Mr Mustard (mrmustard@zoho.com): Alison Moore is revving up

9 November 2012

Alison Moore is revving up

When Mr Mustard started this blogging lark he found the Labour group leader a bit too quiet for his liking. She does have a difficult job as whatever she does the Labour side will be outvoted as they are outnumbered and any opposition leader must tire of working their socks off to almost no effect.

It seems though that she is into her second wind and is turning into a fire breathing dragon of the nicest kind which is a style that is much more to Mr Mustard's liking. Last night she socked it to Richard Cornelius at the Barnet Question Time event with well targeted arrows that went straight to the heart of the matter and here is a fire-breathing email which has landed in Mr Mustard's inbox yesterday:

Don’t worry all’s fine with the One Barnet Programme...apparently. But we know it's not, so now we need your help to take action.

The problem with One Barnet is:

• No transparency: The process has been mired in secrecy.

• No scrutiny: Democratic scrutiny of the proposals by elected councillors and the public has been thwarted and curtailed.

• No consultation: There has been no formal consultation with local residents about the 'One Barnet' programme.

• No robust business case: The business case has not been made.

• No flexibility: The contracts for these services will be fixed for 10 years.

• No control: The budgets for these services will be fixed for 10 years.

• Risk of failure: If it all goes wrong it will cost you, the council tax payer, more to put things right.

• Barnet's poor procurement record: Things tend to go wrong when there are flaws in the procurement process.

• Less democratic accountability: local residents and elected representatives - including councillors and MPs - will not be able to get answers when things go wrong due to 'commercial sensitivity'.

• No control of contract / service monitoring: The successful bidders for these two huge contracts will 'self monitor' under 'One Barnet'

• The savings are modest when you consider the risks: £1billion is being put at risk to save £6.7million a year.

This week, the Conservative councillors running Barnet council did not agree with the vote of no confidence over Richard Cornelius’s Leadership of the project. They would not even vote for an amendment asking for a pause in the programme to address the issues above.

We know that there is cross-party concern about One Barnet, but Conservative councillors who are privately expressing concerns about 'One Barnet' still didn’t vote for the amendment to allow scrutiny of the proposals in an open and transparent way.

So we now need you to take action now to help support the campaign.

Take Action

§ Please sign the petition.

§ Email your local MP about the project using our lobby tool

§ Email your local Councillor about the project using out lobby tool

§ Join our ThunderClap about One Barnet on December 6th.

Promote the Campaign

§ Please share the campaign with friends and family.

Get involved

§ Please join our campaign.

§ Come along to the BAPs 'One Barnet' Question Time, tonight 8th November, to challenge the Leader of the Council. (sorry, too late and it was packed out)

§ Come along to the Cabinet meeting on 6 December to watch or ask a question.