Between the two contracts, CSG and Re, we have paid Capita £327 million. Let that sink in for a minute; £327 million to a private company from just one London Borough. Ever since the contract was proposed I have challenged how such a pervasive outsourcing programme can work in the best interests of Barnet residents.
I have always made it clear that, ideologically, I have no problem with outsourcing so long as it is being done for the right reasons. Typically this is where it involves very specialist, non core activities where technical expertise may be difficult to secure and retain in house. In Barnet's case this outsourcing programme covered so many services which were core to the running of the council and which in 2010 were rated as 4 star (good). Barnet has been an experiment in mass outsourcing and almost five years in, it appears to be a failure.
Last night's audit committee was a litany of service problems, system failures, lack of controls, under performance, a major fraud. Internal audit saying issues were a problem, Capita saying they weren't.
Councillor Khatri, the now independent councillor for Mill Hill, deselected by the Conservative group, gave a quiet and persuasive evisceration of the Capita contract. He has long been a sceptic of the Capita contract believing that it does not offer value money for residents. Cllr Khatri is no fool, with an MSc and 34 years government experience in Export Credits Guarantee Department he is a shrewd and analytical person with great experience of business.
Some people have said that this contract is too large to fail, too large to bring back in house, so we are stuck with it no matter how poorly it performs. Unsurprisingly, I have a different view. I believe that with a properly planned programme, the service can be brought back in house efficiently and cost effectively. We have an opportunity to redesign the council to ensure that departments deliver excellent service. This will allow a large number of senior commissioning posts to be removed saving millions.
The first phase will require Finance, Pensions Administration, IT, HR and Procurement to be brought back in house. These are the key levers by which you can control the business. It provides you with the information you need to understand which parts of the business are performing well or badly. The next phase is to set up a call centre in Barnet to deal with customer enquiries and the revenue and benefits service. Staff 100 or 200 miles away working for a number of councils simply don't have the local knowledge required to quickly deal with problems.
In terms of the Re contract that is a joint venture between Barnet and Capita. It just doesn't seem to work as was exemplified last night at the audit committee. The CEO of Barnet who is a board director of Re has failed to get Capita to agree to new KPI's to more effectively manage the Highways contract. This has been dragging on for a year and there is still no clear outcome. There is what I described as a contractual gordian knot with exceptionally complex contractual relationships between Barnet and the companies that actually deliver services. This means that contracts aren't being effectively monitored and managed. I have yet to see any real financial benefits of the Re relationship - they have failed to sell services to other councils. This is a contract that can be brought back in house very rapidly simply by dissolving the JV and transferring staff back into the council. It cuts out the middleman of Capita and the profit they extract from the arrangement.
It can be done and it should be done. It is time to part company with Capita and take control of how Barnet operates.
Standing up for common sense in New Barnet
Showing posts with label lack of accountability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lack of accountability. Show all posts
Friday, 20 April 2018
Saturday, 19 April 2014
One Barnet and the mess it has created - a massively critical internal audit report
For all those One Barnet evangelists who believe everything they are told, make sure you read the latest Barnet Council Internal Audit report. Of the 17 system audits carried out, 6 received a rating of limited or no assurance which is bad. Please read till the end as some of the matters are exceptionally serious.
I'll start with the limited assurance audits. The first relates to the outsourced contract for legal services with Harrow. The audit report states,
"We found an overspend on the Harrow & Barnet Public Law (HBPL) contract, with uncertainty noted in Delivery Units regarding the charging process. Further, it is unclear what income will be achieved on the HBPL contract from the provision of legal services to Re and the Barnet Group and how that will be accounted for". They recommend, "The Commercial Team HBPL contract manager should communicate the legal services charging basis to budget holders and formalise the process of recharging with Delivery Units. Uncertainty around the treatment of income from Re and the Barnet Group should be resolved by reference to the contract and without further delay".
What I want to know is why on earth this wasn't sorted out before now and how can the success or failure of this contract be measured if no one knows what it is really costing. Last year Barnet paid Harrow £3.1 million for legal professional services. So much for outsourcing making cost savings.
The second limited assurance audit relates to the HR function carried out by Capita.
"There is no requirement for the order of agency staff on the Comensura system to be approved by a more senior officer. There is therefore a risk that agency staff may be appointed without appropriate approval. This may not be in-line with the Council’s scheme of delegation and lead to inappropriate use of the Council’s resources". It also notes that "There are no checks performed by the Council to ensure that all pre-employment checks have been completed on agency staff by Comensura, in particular, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks. There is therefore a risk that agency staff may be inappropriately employed, leading to breaches of procurement policy, potential safeguarding issues, increased fraud risk and reputational damage".
Given that the council paid Comensura £13.69 million in 2013, I find it utterly shocking that there was no approval system and no checks on who was employed. Capita have had this responsibility since September so in the last six months how much money has been wasted and how many rogues have been employed? Even worse Capita state that HR have a number of competing priorities and that implementing the new payroll system comes first so changes to the DBS checks will not be implemented until June.
The third limited assurance audit relates to business continuity - in other words keeping the council running if there is a major problem. The report states that,
"There is no corporate business continuity strategy, and this is recognised as a risk on the Council's risk register. Without a current and comprehensive strategy, there is no clear Council approach for Delivery Units. This could result in Delivery Unit approaches to business continuity which do not enable efficient recovery following an incident". They also note that "Previous business continuity incidents are not formally recorded and there is no lessons learned log. If previous incidents and lessons learned are not captured, then improvements to the business continuity process will not be made, resulting in a less effective process.
That is just poor management but Barnet seems to have been troubled a number of times by failing to learn from its previous mistakes and it looks like that will continue to happen.
The fourth limited assurance relates to the much trumpeted outsourcing of parking services to NSL. The reports states that, "The Parking Project’s business case listed 13 financial and non- financial
benefits to be delivered to the Council throughout the five year contract period, which included income generation, service quality and savings targets. We found that controls were not in place to ensure that the future realisation of these planned benefits was monitored and managed, for example roles and responsibilities for benefit management and planned timelines for benefit reporting. The Benefits Realisation Plan produced at the end of the project had not been reviewed since the project handed over to the Clienting team in May 2012. An issue management strategy was not in place for the contract and as a result we were unable to identify how the Clienting team intended to manage and escalate issues with the contractor. In particular we were unable to identify what constituted an issue that NSL would be required to raise with the Council; defined roles and responsibilities for those involved in issue management; and documented thresholds or escalation routes for issues".
As our Parking Guru and now national media star Mr Mustard has said so many time this contract isn't delivering what it promised and no one is managing it adequately.
Now we move on to the two audits which received a no assurance rating and which are quite shocking.
The first is IT Access Controls. The reports states that there is a lack of documented Council-wide policies relating to IT user access management. The only area which did have policies was the Integrated Children's System and that is only because it has been criticised in the past for a lack of policies. More seriously, the report also says that:
"There is a lack of ownership for IT user management across the Council in relation to the areas audited and at a corporate level. This stems from the lack of a clear division of responsibility in this area between the Council and its IT support provider Capita".
I have said repeatedly over the last three years that there is a massive risk that certain functions and responsibilities will fall down the gap between what the Council retains and what Capita take over. So what you may say? But here comes the killer statement from the report.
Access to Council systems is not controlled or monitored effectively. For all employees added to any Council system prior to 2010, no evidence of authorisation for access has been retained. No formal reviews of staff access levels or active users had been documented in any of the areas audited. Furthermore, there is no formal process in place for the removal of IT access for temporary staff after they have left the Council. This is appalling especially as the council has been and continues to employ hundreds of temporary staff.
The recommendations are numerous but include the following:
"a) A formal agreement should be developed between Barnet and Capita detailing the responsibility for user management across the Council.
b) An up to date listing of all Council applications should be developed and maintained and include details concerning responsibility for administration and managerial roles between Capita and Barnet".
Capita have been helping the council since last July and were formally operating the CSG contract (which includes IT) since last September yet there is no formal agreement for user management of the IT systems and according to the management comments this will not be implemented until August this year. Barnet had three years to prepare for this contract yet something as fundamental as to who is allowed to access the IT systems is overlooked.
The report also recommends that:
"A Council wide formal process to remove all users from all systems should be developed and
agreed between the Council and Capita. Barnet should seek assurance that Capita remove staff
access in a timely basis. Management should obtain ongoing assurance that polices and processes introduced are being followed in practice, including the retention of authorisation provided for IT access".
So there you have it. Barnet have to seek assurances that Capita do the job they are supposed to be doing because Barnet have handed over responsibility for one of the most sensitive and critical elements of the ways the council is run, its IT systems and have to hope and keep their fingers crossed that Capita actually do what they are supposed to do. I remain concerned that thousands of Capita staff dotted all around the UK all have access to Barnet's IT systems without all of the necessary policies and procedures in place to make sure those people should or need to have access.
The second audit that received no assurance relates to the Adult Social Care case management and and documentation systems SWIFT and Wisdom. The SWIFT system has been having problems since at least 2011 as recorded in the Quarterly performance management reviews. However, in the latest audit report it states that:
"No documentation exists for the administration of either application and the responsibility for oversight of the applications is unclear. There are currently significant operational issues with the system in that it ‘freezes’ limiting its use for operational staff. This has been reported however calls to the helpdesk regarding issues with Swift have remained unresolved and senior management within the delivery unit have not escalated the matter to ensure its resolution. During the audit it was apparent that the working relationship between Adults and IT needs to be more collaborative. Management have no oversight of the backup process for Swift and there is
overarching uncertainty over whether the bespoke elements of the system are backed up at all.
Backups for Wisdom have never been tested. Northgate, the provider of Swift, have stated that
they will be unable to restore Swift in the event of a system collapse; this could result in all client
information in Swift being lost.
So what it is saying is that the system doesn't work and the helpdesk aren't resolving the problems and that if the system does go wrong there is a risk that ALL THE DATA ON ADULT SOCIAL SERVICES CLIENTS COULD SIMPLY DISAPPEAR.
I find it incredulous that such a critical system could be so vulnerable, especially as there have been concerns about this system for the last three years. I have said repeatedly that the inertia cause by the the entire One Barnet outsourcing project was resulting in the days to day running of the council being overlooked and here is the evidence in black and white.
The report also flags up information security and access issues arising from the difficulties with the system. Because the SWIFT system keeps freezing some staff are taking information off the system to store separately so they can do their day to day work. However there is no record of where this data is stored and if it is secured. The access log system is so ineffective that there is no record of who goes into and edits client files. This is incredibly sensitive information yet the report also says that having been granted access to the system as a whole there is no classification systems as to which users can access which information.
All of these items will be discussed at the Audit committee on Tuesday 29 April. Sadly, I have no confidence that there will be any challenging questioning as we are now in election mode. It is also a major regret that the Chairman of the Audit Committee, Lord Palmer is standing down at the election as he has tried his utmost to hold the council to account supported in large part by the bloggers and active citizens of Barnet.
Anyone who tells you that Barnet's outsourcing has been a success is fooling themselves. We have had 3 or 4 years of complete inertia when the day to day running of the Council was given a low priority and investment minimised. Contractual barriers have been erected between Capita and retained Council functions which create grey areas of uncertainty over responsibility and some contractors are simply ignoring the council and doing what they want. Commissioning Council may be a buzz phrase but the reality in Barnet is a failure to deliver on the basics.
I'll start with the limited assurance audits. The first relates to the outsourced contract for legal services with Harrow. The audit report states,
"We found an overspend on the Harrow & Barnet Public Law (HBPL) contract, with uncertainty noted in Delivery Units regarding the charging process. Further, it is unclear what income will be achieved on the HBPL contract from the provision of legal services to Re and the Barnet Group and how that will be accounted for". They recommend, "The Commercial Team HBPL contract manager should communicate the legal services charging basis to budget holders and formalise the process of recharging with Delivery Units. Uncertainty around the treatment of income from Re and the Barnet Group should be resolved by reference to the contract and without further delay".
What I want to know is why on earth this wasn't sorted out before now and how can the success or failure of this contract be measured if no one knows what it is really costing. Last year Barnet paid Harrow £3.1 million for legal professional services. So much for outsourcing making cost savings.
The second limited assurance audit relates to the HR function carried out by Capita.
"There is no requirement for the order of agency staff on the Comensura system to be approved by a more senior officer. There is therefore a risk that agency staff may be appointed without appropriate approval. This may not be in-line with the Council’s scheme of delegation and lead to inappropriate use of the Council’s resources". It also notes that "There are no checks performed by the Council to ensure that all pre-employment checks have been completed on agency staff by Comensura, in particular, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks. There is therefore a risk that agency staff may be inappropriately employed, leading to breaches of procurement policy, potential safeguarding issues, increased fraud risk and reputational damage".
