Who’s Got A Nice Big Pension Pot?

First of all massive thanks to the eagle eyed Mr Mustard who tipped me off to this story.
Last year, having reviewed Barnet Council’s annual audit, I noticed that a few members of staff had been paid, in total, over £1 million in compensation for loss of office (when staff leave their job). At the time I remarked about the very significant sum paid to the former Executive Director for Environment and Development who received £280,485 upon leaving the Council.

So it was with interest that I reviewed the London Development Agency Statement of Accounts for the year ending 31 March 2010 to see that a certain Mr A Travers had received just £8,575 compensation for loss of office when he departed from the LDA. A modest sum by all accounts but then again he did receive £162,595 in salary. However, when you scan across the line a rather large figure jumps out. Pension contributions £437,797 of which, £417,473 was paid as early retirement costs.

It also notes that Mr Travers was seconded to London Borough of Barnet from January to March 2010 at a cost to the Borough of £44,957 including salary and on costs. So Mr Travers was employed by the LDA; he was then seconded to Barnet Council for three months from January to March 2010 and then very neatly he started his consultancy contract through Halliford Associates at £1,000 a day with Barnet Council on 12 April 2010. Very convenient timing for someone who had just received such a large pension fund top up for “early retirement costs”.
At a time when everyone is suffering hardship it seems that some are suffering less than others.

Oh and by the way, I thought I would have a look at the Board of the LDA at the time to see who was a member these events took place. What a surprise when I saw that a certain Cllr Michael Freer from London Borough of Barnet was one of the board of the LDA at the time.

Perhaps I should leave it there and let people form their own views.

The problem with contracts – Lessons to be learned for One Barnet

On Tuesday there is a Cabinet Resources Committee which will deal with a number of subjects. Item 15 on the agenda relates to the leisure services contract with Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL).Back in 2003 the Council entered into a 15 year contract with GLL. Move on 8 years and the Council is now under pressure to cut the budget. It is also losing sites that are attached to the academies like the leisure centre at QE Girls school.

What Barnet want to do is cut the £1.7 million per annum contract by £733,000 this financial year and by £467,000 next financial year. The council have been informed by their legal advisors, Bevan Brittan, that “alteration of the contract, in the manner proposed, would, for the purposes of European procurement law, constitute a material change to the content and nature of the original opportunity such as to amount to a ‘new’ contract”. What this means is that Barnet will have to terminate the contract with GLL 7 years early.

I suspect that GLL will be seeking a significant compensation package for having such a long contract cut short.

So what, you may say. Well I suppose what this illustrates to me are three things

1. Nothing stays constant and the longer the contract the more likely events are to change;

2. When you contract out a service you lose all the flexibility you have with an in house service;

3. Contracts and EU rules are tricky and if you get it wrong you can be sued.

One Barnet is a huge and complex outsourcing project. The two contracts currently being tendered are worth £1 billion and will be let for between 10 and 15 years. Now let’s skip forward five years and things in Barnet are changing again. I wonder how easy it will be for Barnet to escape one of these new contracts. Will a major change mean the contract has to be retendered all over again at huge expense. Will it be possible to get out of the contract?

The current Conservatives in Barnet seem more wedded than ever to this highly risky One Barnet strategy. There were hopes that when Cllr Cornelius was elected leader he might see sense and call a halt to this madness. However he and Cllr Coleman seem keener than ever to embrace what many people see as a massive multi-million gamble. I think it was Churchill who said “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it". Tragically political dogma seems to trump commonsense in Barnet.

The tragic death that should never have happened

A concerned Barnet resident has drawn my attention to the exceptionally sad case of Jesse Moores. He was a young man with learning disabilities, autism and Tourettes Sydrome, living at The Chine, a residential home run by Robinia Care, who died of a tragic and preventable accident in 2005.

I would urge everyone to read the Serious Case Review which has just been published and to think about why it happened and the risks of it happening again.

If nothing else it illustrates that there are exceptionally vulnerable people who live in our community and who need to the best possible care to safeguard their lives. When the government and local authorities talk about cuts, it is often the most vulnerable people who suffer. We must ensure that political dogma and the desire for efficiency savings never impact on those whose lives depend on receiving the best possible care.

Secrecy and Expensive Consultants

Mr Reasonable has been very concerned about the cost of consultants being used for Future Shape project. On Monday I went along to the Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee to ask a question about the appointment of a company called Agilysis who have been awarded a contract as "Implementation Partner". I had previously tried to ask this question at the Future Shape Scrutiny Committee meeting in August but because this specific contract wasn't on the agenda I wasn't allowed to ask the question.On Monday night Cllr Jack Cohen had asked a general question about this contract so because it was now on the agenda I had the chance to ask my question. When awarding these contracts the council allocate scores for quality and cost for each bid. My concern was that none of the bids got particularly high quality scores. I asked questions about the process and in particular were councillors happy that a contract costing "in excess of £500,000" was awarded to a company with a comparatively low quality score. What came out eventually was that there is no quality threshold on these bids. Whoever gets the highest score wins the bid even if the quality score is low. I know this may sound a bit dull but if the Council are going to spend huge amounts on consultants, then surely they should be of a high quality. As a member of the public you get no opportunity to enter a debate on this matter so I waited until Cllr Jack Cohen asked his question. Having already lit the blue touch paper councillors were now keen to understand much more about this contract. Much talk about blue sheets and things that members of the public shouldn't know about. At one stage Mr Reasonable was asked to leave the room so councillors could discuss the actual costs of this contract. We can't be trusted to know what the maximum cost will be. £1 million, £2 million, or even more - I don't know but your councillors do. So we, the residents and ratepayers of Barnet are not allowed to know how much the council are spending on consultants! Cllr Jack Cohen also asked questions about what these consultants are actually going to do. Quite a bit of management speak but puzzled looks from councillors. The question was asked again but to no avail. So there you have it; a contract for consultants that we aren't allowed to know the cost and for which councillors don't understand what they are going to do! Only in Barnet.