Consultation Complacency in Barnet

Barnet Council have a very expensive website bolt on called Consultation Hub which is run by a company called Delib. On the website there are a number of consultations including one for the Council's Street Trading Policy. Because of the way I am, I like to read documents upon which my opinion is being canvassed - how else can someone give their opinion? Well three weeks ago I wanted to read the draft street trading policy so clicked on the link and low and behold I was presented with the Council's draft policy on film classification. Being the polite public minded citizen I emailed the address on the website to inform them of the faulty link and asking for them to rectify the fault. No acknowledgement or response to my email. This Tuesday, more than two weeks after the first email, I tried again and the link was still wrong so I emailed again. Again, no acknowledgement or response. Yesterday morning I looked again and still the wrong link is in place so I rang them and spoke to a lady who said she would "inform a manager". This evening it is still giving a link to the film classification policy instead of street trading.

To be honest I know not many people care what will become the council's street trading policy but if the council are going to consult then please do it properly.

If three separate contacts with the council can't get them to link it to the right document then frankly that suggests that the council don't give a sh*t about what people think - which probably is the case.

Your Chance to Inspect Barnet's Accounts

Once a year Barnet residents get a chance to inspect the Council's accounts. Now I would suggest people don't get their hopes up too much. Last year the Council placed as many obstacles as possible in the way of a few residents carrying out their legal right to inspect how Barnet spends OUR money. Notice has been published today in the Barnet Press that residents can inspect the accounts between Monday 3 June and Friday 28 June. You cannot just turn up, you have to book an appointment and I suggest you send details of what you want to inspect in advance. To book your appointment you have to send your request to the following email address: inspectionofaccounts@barnet.gov.uk. I am sure you may see some of the Barnet Bloggers in attendance. You will also be able to ask questions of the external auditor Paul Hughes of Grant Thornton on Monday 1st July. Again you have to book an appointment in advance with Mr Hughes. His email address is paul.hughes@uk.gt.com

Please see the details of what you can ask and how on the Council's website.

Sandbanks Hotel time again - £17,000 for a conference

Oh dear. It comes around every year. The time when the poor old head teachers of Barnet need to get away and do their professional development by the seaside. Barnet have just signed off authorisation for the annual conference at the Sandbanks Hotel, Poole, in October here. Barnet Council says that the £17,000 cost of this residential conference is funded by the schools who pay for places but frankly, given the cuts that are being made currently and the news today that Danegrove School is struggling to raise money to pay for essential play equipment, it does seem rather profligate. Lots of private business stopped resident conferences years ago, hosting these types of events closer to home and avoiding the cost of overnight accommodation. There are plenty of venues in North London with day delegate rates of around £50-£55 per person and that would be keeping money in the local economy. In a time of austerity is it right to spend so much on a conference? I don't think so.

Mr Cornelius, where is your moral compass?

Set out below is an open letter to Richard Cornelius. Why is it that, yet again in Barnet, it is members of the public who have to set the moral compass for those in leadership positions. Failing to act swiftly tells us a great deal about the people who are supposed to run Barnet on our behalf.

Dear Mr Cornelius

On Friday 3 May Councillor Brian Coleman pleaded guilty to the charge of common assault by beating of Helen Michael, in the High Road in North Finchley. Evidence from CCTV was shown in court and proved incontrovertibly that this incident was nothing less than an utterly indefensible act of aggression. It resulted from Councillor Coleman being caught parking in a loading bay, trying to evade the hugely controversial parking payment scheme he had imposed on residents in this borough.

Despite the fact that he has now been convicted of a criminal act of assault, Barnet Council has refused to comment, absurdly claiming that this is unnecessary as the attack did not take place while the Councillor was on council business.

Indeed local Tory members, including leader Richard Cornelius, openly continued to support their fellow member after he was charged, and were privately informing others that the story of the assault was false. Councillor Coleman was suspended from the party only after intervention from Conservative Central Office. Since the conviction, local Conservatives have issued no statement.

By his own actions Councillor Coleman has shown himself to be unfit for public office: such bullying behaviour, dishonesty and hypocrisy are not acceptable in an elected representative of the community. We demand therefore that he stand down from his seat in Totteridge, and that the Conservative Party expel him from membership.

We call on Richard Cornelius, as leader of Barnet Council, and on behalf of the Conservative Party in this borough, to apologise to Ms Michael, and to dissociate himself and his colleagues from this appalling incident. To remain silent is not an option: to remain silent is to condone an act of violence against a woman, and this was and must always be absolutely unacceptable.

Signed:

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Vicki Morris

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Judicial Review - Maria Nash is granted legal aid for her appeal

Great news today is that Maria Nash has been granted legal aid to fund her appeal of the Judicial Review. If this were a frivolous case it would never have got out of the starting blocks but clearly legal aid have seen the merits of this case and the judgement as a good enough reason not only to fund the case itself but now to fund the appeal.