Given that the council paid Comensura £13.69 million in 2013, I find it utterly shocking that there was no approval system and no checks on who was employed. Capita have had this responsibility since September so in the last six months how much money has been wasted and how many rogues have been employed? Even worse Capita state that HR have a number of competing priorities and that implementing the new payroll system comes first so changes to the DBS checks will not be implemented until June.
The third limited assurance audit relates to business continuity - in other words keeping the council running if there is a major problem. The report states that,
"There is no corporate business continuity strategy, and this is recognised as a risk on the Council's risk register. Without a current and comprehensive strategy, there is no clear Council approach for Delivery Units. This could result in Delivery Unit approaches to business continuity which do not enable efficient recovery following an incident". They also note that "Previous business continuity incidents are not formally recorded and there is no lessons learned log. If previous incidents and lessons learned are not captured, then improvements to the business continuity process will not be made, resulting in a less effective process.
That is just poor management but Barnet seems to have been troubled a number of times by failing to learn from its previous mistakes and it looks like that will continue to happen.
The fourth limited assurance relates to the much trumpeted outsourcing of parking services to NSL. The reports states that, "The Parking Project’s business case listed 13 financial and non- financial
benefits to be delivered to the Council throughout the five year contract period, which included income generation, service quality and savings targets. We found that controls were not in place to ensure that the future realisation of these planned benefits was monitored and managed, for example roles and responsibilities for benefit management and planned timelines for benefit reporting. The Benefits Realisation Plan produced at the end of the project had not been reviewed since the project handed over to the Clienting team in May 2012. An issue management strategy was not in place for the contract and as a result we were unable to identify how the Clienting team intended to manage and escalate issues with the contractor. In particular we were unable to identify what constituted an issue that NSL would be required to raise with the Council; defined roles and responsibilities for those involved in issue management; and documented thresholds or escalation routes for issues".
As our Parking Guru and now national media star Mr Mustard has said so many time this contract isn't delivering what it promised and no one is managing it adequately.
Now we move on to the two audits which received a no assurance rating and which are quite shocking.
The first is IT Access Controls. The reports states that there is a lack of documented Council-wide policies relating to IT user access management. The only area which did have policies was the Integrated Children's System and that is only because it has been criticised in the past for a lack of policies. More seriously, the report also says that:
"There is a lack of ownership for IT user management across the Council in relation to the areas audited and at a corporate level. This stems from the lack of a clear division of responsibility in this area between the Council and its IT support provider Capita".
I have said repeatedly over the last three years that there is a massive risk that certain functions and responsibilities will fall down the gap between what the Council retains and what Capita take over. So what you may say? But here comes the killer statement from the report.
Access to Council systems is not controlled or monitored effectively. For all employees added to any Council system prior to 2010, no evidence of authorisation for access has been retained. No formal reviews of staff access levels or active users had been documented in any of the areas audited. Furthermore, there is no formal process in place for the removal of IT access for temporary staff after they have left the Council. This is appalling especially as the council has been and continues to employ hundreds of temporary staff.
The recommendations are numerous but include the following:
"a) A formal agreement should be developed between Barnet and Capita detailing the responsibility for user management across the Council.
b) An up to date listing of all Council applications should be developed and maintained and include details concerning responsibility for administration and managerial roles between Capita and Barnet".
Capita have been helping the council since last July and were formally operating the CSG contract (which includes IT) since last September yet there is no formal agreement for user management of the IT systems and according to the management comments this will not be implemented until August this year. Barnet had three years to prepare for this contract yet something as fundamental as to who is allowed to access the IT systems is overlooked.
The report also recommends that:
"A Council wide formal process to remove all users from all systems should be developed and
agreed between the Council and Capita. Barnet should seek assurance that Capita remove staff
access in a timely basis. Management should obtain ongoing assurance that polices and processes introduced are being followed in practice, including the retention of authorisation provided for IT access".
So there you have it. Barnet have to seek assurances that Capita do the job they are supposed to be doing because Barnet have handed over responsibility for one of the most sensitive and critical elements of the ways the council is run, its IT systems and have to hope and keep their fingers crossed that Capita actually do what they are supposed to do. I remain concerned that thousands of Capita staff dotted all around the UK all have access to Barnet's IT systems without all of the necessary policies and procedures in place to make sure those people should or need to have access.
The second audit that received no assurance relates to the Adult Social Care case management and and documentation systems SWIFT and Wisdom. The SWIFT system has been having problems since at least 2011 as recorded in the Quarterly performance management reviews. However, in the latest audit report it states that:
"No documentation exists for the administration of either application and the responsibility for oversight of the applications is unclear. There are currently significant operational issues with the system in that it ‘freezes’ limiting its use for operational staff. This has been reported however calls to the helpdesk regarding issues with Swift have remained unresolved and senior management within the delivery unit have not escalated the matter to ensure its resolution. During the audit it was apparent that the working relationship between Adults and IT needs to be more collaborative. Management have no oversight of the backup process for Swift and there is
overarching uncertainty over whether the bespoke elements of the system are backed up at all.
Backups for Wisdom have never been tested. Northgate, the provider of Swift, have stated that
they will be unable to restore Swift in the event of a system collapse; this could result in all client
information in Swift being lost.
So what it is saying is that the system doesn't work and the helpdesk aren't resolving the problems and that if the system does go wrong there is a risk that ALL THE DATA ON ADULT SOCIAL SERVICES CLIENTS COULD SIMPLY DISAPPEAR.
I find it incredulous that such a critical system could be so vulnerable, especially as there have been concerns about this system for the last three years. I have said repeatedly that the inertia cause by the the entire One Barnet outsourcing project was resulting in the days to day running of the council being overlooked and here is the evidence in black and white.
The report also flags up information security and access issues arising from the difficulties with the system. Because the SWIFT system keeps freezing some staff are taking information off the system to store separately so they can do their day to day work. However there is no record of where this data is stored and if it is secured. The access log system is so ineffective that there is no record of who goes into and edits client files. This is incredibly sensitive information yet the report also says that having been granted access to the system as a whole there is no classification systems as to which users can access which information.
All of these items will be discussed at the Audit committee on Tuesday 29 April. Sadly, I have no confidence that there will be any challenging questioning as we are now in election mode. It is also a major regret that the Chairman of the Audit Committee, Lord Palmer is standing down at the election as he has tried his utmost to hold the council to account supported in large part by the bloggers and active citizens of Barnet.
