was the reason. As one is a Barnet Council employeee and another is an ex councillor, I think this is highly insulting.

Mr Lustig also rather cleverly claims the following :-

Likewise, the Chief Executive was present in the meeting for the most part and was not giving specific orders to the security company’s staff as has been claimed.

If you read carefully, he uses the word "specific". This is a legal get out. If he told whoever was running security "I don't think you should let any more people in" this is not a specific order, but it's effect would be pretty clear. It is high time that Barnet Council, it's leader, it's CEO and it's legal department started telling the truth. It seems that the only way this will come out is with an Independent Public Enquiry. Mr Lustig's response makes it crystal clear that this is the only way that this awful mess can be cleared up and trust restored.

Oh and one other fact of interest, here's a few visitors to my blog today :-

British Broadcasting Corporation (132.185.240.124)
Houses Of Parliament (194.60.38.10)
Associated Newspapers Ltd (195.234.243.2)

(and yes, I've had a couple of telephone calls as have my fellow bloggers who carried the Press release)

Sadly because I'm on a free stats package, I can only see the detail on the last 500 hits, so I missed the really busy time when the press release was posted before lunch. It is clear that there is massive media interest in this story. I guess there will be even more when these media outlets see what Barnet are saying and what actually happened.

Councillor Register of Interests - Tories play fast and loose with the rules

Barnet Council Tories have shown a terrible arrogance towards the electorate who pay their wages. Not only have six of them refused to allow their details to be put online, evidence now reaches us that some of those that have, have been less than frank in their disclosure. Why is this important? Well this week the Barnet Eye detailed how Councillor Hugh Rayner had objected "On behalf of a neighbour"  against a planning application. On inspection of his register of interests, it was revealed that Hugh Rayner was himself a neighbour. Had he declared a prejudicial interest? Well if he had, it wasn't documented in the planning details.

The chair of the committee who will decide is Councillor Maureen Braun, who has herself played fast and loose with planning rules. A regular reader forwarded me some rather disturbing information regarding her disclosure (full details of all councillors disclosures are here - http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/council/listcouncillorinterests.asp)

Anyway, if you look at Braun's disclosure, she's signed the following declaration :-

As you can see she has signed that she agrees that she's broken the rules if she fails to disclose items which are required. Jeff Lustig, Borough Solicitor has countersigned it. This means he's responsible for making sure the details are correct.

In the section about property she completed it as follows:-

A Barnet Eye reader forwarded me the following document from the Land registry :-

Now one would expect the chair of the planning committee to know if she owns a house. Why on earth would she choose to withold disclosure? Whilst I doubt that there is any issue with this, it is a breach of the code.  Jeff Lustig must seek to get this rectified. ASAP and give naughty Maureen a slap on the wrists as an example to her colleagues. I would suggest that Lustig write to all councillors and use this as an example. My suggestion is that Braun be sacked as the chair of the planning committtee. If she can't get this level of paperwork right, she clearly isn't up to the job.

Making a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman

Many people have contacted me over the last few months about issues with Barnet Council.

My advice to anyone who feels they have been badly treated is to COMPLAIN.This is the only way that services are improved and officials held to account. Bad services is tolerated because we moan and groan and we do nothing about it. The whole process of how to complain is explained on the website of the local government ombudsman.

Here's a useful link to help you understand the process.


http://www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint/what-we-can-look-at/

Just remember this. Top officials who are paid by the Council, such as CEO Nick Walkley and legal boss Jeff Lustig are public servants. We all hope that they do a good job. The more we tell them what's wrong with the Council, the better a job they can do rectifying it. If no one tells them it's broken, we can't expect them to mend it, can we? Now if you complain to them about a problem and they don't deal with it, that is where the Local Government Ombudsman comes in. Whilst you may not always get the result you want from the Ombudsman, it does focus the minds of Council Officials on doing the job properly and that can only be a good thing, can't it? You can also send emails to your councillors about problems. Just follow this link, click on there name. They have to respond to you in a polite and civil manner, even when they disagree with you.


http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/council/listcouncillorname.asp?intSubSectionID=13&intSectionID=9

I'd much rather that Barnet Council did everything perfectly. Then this blog would be about music and football. Till that day arrives, this blog and a few other notable Barnet blogs will do everything we can to help the Council Tax Payer of Barnet receive the service they deserve from the people we pay huge amounts of tax to. Just remember, you are the boss. You elect their Political Masters and you pay their wages. These processes are there for that reason.