On Monday Richard Cornelius asked Maria Nash not to appeal the decision. Maybe that's because there is a good chance the ruling will be overturned. Time will tell.

Barnet Judicial Review - is this justice?

Yesterday, the judgement on the Maria Nash's judicial review was published. I would urge as many people as possible to read this judgement because it illustrates just how unfair the justice system can be at times.

The judge, Lord Justice Underhill is critical of Barnet and is quite clear that they failed to consult with residents. However, the law believes that ordinary residents without a law degree, need to do things like study the Official Journal of the European Union  (OJEU) with great rigour, to read between the lines on council papers, even when they are not explicit and to seek legal redress at the earliest possible opportunity even though they don't know what they are objecting to.

Barnet failed miserably to consult - and in  the judges words;

"Although I have, out of deference to the attention given to it in the evidence, and to some extent also at the hearing, summarised the nature of the consultation about the 2010/11 and 2011/12 budgets, there is no real dispute that it did not constitute consultation about outsourcing as such.  “Alternative service provision” was mentioned in the materials supplied, at least for the latter year; but no relevant information was supplied, and the exercises were plainly not designed to elicit views about it".   He went on to say:

"It is clear that in the present case the Council did not make any attempt to consult on the specific question of whether the functions and services covered by the NSCSO and DRS contracts should be outsourced", and in summary he said:


"It follows that if the application for judicial review had been made in time I would have held that the Council had not complied with its obligations under section 3 (2) of the 1999 Act in respect of the decisions taken in 2010/11 to outsource the performance of its functions and services, covered by the proposed NSCSO and DRS contracts".  

BUT...   the case is out of time so tough luck!


I believe it was Lord Hailsham who coined the phrase "elective dictatorship" and that is exactly what we have in Barnet, a weak group that fails to represent the broad views of the residents but is able to drive through whatever policies it wants aided by the weaknesses of the democratic system we have in place. If this judgement stands it will send a green light to Barnet to be even more secretive about what they are doing, to completely ignore meaningful consultions, to ignore the broad range of views of the 356,000 residents and to go ahead with whatever it wants, because it can. 

I understand that Maria Nash is going to appeal and I hope for everyone's sake she is successful.

The One Barnet Consultant's bill hits £6.3 million

In February our dear friends Agilisys, who are helping Barnet Council implement One Barnet  billed a rather modest £55,244.55. At the time I wondered if we had seen the end of their huge six figure bills. Today Barnet have published (early) the supplier payments for March and surprise, surprise Agilisys have come back with force, billing the grand sum of £460,228.20 for the month, Interestingly, only one invoice for £990 is allocated to the One Barnet programme. Perhaps that is how certain councillors can get away with saying One Barnet hasn't cost that much but it fools no one.

In the financial year 2012-13 Barnet Council have paid Agilisys £3,513,760.99 - yes £3.5 million in one year to one firm of consultants and it brings the total paid to Agilisys to £6,324,366.68 since the start of the One Barnet implementation contract.

Back in July 2012 I raised the issue of Agilisys costs with Barnet’s external auditors, Grant Thornton. This included:

That councillors had been led to believe this contract was going to cost around £2 million and that it looked like on present spending it was going to cost £6 million. As such, were officers legally allowed to exceed this budget by so much without getting further approval for the spending by Councillors and did this make that spending ultra vires.

On the first point the auditor said, 

“With regard to your point on the level of spend, it is clear that the £2 million figure is an indicative one.  The Council's 2010/11 budget estimates costs of setting up the programme and projects at £3 million. The spend to date on the contract is approaching £4 million. Although ongoing spend and value for money is monitored by the Council's Corporate Directors' Group, there is nothing in the Council's constitution that requires the reporting back to members for this contract on the basis that there is no maximum contract value set. From the review of working papers, I am satisfied that there is no need for me to take formal legal advice as to the legality of the £4 million contract as I have not seen evidence that the council has acted outside of its powers. Based on these findings, I have concluded that the Council has followed its own rules in terms of the nature and level of spend under this contract and that there is no legality issue that would impact on my ability to certify the 2011/12 audit closed.”

 

The Auditor added as a footnote,

“I have discussed your second point around the governance of the level of spend on the contract and the Council agrees that it would be good practice to take an update report to the Cabinet Resources Committee. The Council is drafting this report which will update members on the level of spend to date, revised projections for level of spend over the three year period of the contract, value for money considerations (including an update on improved terms negotiated by the Council this year) and plans for the procurement of further support when the current contract ends next year. The report is planned to go to Cabinet Resources Committee at the end of September.”

 

Well Mr Hughes, was that September 2012 or September 2013 because as far as I can see no report on this matter has as yet been sent to the Cabinet Resources Committee.   12 months on and we have gone way past the £6 million mark yet not one councillor has formally raised the issue of such a massive overspend. 

 

Personally I think that this is nothing short of a scandal. How a £2 million contract can hit £6.3 million and no one, other than members of the public, asks any questions, is beyond me.