Democracy in-action

Hello fellow bloggers, universities, schools of law, national newspapers, solicitors, Barnet Council employees; you have all been looking around the blogs featuring Barnet Council and reading about the parlous state of, inter alia, democracy at Barnet Council.

Sometimes you need to see the truth for yourself. This next week is your chance. There are 3 Residents Forums taking place. They are public meetings and thus open to all ( the rules actually say so, they are on my blog somewhere ) and here is the poster which advertises them. Barnet Council are so keen that interested parties attend that with this month's email sending me the poster ( it costs nothing to send emails ) came the following message:

Dear Resident,

Please see the attached Resident Forum Poster.

Please note that you will no longer receive this poster via email. Please visit the following link which will direct you to the appropriate section of Barnet Councils website for all future meeting details: ( oops a missing apostrophe in Council's )

Link to forums

Resident Forum meetings will be advertised in the Barnet Press and Libraries

Kind Regards,



P***** *******
Business Governance Officer, Corporate Governance Directorate

and here is the poster itself

Nov 11 Residents Forums - Barnet Council

So now instead of being informed in an open and transparent manner ( Barnet Council often claim those two adjectives apply to them ) the notification of the meeting to the parties who were interested enough to give their email address to Barnet Council ( and they were still being collected at the last meeting so this is an sudden change of policy ) one has to go into the library in the correct period, receive the local paper whose delivery is variable or keep looking on the website. Oh dear, an impartial observer might think that there was something to hide.

So dear readers, do please come along and make these the best attended meetings ever. Do read the rules first to find out what subjects are off the agenda - it is a long list. 

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard