A history lesson - Back to the Future

Mr Mustard was not bothered about Barnet Council in 2008 and so he decided to read up about Future Shape - the forerunner of One Barnet. 

Cabinet agreed the establishment of the Future Shape of the Organisation programme at its meeting on 6 May (2008)

This blog takes as its base the report presented to Cabinet on 3 December 2008 and roughly half of the councillors who were at that meeting are still councillors. If you want to read the whole report you will find it here.

Summary:

The report proposes a model for the Council and its partners that will enable them to work more closely and effectively to respond to the needs and aspirations of people in Barnet and to translate these into priority outcomes, the delivery of which will significantly improve the quality of citizens’ lives and their experience of public service in the borough.

It is Mr Mustard who underlined and made bold the phrase "significantly improve". Mr Mustard has lived in Chipping Barnet for 15 years and worked there for 24 and he must have been preoccupied because he has not noticed that the borough has significantly improved in that time. If any councillors are reading, especially any from the drinks cabinet, would you please email mrmustard@zoho.com and tell him what significant improvements he has failed to spot since 2008.

Officer contributors:

Richard Grice, Future Shape Programme Director

Jenny Coombs, Transforming Service Delivery Director

Max Wide, Executive Director, Organisational Development

Claire Johnston, Programme Manager

Clive Medlam, Director of Resources

Jeff Lustig, Director of Corporate Governance

Half of these people are still at the council; perhaps no-one else wants them? 

Looking at Jenny Coombs's profile on LinkedIn her claims include: 

"Introducing and embedding a customer ethic". 

Mr Mustard thinks they have forgotten Jenny what you taught them at Barnet Council.

Finance: Cabinet are recommended to approve the use of balances to meet the one-off cost of £250,000 from December 2008 to June 2009.

Mr Mustard misses Future Shape. Only £1m p.a. Cheap at half the price. The bastard son of Future Shape, One Barnet, is a needy little sucker.

Property: Working with both commercial and strategic partners will have an impact on our office accommodation requirements. It is likely that benefits will be realised across the estate of the Council and its strategic partners, but until further work is done with partners as part of the next phase of the programme it is not possible to estimate the exact impact. It is clear though that the Future Shape and Accommodation Programmes will have to work closely together in order to ensure timescales match and to maximise benefits for the borough. Someone has forgotten this as part of the deal for outsourcing includes giving some of the offices on North London Business Park away rent free for a year or two. The first rule of negotiation - don't give anything away for nothing.

Performance and value for money: A business case will be developed for each specific change proposed to both the Council and the delivery of its services, with the recommended option being that which offers value for money for the Council and Barnet’s citizens and customers. Risk to performance will be considered as part of all business cases. Has anyone seen a business case proposal that wasn't simply getting a private company to carry out the service?

It is not therefore the aim of the Future Shape programme to simply outsource the services that are currently provided. Doing this will not lead to savings at the required level, nor to the improvements in the ability of services to deliver better outcomes. The capacity that the programme aims to develop is to be able to reconfigure public services so that they fit the lives of residents, and can continue to adapt to the changing needs of people in Barnet.

Oh yes it is! Outsource almost everything.

The model below illustrates in crude terms, the current, silo based approach to service delivery.

click to enlarge: back to return

Mr Mustard thinks that the silo approach makes sense. Do what you are good at, its called specialisation.

The model has served the Council well but is approaching the end of its useful life in terms of its ability to deliver the services people need and to produce savings.

No evidence was produced for the above statement.

Taking the idea of a strategic Council, a capacity vehicle and a different approach to service provision produces a model that may look like this: but there again it may not!

what a pretty chart; what does it mean?

This model has a sound theoretical basis. It builds on the approach taken to develop shared services across the Council to date and borrows from successful innovations developed in the UK, Canada and Australia. However it is unproven at this scale. The intention therefore is to work with our advisers and to engage the private sector in thinking through the feasibility of this approach and in estimating the level of savings and the kinds of improvement such an approach might deliver. We propose to report back on this work in June 2009. A sound theoretical basis but what about the practical?

9.9 Proposals for next phase of development

9.9.1 The proposal is to bring forward to Cabinet in June a detailed set of proposals for the model set out above. This should include specific analysis of:

• The benefits and costs that would accrue to the Council and public services in the borough

• The future structure, shape and size of the council
• The role, structure, shape and size of the capacity vehicle
• The potential configuration of future services
• The change programme required to deliver the benefits of the model.

9.9.2 The key elements of this phase of work should be:

• Deepening of current arrangements for joint commissioning with public sector partners and an assessment of the potential for further development of this pan-public sector activity

• Development of proposals with potential private, public and voluntary sector partners in a capacity vehicle, including a detailed assessment of costs and potential savings, and when they would accrue

• Development of proposals with potential private, public and voluntary sector partners for the re-configuration of services in the borough, including a detailed assessment of costs and potential savings, and when they would accrue

• Significant input from Council staff into the development of proposals.

9.9.3 The cost of the next phase of the programme will be £250,000, as set out in the table below.

Dec 08-June09

Staff costs £140,000
Communication and engagement £30,000
External advice £70,000
Programme costs £10,000
Total £250,000

Significant input from Council staff into the development of proposals. Mr Mustard hasn't noticed this in any report he has ever read.

Mr Mustard will bring you the highlights of the 6 July 2009 report soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard