Hey ho

From: First Team
Sent: 02 July 2013 12:16
To: AllStaff
Subject: Appointment of Chief Executive: Recommendation to Council

I am writing to let you know at the earliest opportunity that the selection panel for a new Chief Executive has decided to recommend to Council that Andrew Travers be appointed as Chief Executive of the council.

The appointment of a Chief Executive is of course a decision for full Council and the appointment will be put to Council on July 16.

The post attracted several candidates of the highest calibre but the panel unanimously agreed that Andrew had the range of skills and qualities that will best serve the council over what will inevitably be a challenging time for local government.

Regards

Richard Cornelius

Mr Mustard has no axe to grind about Andrew Travers, the individual, in particular although Mr Mustard has more general concerns:

- Travers's tax arrangements when acting as the interim deputy chief executive were deeply unimpressive

- the rate of pay for the job is excessive but i don't blame any of the senior management for sticking their hands out - I blame the Remuneration Committee for not really sinking their teeth into pay scales - they have had a little nibble, that is all

- he is evidently content to push One Barnet through,

but simply questions whether Accountants make the best leaders? This article from the Telegraph gives us all food for thought.

Mr Mustard wonders whether Barnet Council now has such a poor reputation in local government circles that no proven council leaders applied from better run boroughs?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

3 cheers for Uncle Eric

The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP

Eric Pickles acts to limit Town Hall chief's golden goodbyes

(Mr Mustard thinks that should be "chiefs' golden goodbyes" as it is referring to umliple pay-offs, not the payoff of one chief, but give that Uncle Eric is going to save us a packet at Barnet Council he isn't going to quibble for once)

A legal minefield that can pressure councils into handing out bumper pay-offs to chief executives they want to dismiss is to be scrapped, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced today.

Slow and costly bureaucracy that requires councils to appoint an independent person, usually a Queen's Counsel, to review dismissal and disciplinary cases for Chief Executives is to be changed. The Isles of Scilly Council has recently suspended its Chief Executive pending one of these investigations.

Councils seeking to dismiss a chief executive for misconduct or poor performance often pay out inflated lump sums to avoid the cost of taking this bureaucratic route. Mr Pickles intends to remove this expensive roadblock, which does not exist in other parts of Government or the private sector.

Local Government estimate the review process can cost between £100,000 and £250,000 in legal fees not counting independent investigation costs and salary for the suspended officer. One case cost £420,000 and took 16 months to adjudicate. Ministers believe decisions by full Council ensure proper democratic accountability, without the need for a centrally dictated process.

The post of Chief Executive is not set in statute, which means there are no central barriers to remove the role. It only takes a simple democratic decision by the council. Several councils have done this in the past year. The statutory Head of Paid Service role can be done by another senior officer.

Mr Pickles has also today written to the Local Government Association to urge them to take steps to improve their performance management of senior posts. Better management can make it easier to tackle performance issues quicker.

Eric Pickles said:

"A Town Hall chief executive costs a lot of money, but if they are simply not up to the job, councillors must be able to get rid of them quick smart without having to throw away thousands in parachute pay-offs.

"It is ridiculous that councils feel forced to give bumper pay offs to dismiss inadequate chief executives simply to avoid these unnecessary golden goodbye reviews from expensive lawyers.

"Scrapping this bizarre bureaucratic ritual will save taxpayers money and put the decision firmly back in democratically elected hands."

The Localism Act requires councils to publish their pay policies so that local remuneration arrangements - particularly for chief officers - are out in the open and provide value for money for local taxpayers. The associated guidance states councils should vote on pay deals over £100,000.

Mr Pickles announced he intends to toughen up the guidance before councils publish their pay policies for next year. For example, if smaller councils do not pay staff above £100,000 they should consider setting a lower vote threshold. Ministers will reserve the right to regulate should councils not act on it.

It also states that councils should also publicly justify any big bonuses; above inflation pay rises; hiring staff already in receipt of public sector retirement or severance money; and avoid any perceptions of minimising tax payments.

