Year End Supplier Payments - Where All The Money Is Going

Today Barnet have published the March 2018 supplier payments which give us a complete picture for the financial year.

In March Capita were paid £7.3 million and Re were paid £1.04 million with Comensura receiving just under £2 million.

Other interesting payments include £101,202.76 to Blue 9 Security. It would be helpful to understand how much of that is for the additional security staff at our "unmanned" libraries.  By way of comparison in the financial year 2014-15 Blue 9 Security were paid £581,632 but this financial year, 2017-18, they were paid £1,149,873. So in three years the cost of security have doubled with the only significant variable being the introduction of security staff at libraries.

We paid PA Consulting £219,950 for "IT & Comms". Now we have Capita who are supposed to run the council's IT services so what are we paying an external consultancy £219,950 for and who authorised it?

Albeit a more modest sum, we paid an organisation called Policy into Practice £20,317. One of the services they provide is Council Tax reduction modelling; you can see what they provide here. I don't know if that is what they helped with but it does seem to coincide with Barnet's plans to increase the amount the poorest families in Barnet have to pay towards their Council Tax next year see here.

So as we are at the year end I thought it would be helpful to summarise the key spending this year. Set out below is the chart showing the top 10 supplier payments for 2017/18.

Other than the Barnet Group and the Greater London Authority the three largest supplier payments are to Re, Capita and Comensura all of which deserve greater scrutiny. One thing to bear  in mind with the Capita payments is that we made a large advance payment last year which is why payments this year have been lower - although I don't think that will be happening again any time soon.

Set out below is the year end summary of the Capita and Re contracts. From this you can see that the contracted value to date of the two contracts is £211 million but, in addition to that contracted value, we have paid a further £124 million for all the extra services, special projects, contract variations, excess charges and gainshare. When Richard Cornelius keeps saying this contract is saving Barnet residents £1 million a month, perhaps you can understand why I find that hard to believe. Yes the core contract may be saving money but we are paying a fortune for the extras and that seems to more than cancel out any potential savings. As yet I still haven't had a resolution to my objections to the accounts for 2016/17 in relation to gainshare payments to Capita and we are now a month into 2018/19.

We also pay a fortune to a company called Comensura who supply the council with agency and interim staff. Having hit a high water mark of almost £20 million last year there was a concerted attempt to make inroads into that figure in 2017-18. Sadly the reduction has only been around 10% so we are back to where we were in 2015/16 but still at more than double the spend of 2011/12. In the 12 months prior to the commencement of the Capita contract, the council used significantly more agency staff. This was because many staff were leaving the council to avoid being made redundant and it was almost impossible to recruit new staff as they knew they would soon find themselves out of a job. Yet nearly five years into the contract with Capita we are still using large numbers of agency staff in far fewer service areas. That indicates to me an organisation that has lost its way, that can't hold a fixed workforce, that isn't doing its utmost to engage, motivate and retain its most valuable resource, its employees.

It is time for a change in Barnet and on Thursday Barnet residents can use their vote to bring about that change. Please make that vote count.

Barnet Supplier Payments - yet another reason why we need to start planning for change

This has been an eventful week in Barnet. Capita's share price has crashed, with Barnet having to draw up contingency plans in the event of its failure. The same day as the crash, the Audit Committee heard a catalogue of Capita failures.

Today I have published the supplier payments for December 2017. As you can see from the chart below, we are still paying Capita/Re a fortune even though we have made huge advance payments to them on both contracts.

The monthly bill for agency and interim staff is declining slightly but it is still forecast to hit £17.2 million by the year end. With a commissioning council and so many services outsourced it is beyond belief that we are spending more on agency staff now than we were when no services were outsourced. Below are the charts showing the payments to Capita and Re as well as for Interim and Agency staff.

I have had a number of discussions today with people asking whether the contract with Capita can be terminated. I have referred them to the contract (page 167) on the Barnet Council website which seemingly makes it clear that, yes, we can terminate the contract. We would have to pay a fee (which Capita do not want me to see as explained in an earlier blog) but given the massive cost of the current contract that may well be a price worth paying.

What is important now is to start discussing what a redesigned Council could look like and how it could be structured. I had a great discussion with someone who has great experience of the council. They identified what services should be working much more closely together to make them more effective at delivering services (and which would save a significant number of managers). That made me even more convinced than we need to start the process of creating a masterplan for the council and then start bringing service back in house to fit within the new structure.

The message to Barnet residents should be one of hope and the genuine belief that without Capita we can have a better, more efficient council that can deliver the best possible services, cost effectively.

