The culture of secrecy and paranoia was alive and kicking at
the North London Business Park this morning. I was attending to inspect some
invoices and contracts as is every resident’s statutory right under Sections 15
and 16 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. I was accompanied by Mrs Angry and Mr
Mustard and a gentleman who had a specific interest in the parking contract.
I had given the council 10 working days notice of my
requirements yet sadly two contracts were still not available to inspect as
they were still busy redacting their contents.
Last year, names were redacted but I was at least able to see
how much Barnet was paying for services. This year the black pen was in overdrive. On many of the invoices the only visible
figure was the total amount, something which is already available in the
supplier payments list. For example, the invoices from Agilisys, the Council’s
One Barnet Implementation Partner, did not show daily rates or even the number
of days work provided just the total figure. Given that Barnet Council paid
Agilisys £2,168,555.05 in the financial year 2011/12, I
think it is perfectly reasonable to know how many days work we got for that
fee.
One less redacted
invoice shows that Barnet are still buying those delightfully expensive HP
tablet computers .
When I looked at the
contracts this is where the obsessive redaction really had taken over. In one
contract all of the fee rates had been redacted because the information was “commercially
sensitive”. However in the contract there is a section where a supplier can
state what elements they wish to be considered commercially sensitive and they
had written “N/A” against each line. My interpretation of that is the contractor
had not declared the information to be commercially sensitive but that Barnet
had declared it "politically sensitive".
Another contract
associated with the One Barnet programme had the bidder's entire submission
redacted; page after page of black pen. Fee rates had obviously bitten the dust
but in their proposal all that remained was the contents page and section headings.
Why, for example, are we not allowed to
reviewed the contractors approach to dealing with conflicts of interest and
confidentiality of data. Surely there is nothing commercially sensitive about that?
In one contract there is
a detailed clause stating that even though a contractor may deem information
commercially sensitive it may not be, for example, once a contract has been
awarded. The contract goes on to state that “Tenderers should note that no
information is likely to be regarded as exempt forever”. It should have added “except
to residents” as every single cost schedule was redacted.
This is our money the
Council is spending and every resident should be able to inspect the accounts
as set out under the 1998 Act. However, in Barnet they are obviously so afraid
of what the bloggers might find that they are happy to ignore their own
contract rules to prevent us from seeing the truth.
Escorted to the toilet,
I did at times feel a bit like a prisoner. I paid my £2.28 to get copies of the
invoices I asked for (the black toner cartridge must have been working
overtime).
North London Business
Park is adopting a siege mentality to residents. This will not end well.
