One Barnet Outsourcing - "We do NOT have a mandate" says Tory Councillor

In today's Barnet Press there is an article featuring Councillor Khatri and his concerns about One Barnet Outsourcing. In the article he makes it clear that he does not believe the Conservatives have an electoral mandate to implement the massive outsourcing programme.

"None of the literature we distributed before the election mentioned one iota of this". 

"Nowhere in any campaign literature or leaflets or articles written by councillors was it made clear that they would start a massive outsourcing programme." 

"The local people do not want this and were not consulted hence the vociferous reaction by residents."

Councillor Khatri said that he remains "unconvinced" about the One Barnet outsourcing programme. It is just a shame that this only came out following a leak of an email exchange between Councillor Khatri and Hendon MP Matthew Offord.

I believe that Councillor Khatri is an honourable person, he is a scientist and I am sure he is a man who believes in evidence. He appears to be very uncomfortable about the current One Barnet programme. I wonder how many other Councillors are equally unhappy about this high risk programme but are not prepared to speak out publicly. The council will be making a decision in the next couple of weeks that will commit the council to a huge, high risk contract for the next 10 years. I just hope that the Conservative Councillors who share Councillor Khatri's concerns put the interest of the people they represent above party loyalty and start expressing their concerns publicly.