Barnet - Follow Cornwall's Lead and Pull the Plug on One Barnet

Yesterday in Cornwall, the Council made the sensible decision to step back from mass outsourcing of their services (courtesy of the blog of Cllr Andrew Wallis)

The full motion that was debated was as follows:

1) This Council expresses its thanks to all the people who signed the petition and have thereby strongly engaged in the local democratic process.

2) The current proposals (BT) for the Strategic Partnership for Support Services shall not progress to the Invitation to Final Tender (ItT) until after they have been debated and unless approved by a meeting of Cornwall Council.

3) The Chief Executive be requested to investigated fully, as a matter of urgency, all reasonable alternative methods of delivering the Council services covered by the proposals for the said Strategic Partnership, which addresses the need to make efficiency savings and to generate income including; a thin trading JV working with a commercial partner to deliver services outside Cornwall; a shared services project with local NHS and other public services, but without a private sector partner; an employee owned mutual and other in-house options

4) The Council's draft Business Plan 2012-16 be prepared to reflect recommendations 2 and 3 above.

5) The full Council supports the ongoing work by the SIP for Strategic Services

This was voted on, and carried by 93 for, 7 abstentions, and no-one voting against.

This was yet another of the big outsourcing proposals to have the plug pulled and it leaves Barnet as the sole representative of the mass outsourcing ideology.

On 18th October Stephen Hughes the Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council said "Essentially I believe the traditional outsourcing model isn’t fit for current circumstances". Well if that is the case why won't Barnet see sense and pull back from this outsourcing madness.

In Barnet, residents have never been given the choice of whether they want mass outsourcing. we have not been allowed to debate it in residents forums and the only scrutiny committee debating the issue was closed. Our voices have been ignored. Tonight at the Business Management Overview & scrutiny Committee a petion will be presented asking for the One Barnet programme to be stopped whilst the implications

As I have said on repeated occasions, I have no ideological opposition to outsourcing per se. Understanding why you want to outsource, what you want to achieve and balancing the risk against the reward, all form part of the assessment as to whether outsourcing is the right move. In Barnet's case no consideration was given to an in house team even though on the benchmark research demonstrated that the in house team worked well. major financial savings have been made with the current staff without a single outsourcing contract being in place because at this time the Council retains the flexibility to make those changes. The level of risk that has been built into the contract based on the number and complexity of the services to be provided, the scale of the contract and the ten year term is immense and will have massive financial consequences for the residents of Barnet if it goes wrong.

Now is the time for all of the backbench Conservative councillors to ask themselves the question is this mass outsourcing in Barnet really worth the risk and I hope the answer is NO!

One Barnet Outsourcing - The Billion Pound Gamble

It is interesting to see that the Council have made some positive noises about changing some of the mad parking policies. We will have to see what the parking review brings but I suspect it will be minor, the charges will still be sky high but we will be able to pay at a machine with a credit card.

One area where I would like Barnet to reconsider is the whole One Barnet Outsourcing Programme. As I have said previously, I am not ideologically opposed to outsourcing. However the scale and complexity of the two main outsourcing contracts suggest to anyone with an ounce of common sense that this is an exceptionally risky venture.

Last week I was speaking with a very nice chap who runs a multi million pound business. We got on to the subject of Barnet Council and I took the opportunity to ask him his views on the One Barnet programme. His initial view was, unsurprisingly, well there's nothing wrong with outsourcing. However, as I started to talk him through the huge scale of the One Barnet programme his mouth fell open. Yes they are going to outsource the entire finance department, IT department, HR department, planning department, Environmental health, Regeneration to name but a few. "Hang on a minute", he said "what about all the conflicts of interest that will arise". Yes he is right. With regeneration strategic planning, land charges and planning development management all being outsourced to the same company, this will inevitably create huge potential risks for conflicts of interest. We then talked about the length of the contract. "I guess they are going to let it for three years to see how it goes"? he asked. Oh dear he was in for another shock. Ten year minimum with the option to extend for a further five years. At this stage my acquaintance was choking a bit. Are they aware of the risks they are taking on - well frankly I don't think that most of the Councillors do understand the risks involved. The clincher was when I told him the budget for all the consultants advising the council is £9.2 million. How many disadvantaged people could that have helped?

I am going to be speaking to as many local residents as possible and encourage them to ask their Councillors if they are aware of the level of risk they are exposing Barnet ratepayers to because ultimately it is the ratepayers who will pick up the bill if this all goes wrong.