With a public worried about the cost of living and all parts of the public sector looking to make deficit savings, Ministers believe these steps will show taxpayers that value for money is being fully considered for top paid staff.

Notes to editors

1. The post of chief executive is not statutory. Councils are not required to have a chief executive. The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 allow regulations to require councils to adopt standing orders relating to staff. The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001 state that the full council must approve any decision to dismiss the head of paid service. The regulations state that "the authority must appoint a designated independent person" to investigate proposals for disciplinary action against the Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer or Chief Finance Officer because of misconduct, disciplinary issues or poor performance and that "no steps… are to be taken before a report is made" by that independent person" and "a local authority must pay reasonable remuneration to a designated independent person appointed by the authority and any costs incurred by him in, or in connection with, the discharge of his functions under this regulation." Ministers intend to amend the regulations so that all references to the independent person process are removed. There will be a consultation (no more than 4 week) before the changes are made in Parliament.

2. Pay evidence: Recent analysis by the trade press (external link - £) showed that salaries for newly appointed chief executives between January and June 2012 were on average 11 per cent less than before, which broadly reflects the trend since May 2010. 81 chief executives have moved post since July 2010. In addition Local Government Association figures (external link - pdf) suggest that, in 2009, the combined pay bill for chief officers and chief executives was £629.3m. An earlier 2008 survey by Local Government Employers (external link) revealed that the Chief Executive pay bill was £50.4m. The Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the public sector (external link) found top managers in local government had seen larger increases in pay than the lowest paid in their workforces and the pay ratios between local authority chief executives and the lowest paid in local councils have grown in the last ten years. Around 800 local government employees were in the top 1 per cent of all earners (earning over £117,523).

3. The Government has already taken action on excessive pay practices. The Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency in September 2011 requires councils to publish data on senior salaries and the structure of their workforce. This includes:

• senior employee salaries, names (with the option for individuals to refuse to consent for their name to be published), job descriptions, responsibilities, budgets and numbers of staff. 'Senior employee salaries' is defined as all salaries which are above £58,200 and above (irrespective of post), which is the Senior Civil Service minimum pay band. Budgets should include the overall salary cost of staff reporting to each senior employee;
• an organisational chart of the staff structure of the local authority including salary bands and details of currently vacant posts;
• the 'pay multiple' - the ratio between the highest paid salary and the median average salary of the whole of the authority's workforce;

4. An Audit Commission report, By Mutual Agreement (external link) which looked into severance payments to council chief executives in 2010 found that the designated independent person system has placed local authorities, as the employer, at a great disadvantage with the average length of time for investigation being one whole year. It estimated a minimum legal cost to a council of £100,000, excluding the cost of the investigation, preparing the case and briefing lawyers. Salary costs for a suspended chief executive also have to be met by the council.

"Performance" reports of Chief Exec

We haven't had any performance, or lack of, reports for a while so here we are, two at once, for the 6 months from October 2011 to March 12. The latest quarter has been changed and should be on the website soon. Considering that over £700,000 was spent on the new website and that over 100 people have been trained in the CMS software, it is disappointingly slow in being updated.

Performance report of Chief Executive of Barnet Council for Q3 2011/12

Do you think this is an achievement? "We gave away £200,000?". If that is one of non-stick Nick's top three achievements the bar is not set very high.

Yet more transformation managers being appointed:

The Contact Centre Transformation Manager - Iain Hamilton -  all the way from Cheshire.

Head of Customer Services Transformation manager - Andrew Cox - a rare appointment of an interim who has come from inside the council.

Libraries - interim project manager - Heather Wills - who had her own bog post last week.

The Chief Executive's service is unable to manage the simplest task. They can only manage to pick up the phone within 20 seconds 62.3% of the time. What putrid service.

Channel shift is being pushed faster than people want to go. Of course more payments are being done on-line as opportunities to pay by any other method get removed.

Benchmarking is still utter rubbish. The marks chosen are not challenging ones at the top of the range which is what they are meant to be. It is of no help to know that Bolsover DC are marginally more cr*p than Barnet Council at answering the phone.

