Barnet Council Audit Committee - What on earth is going on!

Ploughing through the 278 pages of the forthcoming Audit Committee report pack my heart started to sink. Internal Audit carry out reviews of various services and in the latest report 11 of the 20 systems audits received only “limited assurance” opinions including:

•Parking – permits and vouchers
•Payroll
•Contract management – EPR
•Data quality of Human Resources performance indicators
•Libraries
•Establishment List
•Value for money – facilities management
•Domestic Violence
•New Homes Bonus
•IT review of LiquidLogic (Children’s Services) and
•IT penetration review

The report on Contract Management – Environment, Planning and Regeneration made particularly painful reading with quotes such as:

•All officers interviewed confirmed that they had not received contract management training in the past two years;

•Officers queried about contract variations were unclear about the specific Contract Procedure Rules (CPR) requirements for variations confirming a need for development / training in this area.

•Officers interviewed for 5 of 6 contracts confirmed the lack of a formal contract risk log, documenting risks relating to contractor delivery and performance. This was consistent with a review of the JCAD risk register (the Council’s risk management system) which did not consistently reflect risks relating to performance and delivery by the relevant contractor. In particular, there was no documented risk in JCAD for review and assessment linked to the decision to cease monthly progress meetings (including KPI discussion) for the one contractor with an annual value of £30m.

•Officers interviewed for 5 of the 6 contracts confirmed that there were no formal documented business continuity plans to address delivery failure by the contractor (although some officers stated that informal business continuity arrangements existed)

•There was not always formal record of meetings held reflecting KPI output and discussions, and resulting actions that were agreed within the meetings;

•The management and the officer responsible for the administration of the EPR contracts register confirmed that central EPR processes for identifying contract management arrangements in the contracts register and reviewing for compliance were planned but had not been implemented;

•Central EPR processes for using the contracts register for the timely assistance of contract managers in initiating procurement for terminating contracts were planned but had not been developed, this had however been partly mitigated by the Council-wide work on the central contracts register and Forward Plan that resulted;

•The documentation of formal procedures/protocols for the administration of the EPR contracts register was planned but had not been completed;

•Arrangements for identifying variations to contracts needed to be developed and implemented; and

•Instances where noted where purchase orders were not raised prior to the invoice.

On Value for Money – Facilities Management there was one high priority finding and five medium priority findings including:

Contract Management of Leases
There is a lease in place, for Building 2 Lower Ground Floor, and the lease contract has not been signed, despite the Council starting the tenancy in January 2008. In addition, this and two additional leases were identified against which some of the rents and service charges had not been billed since the start of the lease in January 2008. A provision had been made for these costs for £190K covering 2009-10 and 2010-11, this is to be increased to £310,000 for 2011-12. We had estimated the cost at the time of the audit was £590,000, against the payments of £257k since 2009-10 the accrual appears reasonable however in the absence of correspondence from the lessor could not confirm appropriate provision had been made.

Monitoring of Invoices
In a sample of five invoices, none were evidenced as reviewed by the Chartered Surveyor for appropriateness as required by Council procedure. Management confirmed that an invoice would only be reviewed in practice if there were queries around it. Management confirmed an annual process is performed to reconcile invoices received against the leases. This had not been performed at the time of audit, and the planned frequency (annually) means that issues may not be identified and resolved in a timely manner, nor is it appropriate for good budget management.

Meetings with Leaseholder
Only two meetings could be confirmed as occurring during 2011-12, despite the requirement for them to be held every six to eight weeks by Council procedures during 2011-12. Management confirmed that meetings and correspondence occur on a more frequent basis, but that this was not part of a formalised regime, and it was more reactive than proactive.

Three Year Budgeting: Planning
Management confirmed that budgeting was performed on an annual basis for Facilities Management with no active consideration of the longer term financial impact of operations. Given the size of the operational property portfolio and the cost of Facilities Management, it would be useful to profile the budget for a longer period.

Three Year Budgeting: Monitoring
Budget monitoring performed on a monthly basis. The budget monitoring reports for July 2011 and November 2011 were reviewed, and neither included comments to explain the variances against budget.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
There are currently no KPIs in place in Facilities Management against which to monitor performance. Management confirmed that this issue has been identified and a set of KPIs is being developed; however, this could not be corroborated at the time of audit.

On Parking the following was noted:

•There has been a failure to retain permit application supporting documentation for sufficient time period, in accordance with the Records Retention & Disposal Guidelines, or in a structured manner. As a result of this finding we were unable to review the effectiveness of the controls in operation as an audit trail only existed for 3 months and the filing of records for the three month period was completed on an ad hoc basis.

•The controlled stationery (scratchcards and permits) is kept in multiple locations, with loosely controlled access, we also could not verify that stock was counted and reconciled periodically.

•Whilst procedures exist, they are not currently up-to date and it is not clear when they were last reviewed.

•Changes to the Civica parking system in terms of permit values, discounts or property addresses for example are not made through a formal change control process for the Civica system. In addition, there is an ability to create a new account or issue a discount without appropriate authorisation.

•There is not currently a formal service level agreement between the Customer Service Organisation (CSO) and the Parking Service.

•Within our audit sample there were instances where the daily cash-up reconciliation were not independently checked and evidenced as such.

•There are currently unexplained differences between the parking system and SAP income reconciliations which have not been followed up promptly or resolved.

This makes pretty gruesome reading and worries me significantly. Finally, at page 251, we come on to the report of Contract Procedure Rules. This also provides limited assurance and flags up the following issues:

Training Package:
Although a training package for contract management has been developed, and there are minor amendments to be made to bring it fully in line with the CPRs, it has not yet been rolled out to relevant staff members. Without consistent training delivered to all staff members who are involved in procurement, the CPRs may not become culturally embedded within the Council.

Controls and Monitoring Action Plan:
New contracts: 20% of our sample of new contracts tested could not be verified as compliant with CPRs. This was because the contracts could not be obtained/located.

Existing contracts:
10% of our sample of contracts tested were still non-compliant, despite being recorded as compliant. Additionally, 80% of contracts within our sample were waived in order to become compliant. Whilst the option to waive is in accordance with the CPRs, this should be used as an exception to the rule; the Council should consider whether the CPRs provide the necessary framework to enable compliance, however training should start to address knowledge gaps across services.

New vendors:
In 80% of the sample of cases we tested there was not an appropriate level of authorisation evidenced and recorded on the new vendor form. Of these, 62% were not authorised through the correct form, rather this was achieved by email.

Corporate Oversight:
There are limitations with the reporting in place for the completeness of the contracts register, meaning management cannot easily assess their data spend for the current financial year, it currently covers 3 year historical spend but doesn’t indicate where there is current spend. Additionally, there are still some contracts not added to the corporate repository for contracts without valid reasons. We do however note that managers do have access to SAP spend reports, reports extract spend by vendor, year, category which is an improvement from our previous reporting in December. Training is now available on these through the E-portal.

Retrospective purchase orders:
There has been a negative direction of travel, with a high percentage of retrospective purchase orders being raised in February 2012 when compared with the rest of the year.

Personally I found this report shocking and I am sure many other residents would also agree. My concern, which I have expressed on previous occasions, is that Senior Officers care much more about implementing One Barnet than ensuring the day to day operation of the council is carried out properly. How much longer will this go on before Cllr Cornelius gets a grip on how the council is being run. Perhaps he planned to do it but never got round to implementing it!

Friern Barnet Pop Up Library – Barnet’s Pro Democracy Movement In Action

I spent a very pleasant morning down at the Friern Barnet Pop Up Library. With people coming and going, music playing, some enjoying the delicious homemade cakes on offer, it could have been an idyllic scene from a rural country fair.

Several people turned up to return books borrowed from the now closed library and were forced to post them through the letterbox. Sadly the inside of the library shows the shelves are empty except for the pile of books on the other side of the letterbox.