Anyone who tells you that Barnet's outsourcing has been a success is fooling themselves. We have had 3 or 4 years of complete inertia when the day to day running of the Council was given a low priority and investment minimised. Contractual barriers have been erected between Capita and retained Council functions which create grey areas of uncertainty over responsibility and some contractors are simply ignoring the council and doing what they want. Commissioning Council may be a buzz phrase but the reality in Barnet is a failure to deliver on the basics.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Another costly mistake in Barnet - the high price of outsourcing
The entire One Barnet programme has been delivered by a team of consultants and interims. I have repeatedly expressed concerns about the lack of continuity of such a team and the risks associated with leaving such important decisions in the hands of people who have no connection with the borough. The most recent manifestation of these risks is the award of approximately £650,000 to council staff due to the failure to provide information required by law when staff are made redundant or transferred to a new employers. You can read the specific details here.
Most importantly the council's advice was provided by a consultant who has now departed the council for pastures new. This mistake means that money is diverted away from essential services. Given that all reputable consultants carry a professional indemnity insurance policy to pay out when mistakes are made, I hope that Barnet will be seeking to recover the money it has had to pay out.
Most importantly the council's advice was provided by a consultant who has now departed the council for pastures new. This mistake means that money is diverted away from essential services. Given that all reputable consultants carry a professional indemnity insurance policy to pay out when mistakes are made, I hope that Barnet will be seeking to recover the money it has had to pay out.
Monday, 20 May 2013
One Barnet DRS Contract - Another Disastrous Decision
Today, Barnet Council have announced they have selected Capita as the winner of the Development and Regulatory Services (DRS) contract. This is the second large contract to be awarded to Capita and now gives them control over most of what the Council actually delivers. Just for those of you who are still unaware of what this contract includes it is the following (as set out in the original tender notice):
"Services furnished by business, professional and specialist organisations. Land management services.Architectural, engineering and planning services. Technical planning services. Urban planning and landscape architectural services. Architectural services for buildings. Miscellaneous building structures. Housing services. Development of residential real estate. Feasibility study, advisory service, analysis. Project and design preparation, estimation of costs. Draft plans (systems and integration). Calculation of costs, monitoring of costs. Approval plans, working drawings and specifications. Determining and listing of quantities in construction. Supervision of building work. Supervision of project and documentation. Architectural, engineering and surveying services. Architectural and building-surveying services. Construction management services. Funeral and related services. Funeral services. Cemetery services and cremation services. Cemetery services.Cemetery maintenance services. Cremation services. Work environment services. Civic-amenity services. Car park management services. Civic betterment and community facility support services. Facility related sanitation services. Disinfecting and exterminating services. Pest-control services. Rat-disinfestation services. Fumigation services. Services related to noise pollution. Noise control services. Noise pollution protection services. Noise pollution monitoring services. Noise pollution advisory services. Environmental institution building or planning.Environmental issues consultancy services. Environmental planning. Urban environmental development planning. Environmental services. Environmental management. Environmental impact assessment other than for construction. Risk or hazard assessment other than for construction. Environmental standards other than for construction. Environmental indicators analysis other than for construction. Environmental Impact Assessment EIA services other than for construction. Environmental monitoring other than for construction. Highways engineering services. Highways consultancy services. Administrative housing services. General public services.Administration services. Engineering design services for the construction of civil engineering works. Quantity surveying services for civil engineering works. Health and safety services. Health and safety consultancy services. Advisory and consultative engineering services. Building services. Building-fabric consultancy services. Building consultancy services. Building services consultancy services. Building surveying services.Building-inspection services. Infrastructure works consultancy services. Structural engineering consultancy services. Environmental engineering consultancy services. Noise-control consultancy services. Environmental impact assessment for construction. Risk or hazard assessment for construction. Environmental standards for construction. Environmental indicators analysis for construction. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) services for construction. Environmental monitoring for construction. Commissioning of public lighting installations. Structures and parts of structures. Structures and parts. Miscellaneous structures. Parts of structures. Road traffic-control equipment. Traffic control services. Traffic monitoring services. Records management. Road transport services. Public road transport services. Support services for land transport. The London Borough of Barnet is looking for a Strategic Partner (SP), single bidder or consortium, to transform the delivery of its Development and Regulatory Services. The London Borough of Barnet wishes to work with the SP to provide a joined-up environmental regulation, design and management function that will develop and maintain the quality of the built environment and help to ensure the health and well being of our citizens. The services in scope are as follows: Strategic Services:
— Regeneration,
— Strategic planning and housing strategy,
— Highways transport and regeneration,
— Highways strategy operational services:
—— Building control and structures,
—— Planning development management,
—— Land charges,
— Highways network management,
— Highways traffic and development public health, consumer and regulatory services,
— Environmental health,
— Trading standards & licensing,
— Cemetery & crematorium".
(The registration and nationality services were originally included but have subsequently been excluded from the contract)
The services will be run as a joint venture - but we forbidden from knowing what that means or how it is structured and the contract will run for 10 years. We have been told it will save £3.9 million a year and that staffing will be kept at "broadly the current level" whatever that means. However everything associated with this contract is shrouded in secrecy because it is "commercially sensitive".
The residents of Barnet were never consulted on this matter (Justice Underhill says so) and we are unlikely to ever know the details. Ten people have now awarded two contracts worth around £500 million with the potential for significantly more and we, as residents, have no say.
And were these services terrible when the outsourcing was first envisaged. No, actually they were highly rated and efficient but that is no what this process is all about. It is about political dogma. George Osborne will be able to claim a whole load more private sector jobs have been created because every job outsourced to the private sector is claimed as a new private sector job forgetting that it is a job lost in the public sector. Now you will know next time the Conservatives claim they have created a million new private sector jobs exactly where they came from.
What gets to me most of all is the calibre of the politicians making these decisions, or as Brian Coleman put it "Young boys who are keen but don’t have the time because they are busy building their careers or relationships, or sad old pensioners who just won’t go away". All the analysis has been left to faceless consultants whose names we are not allowed to know, who have no connection with the borough and who won't be around when it all goes wrong.
This is not democracy and it is wrong.
