Standing up for common sense in New Barnet
Tuesday 17 June 2014
Chaos in Barnet - Did outsourcing legal services lead to this mess?
At the start of last night's Assets Regeneration and Growth Committee Andrew Travers, the Barnet CEO, announced that, based on legal advice, all decisions made by committees since the election are not legal. This is because there is a dispute as to the proportionality of committees. Although Richard Cornelius strenuously denied this was a Conservative ploy one has to wonder who else would have raised this challenge. Geof Cooke asked whether legal advice had been taken before the council meeting and if not why not. Barnet outsourced its legal services to London Borough of Harrow a couple of years ago and one has to wonder if this was the best of decisions given that we now face another four weeks on inactivity before the next full council meeting can resolve the issue. I hope that a full investigation is undertaken to make sure the person or organisation responsible for the duff advice get held to account. It cannot be allowed to pass without holding someone to account.
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Given that the councillors in Colindale are not yet known - how could the proportionality be gotten right before that election anyway? Belgium went without government for over a year. Barnet might well be better off without this lot for a couple of months.
ReplyDeleteDon't we believe in sharing services where that saves resources (you can borrow my vacuum cleaner whenever you want)? The problem surely is incompetence and an arrogant sense of being above the law (until it's too late - see John Hart's "witness" signature on blank documents).
Poppy