Disappearing Evidence - Refuse Collection Reorganisation Update

Update 11.29 am 5 April.

I have just had a response from Barnet that the information is now available again.  You can see it here. Having checked the data, the overspend on waste collection service remains the same at £2.029 million.

On 14 March  I asked a series of questions relating to the round reorganisation of Barnet's waste collection service. I expressed serious concern that not only had the rounds reorganisation not saved any money but in fact it had actually cost a great deal more. The reason for me making this assertion was based on information issued at the Financial Performance  & Contracts Committee a few days earlier on 11 March. At that meeting it was disclosed that the waste collection service was significantly over budget and that the year end forecast showed the service would be £1.75 million over spent and that this overspend had jumped £1.189 million since the previous month. I raised this at the Environment Meeting but received no clear response as to when we would get a clear understanding of what the reorganisation has actually cost.

On 1 April Barnet published the Period 11 financial figures which also set out how the latest forecast on the waste collection service had worsened. Luckily I took a snapshot of this report. On the 2 April I tweeted about the significant increase in costs but as of 12 noon today the information has been removed from the website - it looks like it was removed on 2 April, possibly as a result of my tweet.

The problem is that street scene are massively over budget because of the botched #bingate fiasco. The latest figures show that waste is £2m over budget, up £283k since 11 March figures. I suspect managers are franticly making cuts to balance budgets without consulting Cllrs. pic.twitter.com/YBaQKT9fws

— Mr Reasonable (@ReasonableNB) April 2, 2019

The figures show that between the figures published on 11 March and those published on 1 April the revised year end forecast had increased by another £283,000. That is a huge increase in short a short period of time. Much worse is that they were forecasting for the last three months of the year in the period 9 figures. To have to make such a large adjustment in period 11 suggests that cost have rocketed at a time when I was told repeatedly at the Environment Committee that the problems with waste collection were reducing. It is now apparent that the reason the problem are reducing is because so much more money is being thrown at them. I have set out below a comparison between the two sets of figures including the one that has now been removed from the Council's (not very) Open Data website.

I have asked Barnet why they have removed these figures and I will update this post once I have a response. What is clear to me is that the round reorganisation of the waste service has been a financial disaster and the risk is that other cuts to services will now be made to offset this massive overspend.

Give £4m with one hand take £17m with the other

Supplier payments have been published and in December there were two massive payments to Capita. On the CSG contract Capita received £13 million and on the Re contract £4.3 million. These are massive payments which seem to make the £4.1 million Capita have agreed to refund seem somewhat paltry. It also concerns me that there is no transparency whatsoever on how the £4.1 million settlement figure was calculated. Set out below is the running tab on the two Capita contracts which makes you realise just how much this contract is costing us. And don't forget, you can still comment on the Council's proposal to bring some  or all of Capita services back in house. The consultation ends on 15th February so make sure you submit your comments to Barnet Council here.

I didn't report the supplier payment figures last month as I had significant concerns about the agency costs. These concerns remain. Set out below is an analysis of the agency costs as declared in supplier payments for this financial year.

Since the contract changed over on 1 October the payments have plummeted. This suggests that either:
a) there has been a massive change in recruitment policy since October; or
b) not all the figures have been declared since the new contract started in October.
We will have to wait and see what is the right answer. Given that there was a significant use of agency staff on the refuse service following the changes made to the collection rounds I wonder if they are included in these figures or if they are using another agency which so far hasn't shown up.

In addition there were some large and unusual payments as follows:

• £538,745.70 to JLT Speciality, an insurance broker. Given the council insurer is Zurich Municipal (to whom we paid £504,237.21 in December) it makes me wonder why we paid so much to JLT.
• £828,155.00 to S&B Commercials who sell large commercial vehicles. I wonder if this is where Barnet bought their new bin lorries and who authorised such a large payment.
• £99,424.50 to Capacitygrid. That may not seem like a huge amount but the services they seem to offer appear to be the same as those we pay Capita to provide. My question would be, are we paying twice for some services?

Set out below is a summary of the top ten supplier payments. I will as always continue to monitor the Council's spending.

Capita get massive £45 million Christmas present from Barnet Council

I did wonder why the Barnet Council monthly expenditure figures weren't posted yesterday. Today I understand why. In December Capita were paid a staggering £45 million. Yes £45 million split £39 million on the CSG contract and £6 million on the Re contract. So far this financial year that brings the total payments to Capita to £96.5 million and there are still three months to go of this financial year.

I attended the evidence gathering session for the review of the Capita CSG contract back in July 2016, the only opportunity for the public to have any input to the review process. Six months later we get a report that says everything is coming up roses with this contract. Well Councillors, if you think that shelling out £96.5 million in just 9 months is acceptable then you clearly have lost touch with reality.