"Services furnished by business, professional and specialist organisations. Land management services.Architectural, engineering and planning services. Technical planning services. Urban planning and landscape architectural services. Architectural services for buildings. Miscellaneous building structures. Housing services. Development of residential real estate. Feasibility study, advisory service, analysis. Project and design preparation, estimation of costs. Draft plans (systems and integration). Calculation of costs, monitoring of costs. Approval plans, working drawings and specifications. Determining and listing of quantities in construction. Supervision of building work. Supervision of project and documentation. Architectural, engineering and surveying services. Architectural and building-surveying services. Construction management services. Funeral and related services. Funeral services. Cemetery services and cremation services. Cemetery services.Cemetery maintenance services. Cremation services. Work environment services. Civic-amenity services. Car park management services. Civic betterment and community facility support services. Facility related sanitation services. Disinfecting and exterminating services. Pest-control services. Rat-disinfestation services. Fumigation services. Services related to noise pollution. Noise control services. Noise pollution protection services. Noise pollution monitoring services. Noise pollution advisory services. Environmental institution building or planning.Environmental issues consultancy services. Environmental planning. Urban environmental development planning. Environmental services. Environmental management. Environmental impact assessment other than for construction. Risk or hazard assessment other than for construction. Environmental standards other than for construction. Environmental indicators analysis other than for construction. Environmental Impact Assessment EIA services other than for construction. Environmental monitoring other than for construction. Highways engineering services. Highways consultancy services. Administrative housing services. General public services.Administration services. Engineering design services for the construction of civil engineering works. Quantity surveying services for civil engineering works. Health and safety services. Health and safety consultancy services. Advisory and consultative engineering services. Building services. Building-fabric consultancy services. Building consultancy services. Building services consultancy services. Building surveying services.Building-inspection services. Infrastructure works consultancy services. Structural engineering consultancy services. Environmental engineering consultancy services. Noise-control consultancy services. Environmental impact assessment for construction. Risk or hazard assessment for construction. Environmental standards for construction. Environmental indicators analysis for construction. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) services for construction. Environmental monitoring for construction. Commissioning of public lighting installations. Structures and parts of structures. Structures and parts. Miscellaneous structures. Parts of structures. Road traffic-control equipment. Traffic control services. Traffic monitoring services. Records management. Road transport services. Public road transport services. Support services for land transport. The London Borough of Barnet is looking for a Strategic Partner (SP), single bidder or consortium, to transform the delivery of its Development and Regulatory Services. The London Borough of Barnet wishes to work with the SP to provide a joined-up environmental regulation, design and management function that will develop and maintain the quality of the built environment and help to ensure the health and well being of our citizens. The services in scope are as follows: Strategic Services:
— Regeneration,
— Strategic planning and housing strategy,
— Highways transport and regeneration,
— Highways strategy operational services:
—— Building control and structures,
—— Planning development management,
—— Land charges,
— Highways network management,
— Highways traffic and development public health, consumer and regulatory services,
— Environmental health,
— Trading standards & licensing,
— Cemetery & crematorium".
(The registration and nationality services were originally included but have subsequently been excluded from the contract)
The services will be run as a joint venture - but we forbidden from knowing what that means or how it is structured and the contract will run for 10 years. We have been told it will save £3.9 million a year and that staffing will be kept at "broadly the current level" whatever that means. However everything associated with this contract is shrouded in secrecy because it is "commercially sensitive".
The residents of Barnet were never consulted on this matter (Justice Underhill says so) and we are unlikely to ever know the details. Ten people have now awarded two contracts worth around £500 million with the potential for significantly more and we, as residents, have no say.
And were these services terrible when the outsourcing was first envisaged. No, actually they were highly rated and efficient but that is no what this process is all about. It is about political dogma. George Osborne will be able to claim a whole load more private sector jobs have been created because every job outsourced to the private sector is claimed as a new private sector job forgetting that it is a job lost in the public sector. Now you will know next time the Conservatives claim they have created a million new private sector jobs exactly where they came from.
What gets to me most of all is the calibre of the politicians making these decisions, or as Brian Coleman put it "Young boys who are keen but don’t have the time because they are busy building their careers or relationships, or sad old pensioners who just won’t go away". All the analysis has been left to faceless consultants whose names we are not allowed to know, who have no connection with the borough and who won't be around when it all goes wrong.
This is not democracy and it is wrong.
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
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 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.
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Contract, what contract?
At the beginning of December I applied under the FOI act to see a copy of the contract between Capita and Barnet.
"Please provide me with a copy of the contract between Barnet Council and Capita for the NSCSO project. If you cannot supply the complete contract in its entirety, please provided me with all those elements that are not strictly commercially sensitive and have already been disclosed or about to be disclosed in the public reports and answers to questions considered at scrutiny or cabinet meetings."
Now we all know a contract exists because it has been much talked about, councillors have inspected it and you can even see a picture of it here.
Waiting until the very last day (I claim it was a day late) Barnet's response was somewhat surprising.
I note that Barnet are using this excuse with anyone else asking for information about the contract or indeed the investment proposal of Capita in IT.
Not only have Barnet refused point blank to discuss this contract with residents, Barnet deny the contract's existence until it is signed and an opportunity to flag up problems has therefore passed.
The New Year is not off to a good start. Next week are the residents forums which will again deny residents the right to ask any questions about One Barnet or any other matter which is about policy. We have the DRS contract coming up which cannot in anyway be described as "back office". There are lots of really important questions that need to be answered about service delivery, transparency, governance, contractor conflicts of interest, charging policy, to name but a few, yet the Council are mute on this and the public have been effectively gagged.
I think that 2013 is the year when many more residents are going to wake up to the huge risks such a radical and complex outsourcing contract will bring and how the details have been hidden by the Council. Sadly by then it may be too late to do anything about it.
"Please provide me with a copy of the contract between Barnet Council and Capita for the NSCSO project. If you cannot supply the complete contract in its entirety, please provided me with all those elements that are not strictly commercially sensitive and have already been disclosed or about to be disclosed in the public reports and answers to questions considered at scrutiny or cabinet meetings."
Now we all know a contract exists because it has been much talked about, councillors have inspected it and you can even see a picture of it here.
Waiting until the very last day (I claim it was a day late) Barnet's response was somewhat surprising.
"I am writing
to inform you that the information you request is not held by London Borough of
Barnet. The contractual agreement for the provision of the New Support and Customer
Services Organisation (NSCSO) has yet to be finalised and signed and therefore
no final contract currently exists. The contract is expected to be signed
between late January and March 2013. Following this, it is our intention to
publish the contract on the council's website having redacted any elements
considered to be commercially sensitive."