Adult Social Services were unable to find temporary recruits for 2 posts. Perhaps word has spread about what a joy it is to work for Barnet Council.

The final sentence of page 5 is very worrying. E-mail is the most useful form of communication for many people and Barnet Council are going to try and straightjacket us into webforms where the subject about which you want to write has to be presented in a certain format and you don't automatically get a copy, you are reliant on the council to send you one afterwards if they choose to. This has already happened with parking ticket appeals where your choices are a letter (snailmail) or a webform. Not email which is an utter disgrace. Anyone would think that the council don't want to make it easy to appeal.

Performance report for Chief Executive of Barnet Council Q4 2011/12

Well done to Friern Barnet library campaigners. You are one of the top 3 issues (issues = problems). Keep on going. The council will crack in the end.

Brian Coleman has been complaining in his blog (you will have to find the rotten thing yourself, it is too turgid for words) about spelling mistakes in the local papers. Well Brian, take a look at the top of page 2 

"4 where on target" that should have been "4 were on target" and then further down

"predominantly by with our face to face service".

Also, the triangles which indicate the DoT, Direction of Travel, have turned into empty rectangles. There is a lack of attention to detail at the council and no-one cares.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Red traffic lights - Q1of 2011-12 ( April to June 2011 )

Here we are with the latest performance report for the whole council. The silly charts have been changed for nice, simple easy to understand pie charts. What you can now see is that about half of every pie is performing very badly as it's red.

Look, overall a pie that is half red. A terrible performance.

Red red red.

Wow. 14 homes out of about 200,000 that have extra insultation = green performance. Unbelievable!

48% of telephone calls answered within 20 seconds. Appalling failure.

20% of emails not replied to within 2 weeks. 

Barnet Council has left the basics behind in its rush to One Barnet.

Reducing the number of vendors by nearly 4,000 will inevitably hit Barnet's small businesses. Stupid idea.

Parking income levels of 3.1? - 3.1 what? Target missed by a mile in any event.

Oh dear, pot holes not being rectified quickly, and in summer to boot. Wait until winter sets in.

Target 1003; don't start any new dwellings in 3 months. Target met!

The council year 2011/12 has started very badly.

Will it get better or worse.

Worse, probably.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic light sequence 2010-11 whole council

So far this week you have seen the quarterly performance reports for the whole council and a sorry set of charts it has been. What Mr Mustard has done, and which he doubts that anyone at the council bothers to do, is to put the four quarterly reports together. Here they are:-

CPI		Q1 10/11	Q2 10/11	Q3 10/11	Q4 10/11
	Item	Sharing opportunities & responsibilities ?
1	Social budgets
4	Kids results				????????
7	Early years				????????
19	Waste %
27	Private rehousing
		Better services with less money ?
2	OAP independent
8	Foster care
9	Children in care
10	Contract management
11	Formal contracts %
12	Rental voids
13	Scrutiny decisions
14	Scrutiny policy
15	Publication scheme
16	Participation
17	Value For Money
18	Customer service
25	Temp accom
26	Homeless
28	Regulation
		Successful London Suburb ?
3	Volunteers
5	Ofsted good			????????	?????????
6	5 GCSE
20	Local area satisfaction
21	Crime
22	Road repair
23	Extra family homes
24	Extra homes

What do we notice from this summary ? 

A lot of red. 

That some indicators just disappear ( like 4 & 7 ) Is there a good reason. Shouldn't there be some consistency from one quarter to the next if the accusation that statistics are being fiddled is not to be made. 

That waste, private rehousing, foster care, temporary accommodation, homeless people, and volunteers supporting adult social services objectives have all been a problem for most or all of the year and have not been tackled ( or if they have been tackled, then not very well ). 

Wouldn't fixing these put the community first and make for a successful London suburb?   

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Some green traffic lights disappear - Q4 2010-11

The number of indicators reported on has fallen by 4 and yet more of them are red. A cynic would guess that the 4 that have gone missing were not a pretty sight. Perhaps that is why it took 3 versions of this before it was released.

as you know, click to enlarge & back to return

It is no surprise to Mr Mustard that by the end of the year Better Services with less money has turned red. It really isn't possible. Something has to give. Less services with less money would make sense; look at what you are doing that can be scrapped; consultants, non-jobs, innovation bank, 1/3rd of the councillors, One Barnet, trips to Sandbanks, 8ft high posters, - and get rid of all expenditure that is non-core. The budget would then balance.

So no radical ideas for fixing the waste problem them. You could have crowd-sourced a solution by now, surely.

Procurement really only hit the fan once Barnet's bloggers got their teeth into the MetPro party, to which Mr Mustard was a late arrival. What is clear from the last 4 Chief executive's reports though is that the problem was known about since at least June 2010 and not much was done. Not good leadership, a subject on which Roger has been expounding at The Barnet Eye blog here. Rather than be the de facto leader Roger, why not free your diary off to be the real leader if non-stick is going? Now that would make life exciting at NLBP or Mrs Angry, VickiM57, Mr Reasonable could perhaps job share and do a day a week each? Mr Mustard only works 4 days so could spare one for council work. £40,000 a year each on current rates. PAYE optional, just ask Mr Travers ( who could be optional as well? )

Couldn't this lonely line have been put on the previous page. Yes, but that would have taken thought and diligence.

This page really couldn't have been much worse now could it? This is what a service in meltdown looks like. How can 17 be green overall? Slightly under  budget but miss the other target by a mile. How can 18 be green overall? Mostly red sub-indicators and negative direction of travel for everything. Surely Amber overall?

Interesting indicators. Mr Mustard is not convinced that there is a direct relationship between the performance of the council and his satisfaction with the local area. Mr Mustard is not satisfied with the council but still satisfied with the local area because he is close to the shops, the tube, the countryside & none of those are going to change and because it is his neighbours who make the area what it is. The council generally are making Barnet worse, pumping up car parking charges, allowing crossovers so that front gardens disappear, closing libraries, about to close leisure centres, spending less on road maintenance etc 

Another sloppy error at CPI.21 "by the local by the local". Does anyone at the council actually read these reports? a councillor or 62 maybe?

If there are indicators labelled 22a & 22b there should be a summary, called the basket, for CPI.22. Another sloppy error Barnet Council. 

Mr Mustard doubts that the roads maintenance indicators could possibly be green. Spending on maintenance is being reduced. Time will tell.

Overall performance for the year?

falling off a cliff

 

If there is any truth to the rumours that non-stick is leaving then we need the councillors to carefully consider how they can stop the ever escalating, outrageous and undeserved salaries. Time to set the bar at its maximum and start the process of moving the pay scales down to something more reasonable and still ample to live very well on. 

How about sacking the entire corporate management structure, about 40 of them, cutting the number in half and re-employing the successful bidders on 20% less than their former salary, maximum £100k? 


"Better management for less money" please.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic lights on red - Q3 2010-11

So we were are in the third quarter - the months of October to December 2010.

Overall less items have been measured which is odd in itself and the tendency is towards more red & less green especially in "Better services for less money" probably because as the year goes on budget overspends are more likely.

Waste & housing still causing problems.

It is hard to believe the slackness of Barnet Council when it comes to having proper contractual arrangements with suppliers. Only 16% of suppliers have formal contracts. Mr Musatrd seems to recall having read somewhere that the chief executive Nick Walkley is an expert in procurement. That "expertise" does not seem to have rubbed off onto his management team.

It would be more open and transparent if we could see the actual numbers for items like the number of emails responded to within 10 days as well as the percentage.

More volunteers needed. 

Does Barnet Council really provide an inspiration for people to volunteer for something? Does every employee spend some time volunteering? Is there a scheme for this like there is at Barclays, Goldman Sachs etc and it forms part of your annual objectives.

Mr Mustard will have to ask.

Maybe it is time to turn away from One Barnet as it causes many of the red signals ?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic lights on red Q2 2010-11

Q2 is quarter 2 and is for the months of July to September 2010.

click to enlarge : back to return

So that looks like 21 green indicators and 9 red ones, and not good at the concept of sharing at Barnet Council. Let's look at the detail.

