What Barnet Don't Want You to Know About Capita

UPDATE:  7 June 2018 see below in red

Secrecy can be a nasty practice with people often keeping secrets for all the wrong reasons. Secrets breed mistrust. In Barnet, the Capita CSG contract has many secrets. The polite, business-like term is "Commercial Sensitivity" but we all know it is secrecy. Barnet say they want to create a sense of transparency and trust but as the saying goes "never give out all the information".

When Barnet entered into their contracts with Capita back in 2013, I, the other bloggers and local residents spent much time asking for the contracts to be made available so we could see what Barnet had signed up to. Richard Cornelius trumpeted about all of the thousands of pages of contract that were available but unsurprisingly there were some elements, the really important elements of the contract, that remained secret.

When the contract was first signed we weren't even allowed to know what was being kept secret. Chunks of text were completely redacted, with an explanation that we didn't need to know because it was commercially sensitive. There was also a patronising undertone of "why bother our silly heads with all this complicated contract stuff. The Councillors know best, just accept it".

I have read the contract, the many contract clauses, contract schedules, method statements and contract commitments, but the really important stuff, like money, has always remained secret. I regularly revisit the contract and came across a schedule that had been originally redacted in full, Schedule 23 Commercial Sensitivity. In this schedule, it sets out the duration of the confidentiality; for some items it is the term of the contract, i.e. 10 years, but for a number of items the duration is only three years.

Given that this contract was signed in August 2013 and commenced in September 2013 that means these items are no longer confidential. A copy of it is set out below:

Most years I take up every residents' legal right to inspect the accounts and, as in previous years,  this year I asked to review all of the Capita invoices paid by Barnet. I will publish further blogs over the next week on some of the other matters I came across, but suffice it to say, there was one particular issue relating to the gainshare clause in the contract that I wanted more detail on.

For those not in the know, "gainshare" is a mechanism by which Capita can claim a proportion of savings they make on behalf of the council. The percentage varies but it is typically 33%. What is also important to understand is that the savings Capita claim are not retrospective but future savings paid up by Barnet in advance. At the year end they have what they call a "true-up" process where they look back to see if they really have made those savings. If the savings are greater then Barnet pays more, if the savings are less Capita make a refund. Not an ideal situation, but that what was agreed in the contract.

This year Barnet made a one off payment to Capita of £970,000 on top of the usual gainshare payments. Having challenged this payment I was told that it is something called the Agreed Procurement Price Recovery  and yes it was in the contract  (Schedule 4) but that clause is redacted. I wanted to check to make sure Capita hadn't been paid excessively and to understand what we have automatically paid in the past and what the payments will be in the future. £970,000 is a very substantial sum, not small change, so I think it is important that should be aware.

Set out below is the clause in its fully redacted state.

Having read in Schedule 23 that the gainshare and profit share arrangements are only confidential for the first three years of the contract, I obviously asked for an unredacted version. I also asked for a number of other clauses identified in Schedule 23 that are time expired to also be disclosed. Now just for clarification this is something written into a contract which both Barnet and Capita have signed.

After waiting almost 2 months, it came as somewhat of a surprise that Barnet again stated that the information remained commercially sensitive even though the contract says otherwise. I made it clear to the FOI officer that Barnet have a signed contract where Capita have agreed to release this information so why aren't  Barnet simply enforcing the contract? The official response I received is as follows:

(I make no comment on the numerous spelling mistakes in the response.)

So there you have it, Capita did agree to make this information available when they signed the contract but what I have asked for is now so dangerous that it could lead to financial problems for the £2.3 billion market cap Capita PLC and lead to job losses. Bear in  mind this was before the Carillion collapse. Even so, I don't know who they are trying to fool but I think disclosing a single set of figures to me is the least of their problems.

What is also important to note is that they want to make all of the information in Schedule 23 exempt including Schedule 23 itself, which has already been disclosed. This has a Stalinist feel to it - we must forget the information we already know as it will be an offence to remember it in the future.

This is what we have come to in Barnet. A Council that kowtows to its supplier Capita, a Council that talks about transparency but does its utmost to prevent it. A Council that puts the commercial interests of a private company above the interests of its own residents.

The matter is now with the Information Commissioners Office. We will have to see what they say, but if ever there was a time to be transparent about what a Council has signed up to, it is now. It is vital that we can understand what this private company is being paid and to make an assessment of whether it is value for money.

Update: I have just received notice that the Information Commissioner's Office that they have upheld my request for disclosure of the Capita Day Rates. I have also now received details of the contract termination terms, the gainshare payments and the Agree Procurement Price Recovery payments for the 10 years of the contract. At least we can now have some transparency as to what we are paying in extras to Capita.   