Not only have Barnet refused point blank to discuss this contract with residents, Barnet deny the contract's existence until it is signed and an opportunity to flag up problems has therefore passed.
The New Year is not off to a good start. Next week are the residents forums which will again deny residents the right to ask any questions about One Barnet or any other matter which is about policy. We have the DRS contract coming up which cannot in anyway be described as "back office". There are lots of really important questions that need to be answered about service delivery, transparency, governance, contractor conflicts of interest, charging policy, to name but a few, yet the Council are mute on this and the public have been effectively gagged.
I think that 2013 is the year when many more residents are going to wake up to the huge risks such a radical and complex outsourcing contract will bring and how the details have been hidden by the Council. Sadly by then it may be too late to do anything about it.
Friday, 21 December 2012
Capita Week - Day 5 - Swindon
In 2009 Swindon Council's Internal Audit department published a report into the contract management of Capita. The report can be downloaded here.
Some of the issues identified in the report were as follows:
Some of the risks identified in the report include:
Experience leads me to have no confidence in Barnet's ability to monitor this contract successfully and therefore I suspect that role will yet again fall to the concerned residents rather than the senior officers or councillors who are rewarded handsomely for this role. We will all need to be all over Capita and the Councillors to ensure that residents get the services we need rather than what we are served up.
Some of the issues identified in the report were as follows:
- There have been prolonged performance issues with some services that have not always been resolved on a timely basis. In the case of the Benefits Service, continued performance failures against contractual targets have not been clearly escalated to the Partnership Executive for resolution, where service performance has not increased to contracted levels.
- Key Performance Indicators are produced to measure performance of all transferred services. However, there are significant wider contractual obligations in the service output specifications that must also be delivered by Capita. There is not a consistent method of monitoring whether the partner is delivering these wider obligations.
- It was also found that, in some areas, the client is spending time carrying out activities that should be managed by Capita. The Council needs to resolve these issues, through escalation if necessary and then benchmark the client function to determine if it is under, or over, resourced.
- There is currently little validation of KPIs reported by the partner, but there is evidence of this taking place in Revenues and Benefits and Customer Services. There are three KPIs that are still not being reported, two years into the contract date, due to ongoing issues with management information.
- The Auditor obtained reports on the implementation of similar strategic Capita partnerships in Southampton and Blackburn with Darwen Councils and noted that these Authorities have experienced very similar issues in contract/relationship management and service delivery.
- It is not clear whether all output specifications that were produced during the final stage of the contract negotiations are still relevant and are an effective mechanism to manage Capita service delivery against.
- The Head of ICT has stated that he does not have the resource to check the number of PC’s replaced by Capita, that are charged to the Council each month as part of the PC replacement programme. This charge can be in excess of £100k each month, depending on the number of PCs claimed. The value of the supply is approximately £400k per annum, which is £6m over the life of the contract.
Some of the risks identified in the report include:
- The Council pays for PCs that have not actually been replaced.
- Focus is on delivery of KPIs and other contract obligations are not met by the Partner
- The Council does not know if the overall required level of service is being delivered.
- The Council pays for services that are not received.
Experience leads me to have no confidence in Barnet's ability to monitor this contract successfully and therefore I suspect that role will yet again fall to the concerned residents rather than the senior officers or councillors who are rewarded handsomely for this role. We will all need to be all over Capita and the Councillors to ensure that residents get the services we need rather than what we are served up.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Once it's gone it's gone forever. Why One Barnet is such a Massive Gamble
Tonight the Cabinet members will be taking a massive gamble with the future of council services in Barnet. They claim that this is the only way to make savings. I have two responses to that:
The decision tonight will irrevocable change Barnet and in my opinion not for the better. If you employ staff and they don't deliver you can re-train them or ultimately sack them and bring in new staff. You have direct and immediate control and influence over their priorities and focus. In difficult times staff can be redirected to focus on an emergency. I remember back in 2009 when there was a massive problem with the gas in East Barnet lots of council staff were redirected to help make sure the elderly and vulnerable were cared for. Will that happen in the future with an outsourcing partner whose staff are in Belfast or Blackburn? With an outsourcing company you get what you are given and the only redress is financial penalties. In the long term that simply doesn't work because it puts a price on failure when actually what you want is success.
I am particularly angry because, with an enlighten leadership, a clear vision developed in conjunction with the community and communicated to staff and residents, Barnet could actually be one of the most progressive, effective and caring boroughs in the country. We have a massive untapped resource in our borough; the residents, who know what they want and the vast majority of the council staff who know exactly how to deliver it. Sadly the Council's current ruling group have managed to successfully alienate both groups and that is a massive lost opportunity. Mass outsourcing is not the long term sustainable solution we need, but the current ruling group are too short sighted, too obsessed with political dogma to see that.
- I don't believe you because I have identified how you could save £9.5 million a year; and
- What have you been doing for the last ten years to get to a situation where a private company can make all these savings, and pay a bl**dy great dividend to their shareholders.
The decision tonight will irrevocable change Barnet and in my opinion not for the better. If you employ staff and they don't deliver you can re-train them or ultimately sack them and bring in new staff. You have direct and immediate control and influence over their priorities and focus. In difficult times staff can be redirected to focus on an emergency. I remember back in 2009 when there was a massive problem with the gas in East Barnet lots of council staff were redirected to help make sure the elderly and vulnerable were cared for. Will that happen in the future with an outsourcing partner whose staff are in Belfast or Blackburn? With an outsourcing company you get what you are given and the only redress is financial penalties. In the long term that simply doesn't work because it puts a price on failure when actually what you want is success.
I am particularly angry because, with an enlighten leadership, a clear vision developed in conjunction with the community and communicated to staff and residents, Barnet could actually be one of the most progressive, effective and caring boroughs in the country. We have a massive untapped resource in our borough; the residents, who know what they want and the vast majority of the council staff who know exactly how to deliver it. Sadly the Council's current ruling group have managed to successfully alienate both groups and that is a massive lost opportunity. Mass outsourcing is not the long term sustainable solution we need, but the current ruling group are too short sighted, too obsessed with political dogma to see that.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
One Barnet - The Unanswered Questions
Update: YES IT IS CAPITA
Following the disclosure of two internal audit reports on the risks in the One Barnet Outsourcing project, I thought it would be useful to publish the address I made to Audit Committee in April this year. I am not surprised they didn't disclose their hidden reports at this meeting because it might have reinforced some of the comments I made. The committee failed to address my concerns at the time and today those concerns look even more serious.