With Brian Coleman losing his grip on the Cabinet, now is definitely the time call a halt to this programme.

Barnet bloggers' open letter to council leader Cornelius: Sack Brian Coleman!

Dear Councillor Cornelius,

The people of Barnet have spoken. The London Assembly result on 3 May was a resounding rejection of the policies of your administration and of a prominent member of your leadership team.

As you were not leader at the time of the 2010 election, and most of your unpopular polices were not part of the manifesto, we ask you to consider the following proposals, with a view to changing the course of your administration.

1. Dismiss Brian Coleman from your Cabinet. Mr Coleman was decisively rejected by Barnet voters in the London Assembly election and to allow him to continue in post is an insult.

2. Reopen Friern Barnet Library immediately. This well-supported community asset cannot be replaced successfully at the Artsdepot.

3. With local traders, campaigns and stakeholders, create a parking regime that will enhance the environment and restore the fortunes of Barnet’s high streets. Parking charges should manage traffic, not rake in cash. No more hikes in parking charges; reduce charges as necessary, including in CPZs.

4. Cut the rate paid to all freelance consultants employed by Barnet by 25%. Large city firms including JP Morgan and Lloyds TSB have instituted such a policy in response to the harsh economic times. Any consultant not prepared to take a cut would be terminated as per contract terms.

5. Cut the pay of all Barnet Council staff earning more than £150,000 p.a. by 20% and staff on £100,000 - £150,000 p.a. by 10%. The savings in 4. and 5. would generate far more than the sum lost through the parking changes above.

6. Immediately halt the One Barnet outsourcing programme. Dismiss all consultants engaged on the programme.

7. Invite the council trade unions to identify savings and efficiencies within Barnet Council, at the same time protecting services, jobs, and pay and conditions. This exercise should also be opened up to Councillors and members of the public.

8. Invite members of the public to form an oversight panel, to scrutinise contracts and accounts with suppliers. Give the panel access to all council contract information, subject to signing of confidentiality agreements. The panel would report directly to the chair of the audit committee.

9. Cut all councillor allowances by 10%, to show that we really are “all in this together”, and review the excessive allowances paid to Cabinet members and Committee chairs. Learn the lessons of the upset caused to voters by the "Allowancegate" scandal.

10. Stop harassing members of the public involved in protests against discredited council policies. Work with residents, not against them, to improve Barnet. Embrace democracy!

In the year of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, we ask: do you want to be the political equivalent of the captain who hit the iceberg?

Barnet Council has had two years of unremitting bad press as a result of policies that were not declared to the public during the 2010 election. Now the people have spoken, and we the undersigned believe that you have no choice but to listen and to change course.

Signed:
Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

Barnet - a Council out of touch with its electorate

We all know how unhappy people are about the parking by phone system that was imposed without consultation or discussion. I had a card registered but it expired and since then I have had huge problems registering the new card. Yesterday morning I tried to buy some 30 minute scratchcard on line. I wonder how long they will take to arrive? We see the old ticket machines still languishing on the streets covered in black bin bags. If they had kept the machines but created incentives for people to use pay by phone I am sure over time many people would have gradually moved over to pay by phone. Barnet council say that the machines were always breaking down and that is why they had to be replaced but I had a look at the figures given in an FOI on this very subject and while there were a number that were problematic, the majority had only occasional failures. Yes, there were some occasion when a lot of machines went wrong but when I looked in detail at the dates it coincided with days when we had the snow last winter (which I think stopped the solar panels on top of the machines from working).

Another topic where the Council seems to be out of touch with residents is the proposal to let out the parks to private groups. In my local Oakhill Park there is an area by the cafe which has been designated for use by private parties. It also happens to be the cricket square during the summer and is an area widely used because it is flat and close to the cafe. At tonight’s council meeting a question has been asked about the consultation on this subject. Interestingly the reply states that:

“As of the 12th January 2012 the Council has received over 650 response to the consultation of those 464 have been analysed thus far, the breakdown is as follows 428 are against the policy, 9 are in favour and 47 have taken a neutral position”.

So that’s 92% opposed and just 1.9% in favour. Pretty clear cut in anybody’s terms but will the council listen or will they plough on regardless like they do on every other topic like selling the Church Farmhouse Museum and pushing through this mad outsourcing programme.

Barnet Council continues to distance itself from the people it is supposed to represent. This cannot continue much longer before something snaps. Either someone will try and stage a coup within the Council or the residents will start a revolt. Either way, the current approach of the cabinet doing what they want and arrogantly ignoring any public views is untenable.

Barnet Council - please start listening!