Barnet Council has entered into a strategic partnership with MySociety, the people who run a number of websites including FixMyStreet.com, TheyWorkForUs.com and PledgeBank.com. The council wants to extend these website for the specific use of Barnet to help improve tranparency. So far so good, something we all want to achieve. What surprises Mr Reasonable is the cost commitments. In the
delegated powers report it says that there is a call off contract to the value of £140,000. Now that may not sound like much but given that on the news this evening the reports of the 10 road crossing patrol staff being cut to save £117,000 sets it into some context. Some of the cost is coming from grants, but the costs of the new Barnet Pledgebank website and the petitons website are coming out of council budgets. There still seems to be a culture of spending money on gimmicks while frontline service are being cuts and frankly that offends me!
... and here is something to cheer us all up: the pledgebank project is being brought to us by the same 'team' who created the ludicrous 'Ideas Barnet' website, which purported to be for residents' to contribute to the budget consultation but was later admitted to be planted with material. Why should we pay for such spin when vital services are being cut? It is truly shameful.
ReplyDeleteIt makes you want to weep.
ReplyDeleteHello, Mr R. Was the lollipop cut on TV? Radio? Would be good to publish a link...
ReplyDeleteEven if these schemes are being funded or part funded from grants, it is still taxpayers money that is being spent. Whether it comes from the central pot or the local pot, it is just a complete and utter waste of money. As you say, £140,000 doesn’t sound like a huge amount in the context of the council’s total budget, but if every council in the country is blowing that sort of money, then suddenly we are talking serious amounts of dosh.
ReplyDeleteVicki it was on London News luncttime and tea time. Here is the link to the evening news on iplayer and the feature on road crossing is 15:31 into the broadcast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xlt85/BBC_London_News_20_01_2011/ It talk briefly about Herne Hill but then goes on to feature Barnet and was filmed outside Dollis Junior School. It specifically mentions the £117,000 cut.
ReplyDeleteDCMD you are right. Either way it is taxpayers money. It makes me mad that we are constantly lectured about the need to make savings but money is still being spent unnecessarily. I submitted a pledge which was a genuine, and I thought, practical proposal to have an independent panel to sit monthly and review spending on items over £10,000. I was happy to give up half a day of my time each month for free to help weed out exactly these types of proposal and at least ask questions as to why it is being spent. I have never had a response and it certainly hasn't made it onto the new bespoke Barnet Pledgebank website. What is even more irritating is that there is a standard Pledgebank website which Barnet could have encouraged us all to use which is absolutely free and wouldn't have cost the council a penny. That is what really gets my goat!
ReplyDeleteThanks, John. I'll have a look and try to get it on my blog.
ReplyDeleteThis is a common problem. In one of my old blogs, I highlighted how the council had spent £30K on a swanky room booking system. I went on line and found a solution for under £1,000 but the council simply were not interested.
ReplyDeleteAt a residents forum I once asked how much Barnet spent on software licences - I forget the exact figure but it was circa £2 million. I then asked why the council didn’t use open source software instead. They claimed that the situation was always under review, but it isn’t. They simply are not prepared to consider suggestions from the public. The entire warden budget could be saved if they stopped wasting so much in other areas.
DCMD, the issue of open software was also raised on the ideas website. This is an area where large savings could be made relatively easily but there seems to be an inertia which cripples local authorities. A study in 2009 http://psfbuzz.com/downloads/Open%20or%20Closed%20-%20Final%20Report%206%20August%202009.pdf showed that 95% of local authority desktop/laptops run windows office and Word for word processing. Yet this is one area where open source is actually well developed and could offer a real cost saving. Given the thousands of laptops Barnet Council have bought in the last couple of years the cost of Microsoft Office licenses must be a major drain.
ReplyDeleteMy question DCMD is that if people with common sense like you can see the benefits, why aren't our councillors, costing us over £1m a year in allowances, asking the same questions. Surely that is part of their job to provide the checks and balances and set policy for the officers.
I think the reason is twofold:
ReplyDeleteFirst, they don’t care because it is not their money being spent. They are too concerned with building power bases than dealing with the minutia of actually serving the residents who elected.
Second, they have very little experience of successfully running a business. They don’t understand about cost control. Private companies which show such a cavalier attitude to expenses rarely survive very long.
There are very few - if any - chief officers who have real experience from the private business sector. They simply don’t understand the old adage about looking after the pennies.
Unfortunately, the few councillors like Mark Shooter who do understand the concept of value for money are simply marginalised.
There is an enormous amount of waste which could be cut - without anybody even noticing - before front line services have to be slashed or charges put up.