"Having reviewed the CAFT (Corporate Anti Fraud Team) and Internal Audit plan for 2012-13 it strikes me that there is an enormous gap in the plans which represents a very significant risk to the Council. The Council is in the process of radical change and by 1 January 2013 the delivery of a large number of key support services will have moved to a private sector supplier. This involves hundreds of millions of pounds worth of spend and involves some of the key financial service such as revenues and benefits, procurement and the entire operation of the finance department.
Internal audit’s plan makes only passing reference to One Barnet and then only in the context of the initial commissioning process. Indeed Internal Audit have allocated less than 4% of the time to reviewing One Barnet. CAFT appear silent on One Barnet and have not allocated any time to it.
I would have expected to see a detailed report which sets out how One Barnet Outsourcing and the complete restructure of the Council to a commissioning council would impact on the operation of internal audit, CAFT, external audit and the audit committee.
For example:
Have the audit committee identified what audit rights and responsibilities they have under the new contract?
If Revs & Bens are administered by a private provider, will the CAFT team still have a role in identifying benefit fraud or will that responsibility pass to the external provider?
What audit rights will the council have over the new procurement function?
Will audit look at the contract procedures of the new provider or will audits remit be limited to examining the payment made to the new provider?
Will internal audit be expected to travel to the provider’s data centres to review procedures? Having reviewed Capita’s business centres map, it is perfectly possible that by 1 January 2013 we could see the council’s financial administration being undertaken in Mumbai, back office administration in Shepton Mallet, customer contact in Blackburn and pensions administration in Pune (in India).
How much thought has been given to the logistics and practicalities of how the internal audit function for these services will take place – if at all?
In terms of the new council structure, have the audit committee examined how they will interact with the new assurance group and with the outsource providers?
To what extent have the committee been involved in ensuring that the new assurance group will continue to provide the information and reports that the audit committee requires?
Will the audit committee be able to ask the outsourcing provider to appear before them to answer specific questions on the financial information they produce?
How will Grant Thornton’s on going external audit services be affected?
Have they provided advice on the issues arising from a commissioning council based on their experience of other local authorities?
What is their experience of dealing with a remote outsourced finance function?
It may be that all of these activities have been carried out, but if that is the case why hasn’t a report been published setting out all of these issues. What I am particularly concerned about is the audit committee are sitting in isolation whilst change is happening all around you. Failure to plan for these radical changes now will mean that you may be unable to provide the level of scrutiny you require in the future because of operational, logistical or contractual restrictions. I would like to get some reassurance from you, as a committee, that resident’s interests in the new world of “commissioning council” will be protected."
We are a week away from Councillors voting on this massive financial gamble yet all the matters I raised remain unanswered. In the commercial sector I cannot imagine any company signing up to such a radical organisational change without having addressed these issues in full, yet because politicians are in charge, they vote with what their party tells them irrespective of what makes sense. And please don't accept the myth peddled that there is not alternative. There is. I have identified savings of £9.5 million a year that could have been introduced several years ago but have been ignored because the culture of change and the influence of external consultants has prevailed. The in-house team have been prevented from submitting their proposals simply for political reasons.
If your councillor is a Conservative then ask them if any of the matters I raised have been addressed and if they can't answer the question ask them why they would vote to introduce such a radical financial gamble with so many unanswered questions.
Following the disclosure of two internal audit reports on the risks in the One Barnet Outsourcing project, I thought it would be useful to publish the address I made to Audit Committee in April this year. I am not surprised they didn't disclose their hidden reports at this meeting because it might have reinforced some of the comments I made. The committee failed to address my concerns at the time and today those concerns look even more serious.
"Having reviewed the CAFT (Corporate Anti Fraud Team) and Internal Audit plan for 2012-13 it strikes me that there is an enormous gap in the plans which represents a very significant risk to the Council. The Council is in the process of radical change and by 1 January 2013 the delivery of a large number of key support services will have moved to a private sector supplier. This involves hundreds of millions of pounds worth of spend and involves some of the key financial service such as revenues and benefits, procurement and the entire operation of the finance department.
Internal audit’s plan makes only passing reference to One Barnet and then only in the context of the initial commissioning process. Indeed Internal Audit have allocated less than 4% of the time to reviewing One Barnet. CAFT appear silent on One Barnet and have not allocated any time to it.
I would have expected to see a detailed report which sets out how One Barnet Outsourcing and the complete restructure of the Council to a commissioning council would impact on the operation of internal audit, CAFT, external audit and the audit committee.
For example:
Have the audit committee identified what audit rights and responsibilities they have under the new contract?
If Revs & Bens are administered by a private provider, will the CAFT team still have a role in identifying benefit fraud or will that responsibility pass to the external provider?
What audit rights will the council have over the new procurement function?
Will audit look at the contract procedures of the new provider or will audits remit be limited to examining the payment made to the new provider?
Will internal audit be expected to travel to the provider’s data centres to review procedures? Having reviewed Capita’s business centres map, it is perfectly possible that by 1 January 2013 we could see the council’s financial administration being undertaken in Mumbai, back office administration in Shepton Mallet, customer contact in Blackburn and pensions administration in Pune (in India).
How much thought has been given to the logistics and practicalities of how the internal audit function for these services will take place – if at all?
In terms of the new council structure, have the audit committee examined how they will interact with the new assurance group and with the outsource providers?
To what extent have the committee been involved in ensuring that the new assurance group will continue to provide the information and reports that the audit committee requires?
Will the audit committee be able to ask the outsourcing provider to appear before them to answer specific questions on the financial information they produce?
How will Grant Thornton’s on going external audit services be affected?
Have they provided advice on the issues arising from a commissioning council based on their experience of other local authorities?
What is their experience of dealing with a remote outsourced finance function?
It may be that all of these activities have been carried out, but if that is the case why hasn’t a report been published setting out all of these issues. What I am particularly concerned about is the audit committee are sitting in isolation whilst change is happening all around you. Failure to plan for these radical changes now will mean that you may be unable to provide the level of scrutiny you require in the future because of operational, logistical or contractual restrictions. I would like to get some reassurance from you, as a committee, that resident’s interests in the new world of “commissioning council” will be protected."
We are a week away from Councillors voting on this massive financial gamble yet all the matters I raised remain unanswered. In the commercial sector I cannot imagine any company signing up to such a radical organisational change without having addressed these issues in full, yet because politicians are in charge, they vote with what their party tells them irrespective of what makes sense. And please don't accept the myth peddled that there is not alternative. There is. I have identified savings of £9.5 million a year that could have been introduced several years ago but have been ignored because the culture of change and the influence of external consultants has prevailed. The in-house team have been prevented from submitting their proposals simply for political reasons.
If your councillor is a Conservative then ask them if any of the matters I raised have been addressed and if they can't answer the question ask them why they would vote to introduce such a radical financial gamble with so many unanswered questions.
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Has Governance been sidelined in Barnet?
Last night a number of reports were published by Unison which call into question the role of governance in Barnet. Two internal audit reports and a report by Local Partnerships demonstrate the risks attached to the One Barnet outsourcing programme. A few quotes from the reports include the following:
"The programme does not have a formalised and universally understood change control process operating either at programme or project level."
"There is scope to strengthen the programme governance arrangements, in particular clarifying the authority of the programme board and reviewing its participants."
"A programme level dependency log identifies dependencies, but it is not optimised to manage the dependencies. For example, there is no record of when a dependency was:
- Originally identified
- Last updated
- Discussed with the action owner
- Agreed."
"Without a fully effective approach to managing dependencies within the programme and between the programme and other parties, the following risks may affect some or all dependencies:
- They may not be delivered in line with the critical path
- They may not meet the quality requirements of the programme resulting in a compromised solution."
"The risk of running project boards without project board papers is that any decisions made within that forum may not be fully informed. Decisions made using incomplete information may be suboptimal."
"There is a great deal still to be done before starting the main dialogue stage and it would be a significant risk to the project to start the next stage prematurely or to decide that tasks and issues that should be completed prior to main dialogue are actually completed during the CD2 stage."
"Evidence from this review indicates that whilst many of these issues are recognised by the project team and in some cases the team have started work on them, there is a lack of clarity on when, how and by whom these issues are to be progressed."
"The RT (review team) feel that the project programme post close of CD2 is very optimistic. Milestones to achieve Contract Award by November 2012 and Service Commencement by April 2013 are possibly achievable in a best case scenario but are probably unachievable in all other scenarios."
"There are signs that the procurement process is being driven by the consultant rather than by Authority due to their much greater experience on the CD (competitive dialogue) process and clearly there are risks if that is the case.
"The programme does not have a defined and agreed issue management strategy.
This may mean that issues are not identified, managed or escalated consistently."
"Interviewees were not aware of formal thresholds for escalating risks from project level. We understand that the training pack provided to all project managers set out certain key criteria, but it was not clear that this control was operating in practice."
"For DRS, there were 17 risks categorised as “treat” – only six had defined control actions and for NSCSO, there were 37 risks categorised as “treat” – only one had a defined control action."
"Through our sample testing of risks we noted 14 out of 49 risks on the NSCSO Risk
Register did not have any scoring against them."
"Senior officers showed they were familiar with the defined internal framework to bring specialist resource onto the programme. However, project level staff did not show the same level of awareness with the contractual agreement. Increasing the awareness levels of this arrangement may lead to more effective use of key resources at critical points at project level."
At this stage alarms bells should be ringing loudly. What I want to know is why none of these reports were discussed or circulated at the Audit committee, the natural place to discuss two such critical internal audit reports on such a massive financial project.
I have been asking serious questions at the audit committee for the last two years about the One Barnet programme. This simply reinforces the immense concerns I have about the entire programme and, more importantly, the governance arrangements for the scrutiny of the process. If it transpires that these reports were withheld from the audit committee it must call into question who actually runs this council, Councillors or consultants.
"The programme does not have a formalised and universally understood change control process operating either at programme or project level."
"There is scope to strengthen the programme governance arrangements, in particular clarifying the authority of the programme board and reviewing its participants."
"A programme level dependency log identifies dependencies, but it is not optimised to manage the dependencies. For example, there is no record of when a dependency was:
- Originally identified
- Last updated
- Discussed with the action owner
- Agreed."
"Without a fully effective approach to managing dependencies within the programme and between the programme and other parties, the following risks may affect some or all dependencies:
- They may not be delivered in line with the critical path
- They may not meet the quality requirements of the programme resulting in a compromised solution."
"The risk of running project boards without project board papers is that any decisions made within that forum may not be fully informed. Decisions made using incomplete information may be suboptimal."
"There is a great deal still to be done before starting the main dialogue stage and it would be a significant risk to the project to start the next stage prematurely or to decide that tasks and issues that should be completed prior to main dialogue are actually completed during the CD2 stage."
"Evidence from this review indicates that whilst many of these issues are recognised by the project team and in some cases the team have started work on them, there is a lack of clarity on when, how and by whom these issues are to be progressed."
"The RT (review team) feel that the project programme post close of CD2 is very optimistic. Milestones to achieve Contract Award by November 2012 and Service Commencement by April 2013 are possibly achievable in a best case scenario but are probably unachievable in all other scenarios."
"There are signs that the procurement process is being driven by the consultant rather than by Authority due to their much greater experience on the CD (competitive dialogue) process and clearly there are risks if that is the case.
"The programme does not have a defined and agreed issue management strategy.
This may mean that issues are not identified, managed or escalated consistently."
"Interviewees were not aware of formal thresholds for escalating risks from project level. We understand that the training pack provided to all project managers set out certain key criteria, but it was not clear that this control was operating in practice."
"For DRS, there were 17 risks categorised as “treat” – only six had defined control actions and for NSCSO, there were 37 risks categorised as “treat” – only one had a defined control action."
"Through our sample testing of risks we noted 14 out of 49 risks on the NSCSO Risk
Register did not have any scoring against them."
"Senior officers showed they were familiar with the defined internal framework to bring specialist resource onto the programme. However, project level staff did not show the same level of awareness with the contractual agreement. Increasing the awareness levels of this arrangement may lead to more effective use of key resources at critical points at project level."
At this stage alarms bells should be ringing loudly. What I want to know is why none of these reports were discussed or circulated at the Audit committee, the natural place to discuss two such critical internal audit reports on such a massive financial project.
I have been asking serious questions at the audit committee for the last two years about the One Barnet programme. This simply reinforces the immense concerns I have about the entire programme and, more importantly, the governance arrangements for the scrutiny of the process. If it transpires that these reports were withheld from the audit committee it must call into question who actually runs this council, Councillors or consultants.
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