Barnet payments to Capita - £250 to charity if Richard Cornelius can show me the evidence of how Capita are actually making the savings promised

Sorry to raise the issue of payments to Capita yet again but I still cannot reconcile how we can pay so much to Capita for a service that is supposed to be generating savings.

For the financial year 2014/15 Barnet paid Capita via the CSG and Re contracts £51,787,011.34. This should be set against a background of the service costing £53 million before it was outsourced. (Source the business case used at the meeting when the two contracts were awarded to Capita. For further details see this blog

Based on information supplied to me in February (see below) the contracted payments should have been £53,654,000 which is slightly more than what it cost before the service was outsourced. Now I have no corroborating evidence that these payment were ever specified because all the commercially sensitive elements of the contract are redacted and indeed there are numerous clauses relating to incentives and penalties which would have made publishing a single payments schedule almost impossible. What is also important to bear in mind is that in the schedule below it states that £14,933 million was paid for an interim service we we know cost less than £1 million to deliver as the period was less than a month before the main contract started. So what happened to the remaining £14 million?  I would also draw your attention to the lack of additional payments from 2015/16 till the end of the contract. Is this because there will be no additional payments or because Capita haven't billed it yet?

I have asked repeatedly to see the evidence of precisely what we are paying for and a detailed explanation of why the payments are so high. Whilst a few promises of evidence were made when the previous COO was in place, none actually materialised.

If Barnet Council are serious about openness then why not host an open day where they go through the contract in detail so that we can understand exactly what we are paying for. I would have thought it would have made sense for Capita to get involved with this, to work through the contract with interested citizens and to demonstrate clearly how much money they are saving.

So I hereby throw down a challenge to the Chief Executive Mr Travers, to Richard Cornelius and to Capita - host an open day, bring bloggers and critics in and show them what you are doing, how the contract is working in reality what money is being paid to whom and how much is really being saved - evidence is essential.  Indeed a few Conservative councillors might want to come along as well seeing as they voted for this contract. I know some of them privately had serious concerns about the contract but were worried about making those views public.

And to put my money where my mouth is, I will donate £250 to a charity of Richard Cornelius' choice if he makes this contract open day happen.

North Finchley Car Parking Update

I blogged about proposals for North Finchley Business Car Parking last week which to me seemed ill informed based on just 7 responses to a letter sent to 450 businesses. I hadn't quite grasped just what they were proposing in the Delegated Powers Report, so this morning when I read the consultation document here it made my blood boil.

Three car parks, Woodhouse Road, Stanhope Road Lower car park (the one on the right I think) and Castle Road car park will be made Business Permit Parking only. "Pay by phone and all other parking payment methods would no longer apply in these car parks." For Woodhouse Road I am less concerned because it is only ten spaces and in Stanhope Road it is 30 spaces and there are two other car parks in the road, but the car park in Castle Road is 59 places and it is the only car park at that end of the town centre (other than Aldi's).

As a frequent user of Argos at North Fnchley, Castle Road is the nearest car park and the one I always use especially if purchasing something heavy or bulky; walking to Stanhope Road car park is just too far. From my perspective if they make Castle Road car park business permit holders only, I'll just stop using Argos in North Finchley and nip over to Borehamwood instead where you can park right outside the shop for free.

I understand that business users need car parking spaces and that the huge hike in prices in 2011 sent the number of permit holders plummeting from 194 to just 23.  But this seems an ill conceived approach. The rational for converting these car parks to business permit holders only is because these car parks are "under utilised". Surely the council should be looking at ways to drive many more shoppers into North Finchley so these car parks aren't under utilised.  It doesn't seem that long ago that I remember when on a Saturday it was difficult to find a  space in any of the car parks. Maybe I am the only one who thinks this needs more thought but either way let the council know your views by emailing or calling:

Gavin Woolery-Allen (Senior Engineer) 

Traffic and Development Section  

0208 359 7545 

eando.consultation@barnet.gov.uk