Watch out for more blogs over the next week on the lamentable state of Barnet's contract with Capita.

Six days Till The Voters Decide

In the run up to the elections on the 22 May I thought I would revisit some of the blogs I have posted over the last four years to see of anything has changed. Today I am looking at events in 2011starting with a blog posted in March 2011 and relates to the infamous Council meeting where MetPro first came to the bloggers attention. This became the watershed moment when Barnet's attitude to residents became clear and war was declared on the bloggers. 

What transpired was that MetPro had no formal contract, were not SIA licensed, had not been CRB checked and had secretly filmed residents at council meetings. However this was at at time when residents were not allowed to film in council meetings, another matter that resulted in a showdown between residents and the Council. Filming of meetings is now commonplace but in 2011 it took a series of heated exchanges and the open filming by bloggers to eventually get the council to relent.

2011 is when the Council changed the rules on residents forums to make it much harder to ask relevant and challenging questions. They introduced this censorship in order to protect the dogmatic One Barnet programme from questions or scrutiny. At they same time they closed down the only scrutiny committee that had responsibility to oversee this project. Redaction of any and all information became the norm to the ridiculous extent that the council even redacted details of payments to the Council's recycling partner May Gurney in the "belief" that the payment of £861,000 was going to Mr & Mrs Gurney's daughter May. 

Roll forward to 2014 and the Council will claim to be more open. In some ways they are having restored the ability to ask any questions you want at residents forums. However, the ability to get an answer which is in any way relevant to the question is a great deal harder and now that One Barnet has been implemented and matters are covered by commercial confidentiality the council can blame someone else for hiding the facts from residents. 

Take for example the publishing of Capita contract which Barnet said was a landmark decision. Try reading it or downloading it. Still plenty of black ink.

When asked about why the Council had given £16.1 million to Capita to fund capital investment when all along we had been told this would be funded by Capita, we got a response but one that very carefully constructed in such a way that it actually told us nothing. 

So has the culture of secrecy and conflict with the residents changed since 2010? Not really. We can ask questions at residents forums but they have to be submitted two days in advance and you are unlikely to get a straight answer. The amount of time for questions and to address committees has been reduced from 30 minutes plus time for people to address the committee to a total of 30 minutes for everyone. In addition the time allowed to address the committee has been reduced from 5 minutes to just three. How topics as complex as those dealt with at the last Audit committee can be explained in three minutes highlights the way the council stifles meaningful dialogue. I would say that all out war is over but it has now become a cold war, more subtle but no less confrontational with residents.

When candidates ask you for their votes ask them how they will be more open with the public and whether they welcome resident involvement in setting council policy. That will be a real test of just how seriously they want resident engagement.

Contract, what contract?

At the beginning of December I applied under the FOI act to see a copy of the contract between Capita and Barnet.

"Please provide me with a copy of the contract between Barnet Council and Capita for the NSCSO project. If you cannot supply the complete contract in its entirety, please provided me with all those elements that are not strictly commercially sensitive and have already been disclosed or about to be disclosed in the public reports and answers to questions considered at scrutiny or cabinet meetings."

 Now we all know a contract exists because it has been much talked about, councillors have inspected it and you can even see a picture of it here.

Waiting until the very last day (I claim it was a day late) Barnet's response was somewhat surprising.

"I am writing to inform you that the information you request is not held by London Borough of Barnet. The contractual agreement for the provision of the New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) has yet to be finalised and signed and therefore no final contract currently exists. The contract is expected to be signed between late January and March 2013. Following this, it is our intention to publish the contract on the council's website having redacted any elements considered to be commercially sensitive."

I note that Barnet are using this excuse with anyone else asking for information about the contract or indeed the investment proposal of Capita in IT.

Not only have Barnet refused point blank to discuss this contract with residents, Barnet deny the contract's existence until it is signed and an opportunity to flag up problems has therefore passed.

The New Year is not off to a good start. Next week are the residents forums which will again deny residents the right to ask any questions about One Barnet or any other matter which is about policy. We have the DRS contract coming up which cannot in anyway be described as "back office". There are lots of really important questions that need to be answered about service delivery, transparency, governance, contractor conflicts of interest, charging policy, to name but a few, yet the Council are mute on this and the public have been effectively gagged.

I think that 2013 is the year when many more residents are going to wake up to the huge risks such a radical and complex outsourcing contract will bring and how the details have been hidden by the Council. Sadly by then it may be too late to do anything about it.

Accident Black Spot at Barnet Council - Democracy in Intensive Care

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.