Community Spirit is alive and well in Friern Barnet

This afternoon has yet again shown me why Barnet is such a great place to live. A community that cares and stands together is a tremendous asset that should be treasured and supported. 

Outside Friern Barnet Library this afternoon, the community were out in force. They show that in spite of what Barnet Council has done to devalue the community by closing the library, they are continuing to provide a friendly environment for the community to come together. You would have to pay consultants hundreds of thousands of pound to come up with a community cohesion strategy that the Save Friern Barnet Library group are delivering free of charge. 

Barnet Council should embrace this group and identify how they can work together. Instead they are just rude to them.This group deserves the support of every member of the community and they definitely have mine! Keep it up.

Barnet Residents Forum – Credibility Exhausted!

Last night’s Chipping Barnet Residents Forum was a sad affair. Questions unanswered, evaded or banned. Public opinion ignored. With a dozen die-hard residents in attendance and eight questions on the issues list, the residents forum at least held out some hope that it might create a dialogue between the council and its residents.
The first question on the list went through on the nod as the questioner wasn’t present. Perhaps starting the forums at 6.00pm had something to do with it, especially if you work in central London.

The second question was about getting a dog bin installed on the library green at Friern Barnet Library. A charming chap from the Council said yes they could introduce a general waste bin. But that not what was asked for shouted several residents. It took several attempts to get the officer to recognise that if people ask for a dog bin that’s what they want.

Third question came from one of Barnet’s most well respected community advocates, David Howard, and related to the introduction of charges in East Barnet Village car park. David had asked a series of very clear points, none of which were answered. Cllr Evangeli said that there was a consultation taking place and that all three East Barnet Councillors were opposed to the introduction of charges. “In that case why did two of the three councillors vote in favour of this proposal at Cabinet “, Mr Reasonable shouted. No reply. Universally the audience were opposed to these charges. There were two other questions relating to the same subject, none of which were satisfactorily answered.

The next question related to the phasing of traffic lights and the adjacent pedestrian crossing at the junction of Colney Hatch Lane and the North Circular. This seemed an exceptionally dangerous situation. The charming officer promised to come and have a look at the situation. The discussion drifted into the councils traffic management study and the review of all pedestrian crossings in Barnet. Unfortunately the charming officer made a serious error by suggesting that if residents said they wanted light controlled crossings to remain then they would. Oh dear! He obviously hadn’t been to previous residents forums where the pedestrian crossing at the junction of Whetstone High Road and Oakleigh Road North. He was quickly reminded that not only had people asked for the crossing to remain but that Councillors on the Environment subcommittee had formally asked officers to reinstate the lights only to be overruled by Cllr Brian Coleman.

Three questions from Mr Reasonable followed. One related to the East Barnet car park issue no satisfactory answer on how much revenue this would generate. The next question related to the events in the parks consultation. The consultation results showed that 94% of respondents are opposed to events in Oakhill Park. An entirely misleading reply stated that 45 events already take place in parks. Yes but this is about PRIVATE EVENTS. How many of those had been held in Parks. Cllr Kate Salinger suggested that none had been held, that’s why they were undertaking the consultation.
I then asked about the public toilet in Oakhill Park which has been out of order for more than 9 months. The reply stated that the toilet was the responsibility of the Cafe owner. Since when? It is a Council toilet. Yet another misleading answer.

At this point David Howard suggested that none of the questions had been answered satisfactorily, either missing information, answering different questions or providing misleading answers. Was it incompetence or was the council being disingenuous. I think I know what most of the people present thought.

So two banned questions were not read out. What were the banned questions asked another community activist. Kate Salinger formally adjourned the meeting and suggested that I could then tell those present. And what were these questions that were so disruptive, so dangerous that they were censored?

One question was, “The council is planning to introduce a new website in April. Will the council consider holding training sessions for the public to help them find their way around the new website?” Very radical and dangerous!

The other question was “When will the council take time to inform the local community about the progress on the One Barnet outsourcing programme?” Ah the One Barnet phase that no one is allowed to mention even though it is a Billion Pound project which is costing millions of pounds just in consultancy fees.

The residents forums have lost all credibility (which I think was the intended objective when the council changed the format). All credit should go to Cllr Kate Salinger who did a good job of running the forum allowing everyone to have their say but ultimately an entirely unsatisfactory and pointless exercise in the illusion of consultation.

The Kafkaesque World of Barnet Council FOI's

With the introduction of the draconian new rules on what questions could be asked at Residents Forums and the rejection of one of my questions, I submitted a Freedom of Information request on 19 September 2011 as follows:

For the six residents forums held in June and September 2011 please could you provide me with the following information:

1. How many questions were submitted by the public?
2. Of the questions submitted, how many were ruled invalid for failing to meet the new criteria for question submission.

As so often happens to Barnet bloggers, the council failed to answer my question within the required 20 days so I sent a reminder. Six days after my reminder I did receive a reply which set out the how many questions were asked at the residents forum (not as I had requested the number of questions submitted) but declined to supply the information for question 2 on the basis that the council does not hold this information. That came as somewhat of a surprise to me given that a Council Governance officer had emailed me to tell me that one specific question I had asked did not cover “the type of issues to be discussed at Residents Forum meetings” and therefore would not be included on the issues list.

I know that other residents also had questions rejected so I immediately submitted a request for an internal review on 25th October. This should also be completed within 20 days – Not in Barnet. Following several follow up reminders I eventually received a response on 10 February, more than 2 months late.

Surprise, surprise the reply had a distinct whiff of the Kafkaesque about it.

The number of questions submitted by the public which were refused is not recorded. By way of further explanation, I would like to clarify our initial response to your first question. The figures which were provided to you were the number of questions and petitions submitted and considered by the Residents Forums. These statistics came from the published minutes of each of the Forums concerned. The purpose of these minutes is to record the matters dealt with at each of the respective meetings. As the minutes only cover the Forum Meeting’s actual proceedings, neither the number nor nature of questions which were not considered at the meetings, are not recorded in the meeting minutes.

So there you have it. Because something is not in the official minutes of a meeting it doesn’t exist. I have been offered the opportunity to ask about a specific question I submitted and why it was rejected but this does not tell me how many other residents had their questions rejected. What is really sad about this situation is that a 2 minute telephone conversation to the Council’s governance officers who deal with residents forums would have elicited this answer as recorded in the relevant emails. But not in Barnet. There is something increasingly sinister about the way Barnet Council deals with any resident who seeks to in any way challenge the authority of the Council.

I want to add at this stage that I do not think all of Barnet Council is bad. Indeed, my direct experience is that many of the front line staff are exceptionally helpful, constructive and polite, something which I feel will be difficult to maintain once many of council's services are outourced later this year.

Today I shall be making a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner, my first, but definitely not the first concerning Barnet.

22 Minutes - What’s the point?

Tonight I attended the Cabinet Resources Committee which was deciding, amongst other things, the sale of Church Farmhouse Museum, the sale of the old Hendon Football Club Ground, and the award of a contract for internal audit to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The public gallery had a good representation of people. Taking pride of place in the front row was the Barnet Bugle with his trusty tripod filming the meeting. (See his video of the meeting here) In addition Mr Mustard and Mrs Angry were scrutinising the proceedings with their usual rigor.

I had submitted four questions on the internal audit contract and another gentleman, Keith Martin, asked a question about Church Farmhouse Museum. Sadly, sports campaigner Gordon Kerr was denied the opportunity to speak about the sale of the old Hendon Football Club Ground.

Well I wish I could say there was a full and detailed discussion about the points. Sadly it was the usual rubber stamping job with the whole meeting over in 22 minutes. There were some really big issues here that impact the community but the council’s desire to engage with the people who they are suppose to represent seems minimal.

With so little debate and with such disregard for public participation I wonder why they bother holding a meeting at all. As the Barnet Press said in today’s editorial, “that no matter what, Barnet Council is going to do what it wants”.

Budget Consultation Cancelled at 48 Hrs Notice

I have read today on the Barnet Times website that the public consultation meeting due to be held on Thursday has been cancelled because of a "lack of interest". Apparently only four people had called the council to tell them they were interested in attending. So now we have to register for public meetings in advance? This is both an outrage and an affront to democracy. Given that the had large adverts in both the Barnet Times and Press for two weeks which must have cost several thousand pounds they have now decided before the meeting that they shouldn't bother. Mr Reasonable is incensed having spent the last week going through the 24,664 separate entries of Barnet Council suppliers invoices over £500 between April and September 2010. Do the council want a dialogue on this or do they simply want to push through their own ideas. Democracy has been short changed and unless residents complain the council will simply say residents don't care.