A radical rethink is needed on the subject of waste ( and recycling) and that might solve the Pinkham Way problem at the same time.

This may well be a page of green but look at how weak the targets are. Percentage of contracts that have been reviewed; so that just means someone has looked and decided if a contract ( probably non-existent in paper form ) needs to be properly negotiated or documented. Then the next target is about negotiations have started, that is just an email or a phone call to the supplier to tell them the ball has started rolling. A target of completed negotiations would have been more of a realistic challenge.

A target of 65% to pick up a telephone within 5 rings. Not exactly stretching is it? As is often the case there is an error in the table that no-one at Barnet Council has noticed and/or bothered to correct. On line 5, 17b should be 18.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

What on earth is going on? - An Open Letter to Councillors From the Barnet Bloggers

9 September 2011

Dear Councillor

We are writing to share with you our concerns about the recent decision of the Chief Executive Nick Walkley to erect posters throughout the council offices bearing an ‘Open letter to staff’.

The posters did not contain any new information that was not already conveyed to staff in an email on the same day. Why, therefore, were the posters necessary? What is clear is that at a time when the council is making cuts to valued services, this was an appalling waste of money.

Custodians spent valuable time putting the posters up when they should have been carrying out their normal duties. We are taking steps to find out the cost of these posters and will share the information with residents. We would welcome any light councillors can shed on this and on how the decision to approve the poster strategy was taken.

The overall effect of the posters is surely to further alienate much of the workforce from council management and bring more disastrous PR for the council. If they seemed like a good idea when the decision to use them was taken, surely seeing the effect when the entire council is plastered with identical copies of one poster – only, in different sizes – can only embarrass those who thought of them.

We hope you will agree, the whole poster episode has been ludicrous and ineffective, the impression given that the council management team is starting to panic.

What can be salvaged from this? It is time for the council to recognise that staff will not be bullied into accepting the “One Barnet” outsourcing project. (Our own view is that the programme should be scrapped.)

It is also high time that the council consulted fully and properly with residents over One Barnet. It is scandalous that the representatives of the bidding companies can meet with senior Barnet management, yet the council – neither the leading Conservative group, nor senior council executives – has never appeared in a public forum to justify to residents these plans which will have a profound impact on council services for years to come.

We invite your views on this matter.

Yours sincerely

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

Chief Executive - In the spotlight

So here we are, it's school report time again and Mr Mustard has rushed to bring you this report as the Chief Executive has thrust himself into the spotlight with his 8 foot high open letters to staff. I am afraid that you will just have to read this at normal size.

Sadly, the head boy does not seem to have made any progress this quarter (  April to June 2011 ) and is now evidently displaying behavioural issues which are coming out as attention seeking & forgetfulness ( handing in two sets of almost identical homework ). There is red ink all over the place.

click to enlarge & back to return

Oh dear, not a good start. Lots of red & amber & only one lot of green.

Top 3 achievements.

Historically the Registrar's service has been well and locally run and it's a service that luckily you just can't mess about with so it's no big deal that it is a cause for satisfaction. If all Barnet Council's services are to become so good then they need simple systems set in stone and to be left alone; cut the One Barnet nonsense.

Mr Mustard wagers ( although he doesn't gamble ) that if you went up Barnet High Street and asked 1,000 residents what they thought of the State of the Borough Report that no more than 10 people would have any idea what he was on about.

How hard was it to get people to apply for free money from the BSIB?

Top 3 issues

Customer services will never work in the planned form. Scrap the plan and take Mr Mustard's advice. Let every service answer its own calls. Failings show up quickly, staff know their subjects and can answer anyway, it will save time and money.

The new website was listed in the previous report. Mr Mustard thinks that the council might find that channel shift to internet generates extra work not less. Mr Mustard can fire in his daily FOI requests in 30 seconds now and they can take up to 18 hours to work out the answer and in Barnet 18 hours last for 20 days of course.

