Deputy Chief Executive is a contractor

Chipping Barnet Residents Forum on Wednesday evening was a rather poorly attended meeting. 10 people in the audience including two councillors. On the agenda were three questions, two of which we submitted by Mr Reasonable. First question related to the empire building at the council and the recruitment of 8 people to form the new Commercial Directorate which will cost £900k a year to run - was this a good use of money when front line services are being cut. Response from the Council yes but we need to do this to make the savings and it will stop us having to use consultants. In theory not a bad answer except for the fact that on Monday night Mr Reasonable had been at a Scrutiny committee meeting asking awkward questions about the appointment of consultants who will cost in excess of £500k and actually may cost several million pounds. No comment from the panel.
Next question concerned the deputy chief executive and the fact that he is not a direct employee of the council. Yes the council confirmed that he is not a direct employee of the council, he is a contractor and the fact that he gets paid between £15,000 and £17,500 a month through his shell company Halliford Associates is ok because it is within the budget. Mr Reasonable made the point that surely someone who is in such an important position and has a statutory responsibility as the Section 151 Officer should be directly employed by the council to ensure continuity and loyalty. A little debate from the audience noted by the panel - next question! Perhaps if there had been more members of the public there there would have been more debate. perhaps it is only Mr Reasonable who sees this situation as unacceptable. Perhaps people just don't care. We then spent more than 1 hour debating cross overs in High Barnet. Overall a deeply disappointing meeting. I sat there wondering why do I bother.

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.

More Costly Empire Building at Barnet Council

Delegated Powers reports can be a goldmine of information. One of the latest shows that the Council is set on spending an additional £523,000 per annum setting up a Commercial Directorate. In addition to the £180,870-£194,960 paid to the Commercial Director, the £137,010-£147,600 paid to the Assistant Director and the £65,900-£70,730 paid to the recently appointed Strategic Planning Advisor, the council want to appoint a further 8 people costing a further £523,000 a year. In total the new directorate will cost around £900,000 a year to run. At a time when the Council is cutting services it seems obscene that so much money is being spent on back office management. Ironically the report also states that:
The Corporate Plan 2010-13 states that “we will continue to drive costs out of the Council through transforming our internal organisation” and that we will focus on “making sure we get the best value from resources across the public sector, including our people and our assets.” Sorry guys but this looks more like driving costs up than driving costs out.

A contract a day keeps consultants in pay

Anyone who reads the Council's websites will see that under the delegated reports section there seem to be a number of consultants contracts being let, all of which relate to Future Shape. One of the latest is the Implementation Partner contract valued at in excess of £500,000. Another is the Design Partner for the Prototyping Project or perhaps the Options Appraisal for the Development and Public Health Services Project.
The problem is that all the interesting stuff is kept hidden away in the exempt reports so it is very hard to judge exactly what is going on. All I know is that a lot of money is being spent with consultants at a time when front line services are being cut.

Council backs down on allowances!

On the Barnet Council website today http://www.barnet.gov.uk/press_releases.htm?id=2263it looks like people power has won the day and that the Leader Lynne Hillan is backing down on Councillors' allowances. Thanks to all people who signed the various petitons including the Residents' Association of Barnet petition.

Petition Against Councillor Allowance Increase

As Mr Reasonable, I normally stick to issues which are specifically related to New Barnet. However, I feel so angry about the rise in Councillor allowances and their refusal to discuss them at the Residents Forum, that I have set up an on-line petition calling on them to be withdrawn. I ask all reasonable people in Barnet to click on the link http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/barnetcouncilpayrises and sign the petition. I hope to present it to the Council in September. Please get your friends and neighbours to sign it. There is also a shortened link http://tiny.cc/dyr0t which may be easier to circulate

Tonight's Residents Forum

The good news from tonight's residents forum is that we have a cast iron, 100% guarantee from Councillor Evangeli that the traffic lights will not be removed from the junction of Margaret Road and East Barnet Road. I await confirmation of this from TFL.

The bad news was the confusion around the JCoSS travel plan which apparently has been submitted and approved. This seemed to have many people scratching their head as for the past 12 months local residents have been asking when this will be discussed with the community. I suspect that many there will feel they have been hoodwinked. A very long list of questions about JCoSS from a local resident was deemed to have been submitted late and was not answered at the meeting.

The other bad news was that no debate was allowed on the councillors allowances. It is a great shame that the only channel available for residents to express their views about councillors actions is effectively stifled when it raises topics the councillors do not want to discuss. We were told that if residents have any comments or views about councillors allowances they should deal with them at councillors surgeries.