But what really interested me were the discussions that took place. A charming lady, who is one of the pop up library organisers, told me that what was taking place in Barnet reminded her of the pro-democracy movement she experienced in Poland back in the late 1980’s before the Eastern Block collapsed. Fighting in a passive and positive way against an autocratic regime. Yes, this is what we are facing in Barnet in the twenty first century, a struggle to retain a semblance of democracy in the way our Borough is run. This wasn’t an isolated comment. Numerous people wanted to talk about the undemocratic power wielded by the Council. Ignoring petitions, ignoring speeches, ignoring representations from local community groups. Worse still, ignoring expensive but ultimately impotent public consultations funded by the rate payers. “We had thousands of names on the petition to keep the library open but they just ignored us exclaimed one person”. A number of people also remarked about the lack of common sense shown by the Council. These people were not crackpots; they were ordinary, reasonable and intelligent people who see things going horribly wrong in Barnet. The issue of One Barnet also came up in discussion and especially the fact that there is so little in the public domain about this subject. Someone said to me “how can they be pressing ahead with such radical changes without making it clear they were going to do this in their manifesto”. I relayed to this person an experience of mine at a Special (Constitution) Committee meeting where a rather young and arrogant Councillor said “people voted us in so that is our mandate to do what we want”. Barnet Councillors need to realise that this is increasingly how many of the residents view the way Council is being run; as an autocratic, arrogant and increasingly out of touch cabal of ten people who mistakenly think they know what the 350,000 residents want.

Expect to see more about the Barnet Pro Democracy movement over the coming weeks and months as people start to express their dissatisfaction with the Council in an increasing direct manner.

One Barnet Outsourcing - Do residents really understand what it is all about

Last night I gave a short talk at the Annual General Meeting of the Friern Barnet & Whetstone Residents' Association. I spoke about One Barnet Outsourcing, what services were going to be outsourced and who was bidding. The impression I got was that a great many people in Barnet are completely unaware of the scale of outsourcing taking place and the fact that so many different services will be run by two, or possibly even one company with all the attendant risks that brings.

I have been concerned about the One Barnet outsourcing scheme from day one. I am not opposed to the principle of outsourcing but only where is makes sense and is not a core element of organisations business. The scale of this outsourcing project is immense with the two main contracts valued at more than £1 Billion.

What marks Barnet Council out as different is the fact that some many of core services will be operated by a single company for ten years. If this current ruling group lose control of the council at the next local election in 2014, the incoming regime will be tied up in these contract that go on well beyond their own term of office.

This is an area that needs much greater debate, something that Barnet Council seem determined to prevent. It might help if BT, Capita and EC Harris, the three companies bidding to win these two outsourcing contracts came and talked to the residents they are proposing to serve. It might help to provide some reassurance that they will not ship jobs off to India, that they will not increase charges, that they will respond quickly and openly to FOI request and that they will engage with residents on scrutiny panels. Here is your chance Capita, BT or EC Harris to prove that you could deliver an excellent service for less money. Get in touch!

Barnet Council Members Allowances - top secret?

Barnet Council have yet again shown their utter disregard for the public by withholding the value of allowances paid to member for the year 2010-11. We are now in the financial year 2012/13 and the accounts for 2011-12 were published last September, eight months ago. But what about payments to Councillors. They remain unpublished and a Freedom of Information Request today has told me:

"Information for 2010-11 will be published on our website later in the financial year. This information is therefore exempt under section 22 of the FOIA, which exempts from disclosure information intended for future publication. This response therefore acts as a Refusal Notice".

Well I say to Barnet Council - PULL YOUR FINGER OUT! If it takes more than a year to publish the allowances paid to 63 councillors then either your systems or the people running them are failing.

Barnet Council's New Website - it doesn't work

Months late and having cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, today Barnet council launched its new website. Sadly as is so much in Barnet, it was BROKEN.

If you get on to the front page of the website, which now has a new web address, http://barnet.gov.uk/ (no www. anymore) you will find lots of broken links that take you back to the old website. Frankly this isn't good enough. The council's IT consultants have had a huge amount of time to sort this out and today it should have gone right first time.