I understand that at last night's Council meeting Cllr Geof Cooke asked why the ruling group insisted on holding the review of the Re contract in secret. Apparently he was told by Cllr Finn it wasn't in secret, it was in private. I have absolutely no confidence in the working group doing anything other than giving the Re contract another clean bill of health.  Perhaps if these figures had been released before the meeting yesterday, the response to Cllr Cooke's question might had drawn greater criticism - or maybe not.

I call on all the ruling group Councillors especially Cllrs Finn and Zinkin who site on the working group to reconsider holding the Re contract review meetings in public, not in private, to explain why we are paying so much to Capita and to allow residents to understand what Councillors really feel about this contract.

One Barnet and One Million of Fees in October

What a million pounds looks like.

October supplier payments are out and having read through the 4,400 payments I was shocked at what I found. One Barnet is an expensive project but in October costs rocketed to a new stratospheric level.

Barnet Council's implementation partner Agilisys billed £780,913.52 in October - yes over £3/4 million pounds in just one month. Trowers & Hamlins, the Council's legal advisors also billed £318,499.70 to the Council's commercial department (dealing with One Barnet). I have specifically excluded fees T&H bill for legal advice to children's services and the housing account.

So in total, the bill for One Barnet Advice in October was £1,099,413.22 or £47,800 every single working day.

Conservative cabinet members keep saying we have to spend money to save money but frankly I think they have completely and utterly lost control. The bill for Agilisys in two years of their three year contract has now hit £4.8 million against an estimated cost of £2 million for the entire three years.

I originally thought the bill might reach £6 million by the end of the contract period. I reckon that now it will be at least £7 million and possibly even £8 million. All in the name of saving money - I despair!

Interestingly Capita Symonds also submitted an invoice for £5,000 for consultancy fees for organisational development and customer services area and billed to the Chief Executive's.department. I sincerely hope the Chinese walls are in place and robust.

One Barnet - 447,197 Reasons to Pull the Plug

Barnet's supplier payments for September have just been released and yet again Barnet's Implementation Partner have submitted a huge bill. In September they billed £447,197.21. That is £22,360 every working day of September. Since January 2012 Agilisys have billed over £2.5 million, more in 9 months than Councillor were told in would cost over the entire three year contract. So far this contract alone has cost us £4.2 million and there are numerous other consultants and legal advisors who are merrily billing us with great delight.

Trowers & Hamlins, who are providing legal advice on One Barnet, have also billed £123,259.79 in September or £6,163 per day.  Oh, and welcome to new consultancy supplier Sticky Change Limited who were paid a rather modest £6,539.50 for some consultancy work for the commercial department.

Barnet Councillors keep saying there is no alternative to One Barnet. Frankly I cannot see how we can keep paying out such huge sums to consultants when the two outsourcing contracts still haven't been let. It's a bit like a gambler who, every time they lose their bet, double up on the next bet in the hope of winning back their losses. The council needs to go consultant cold turkey, break this costly addiction and start using common sense to make savings.

One Barnet - The Programme that Keeps on Costing

I must be slipping. I read through the the papers for last week's Cabinet Resources Committee and missed a very interesting statement tucked away on page 144. (Page 16 of this download section). At 9.17.8 it says,

"To ensure the adequate funding of this enhanced programme of change, £10m is being added to the Transformation Reserve. Cabinet Resources Committee are asked to approve the expenditure of £6.140m of this within 2012/13, to fund the initiatives described above. The table below provides a breakdown of the predicted use of this money. The requested sum includes the totality of funding required for the three enabling projects and the Health Integration and Demand Management project. It also includes the funding for the development of Outline Business Cases for the other projects, and the funding of the programme management office through the year".

Put simply, what it appears to be saying is that Barnet need another £10 million to fund "an enhanced change programme". Interestingly the table below suggests that actually they need another £11 million of which £6.14 million needs to be drawn down this financial year. Personally I find this pretty scary. The One Barnet implementation budget was forecast at £9.4 million. They are now asking for another £10 or £11 million over the next three years. We don't know what that  money is going to be spent on. It just has to be authorised for senior officers to spend. Will a large chunk of this be spent on consultants and lawyers - probably!

Having watched the Barnet Bugle's video of the CRC meeting it appears that Cllr Harper refers to page 143 of the report and asks an officer to spell out the savings which are stated as £16 million.  He fails to draw attention to the additonal £10 million requirement on the next page, a very convenient oversight.

The reality is that One Barnet is in fact a load of smoke an mirrors. Most of the savings that have been made so far are simply old fashioned cuts. Staff made redundant, services reduced, the vulnerable made to pay more. Not one penny has been saved by the One Barnet Outsourcing project yet because it is almost a year overdue and will not come into force until the next financial year.

I would love to have a debate with Councillors about the One Barnet programme. I would love to see some of the details behind all of these figures. I would like to see a breakdown of the costs so far. Not in the secret state of Barnet where the citizens cannot be trusted with any of this information.

BT and Capita (oh and EC Harris) must be laughing their socks off.

Thanks to anonymous for the tip off!