I have written to Councillor Cornelius along with my three ward councillors to tell them it isn't working well. They could have actually turned this into a real PR success but their lack of commonsense and desire to stifle resident engagement has yet again created another problem.

Set out below is my email to Cllr Cornelius

Dear Cllr Cornelius,

The new Barnet council website has gone partially live today. Most of the data appears to remain on the old platform but all council meetings and delegated powers reports are on the new website. Sadly virtually all of the old delegated powers reports have now disappeared; I could only manage to find two on the new website.

At the most recent Chipping Barnet Residents forum I did put forward a question asking if the Council would consider holding training sessions for residents on how to use the new website but sadly my question was ruled invalid and was not even allowed to be considered.

As a simple PR exercise I think it might have been helpful to invite regular website users to a training/briefing session. It might have also helped to build bridges between the Council and the community. Perhaps this is something which you might want to consider as creating such a significant information vacuum will only lead to even more Freedom of Information requests.

Kind regards

Let's wait and see if I get a reply.

Proof that Barnet Council is completely out of touch

Many Barnet residents have little or no knowledge of the workings of Barnet Council. Next week we have a council meeting during which Councillors can ask questions. The list of questions has been published here.

Having read through the questions and the answers it simply illustrates the juvenile tit-for-tat antics of councillors. I would genuinely ask residents to read these questions and answers and then consider if they think our councillors are actually giving us value for money or are suitable to run the largest London Borough.

Quite frankly I think my teenage children act more rationally and sensibly that Councillors seem to portray in these questions and answers. Councillors are well rewarded for their time. A basic allowance of £10,597 can be topped up with special responsibility allowances. The total allowance for the Leader is £45,506. However chairing a committee can also be lucrative topping up their allowance to £25,930. Cabinet members pull in just over £28,000. Do residents believe that is value for money - I certainly don't.

Councillors must start to realise that if they are being paid the equivalent of what many people receive for a full time job they should start taking it seriously and stop this childish point scoring which benefits no one.

Cllr Cornelius and FOI requests that never get answered

In today's Barnet Press Cllr Cornelius has written a piece which, amongst other things, has a go at "an individual" for submitting too many Freedom of Information requests.

Well Cllr Cornelius, I would just like to get my FOI's answered but your officers seem to enjoy avoiding some of my requests. On November 22 last year I submitted an FOI request regarding RM Countryside, a supplier to Barnet Council. My request was as follows:

Please can you provide me with all Delegated Powers Reports that feature council supplier R.M. Countryside Services Limited since 1 April 2005 (with the exception of DPR1419 which is already available) and a list of all Barnet Council tenders in which R.M. Countryside Services Limited were successful since 1 April 2005.

There was a very good reason for submitting this FOI which I will not go into here but it is a serious matter and definitely not frivolous.

Receipt of my FOI request was acknowledged on 1 December 2011 and since then Barnet Council have refused to answer or even acknowledge any follow up requests on 3 January, 30 January and 8 March. Forget 20 days to get a response, I've waited 20 weeks and I still have not got an answer.

Cllr Cornelius needs to understand that the reason people submit FOI request is because Barnet is a deeply secretive organisation and one which seem to thrive on withholding information. Cllr Cornelius may recall that I asked him a question during public questions section at a council meeting last year. His response was "well perhaps you should submit a Freedom of Information Request". Not very helpful or constructive!

The scrutiny process in Barnet if flawed. There is no scrutiny whatsoever of the One Barnet Programme and residents are forbidden from asking questions on such matters at residents forums. Submitting FOI requests is the only way to try and get information out of the council and, baqsed on my experience, even that doesn't work.

On Monday I will be submitting a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office about the Council's refusal to comply with the Freedom of Information legislation, something which will take time and cost money for the council - but what alternative do I have?

In future I suggest Cllr Cornelius stops moaning about FOI requests in the local paper and start sorting out the obsessive, secretive and obstructive culture that exists within the Council.