Cisco also appeared in the last report. That system was due for renewal in "summer 2011". This is headed to the Ford Cortina status that Craig Cooper was waffling on about at the audit committee on Tuesday evening. If a man on £130,000 a year doesn't know the difference between a car and a computer then we are in trouble. 

Top 3 actions needed

CST ( customer services transformation ) needs prioritising. It has been going for years, surely this should have been done at the beginning?

Contract in place for web development. That isn't an action that is needed then, is it?

Start planning for 2012/13. Will non-stick Nick still be Chief Executive then? Place your bets.

Just like last quarter there are no correlations listed. 

Budget

Mr Mustard is very keen on budgetary control. It is very sad that the Chief Exec sets a poor example to staff by only sticking to one element of his budgets.

He has had the Assistant Chief Executive's Service budget upped already in month 3 by £184,000 and even then it is £17,000 overspent. So between setting the original budget and now there has been an overspend of £201,000!

The library service is £62,000 over budget and the library strategy has taken care of that. Closing a library will enable the budget to be met but won't help residents to borrow books.

Customer Services will be the department which is overspent not Registration. Yet another programme which is behind schedule.

So the budget has been increased by £171,000 and then gone even further over budget by £175,000. Not good.

Key projects

£1,374,703 to move customer services people out of the departments where they should be located in order to save money which it won't or at least not without affecting the service. Mr Mustard's blue and black recycling bins were not collected this week. He put them out on Sunday ready for Tuesday at the edge of his propert.

Mr Mustard has emailed "firstcontact" at Barnet Council. What are the odds that the boxes will still be sitting in the same place next Tuesday. Why are recycling rates not improving? 

So £334,195 has been spent and has not resulted in a good service. It will probably cost another £1m to reverse this disaster.

Look at the reason for the delay. Lack of clarity of scope i.e. no one knew what to do before they started this process. As is usual it will be jam tomorrow.

Performance ( of a clapped out Cortina )

The CPI ( corporate performance indicators ) have been renumbered from 3 digits to 4. More change, more targets? and more fudging will doubtless go on. The Government is moving away from targets that cause a focus on the wrong thing and Barnet Council look like they are going in the opposite direction.

3002 - The indicator should say 5 rings or 20 seconds. Looks like a bit of target softening to Mr Mustard. Only half the calls answered within 20 seconds & a worse performance than last quarter. Mr Mustard again thinks that the benchmark chosen is not the most challenging one so it isn't a benchmark at all. Forget the failures of other councils; set your own high standards and achieve them. Mr Mustard expects that Barnet Council are a laughing stock in local government circles.

3004 - The target should be something like 98-100% Barnet Council is aiming for failure. With a target of just 85% you are content to have 15% of unhappy customers so out of 2,500,000 annual contacts that is 375,000 which could equal every resident unhappy at least once?

3005 - The performance is awful and the benchmark data is an out of date one.

3006 - Mr Mustard now knows why there are 462 managers at Barnet Council. All busy producing statistics of how bad the service is.

3007 - The Government are busy saving the cheque Barnet Council. Had you noticed? If you want something paying then you should offer a choice of methods to suit the customer ( remember those people who give you money which you need lots of ) and not have the tail wag the dog.

3009 - Library strategy going well then!

3010 - What sort of measure is this. 3+ times a year! You should be aiming for weekly visits to truly make the library part of a young person's life.

3011 - This target is pathetic. At this rate getting all children into the library will take almost 20 years. A flaw in your plan Barnet Council, they will no longer be children by then.

3012 - see 3010

3013 - Volunteers are not free. This blog here goes into more detail.

3014 - see 3013

3015 - another low target

3017 - This measure must relate to the Big Society Innovation "Bank". Mr Mustard would be surprised if given the demand for free money that it cannot all be given away in record time.

Why is it that Barnet Council think they can print tosh and get away with it?

Look at the numbers of calls answered and calls made.

Jan-Mar 11 answered 158,852 out of 248,206 made so 90,000 not answered in 3 months.

Apr-Jun 11 answered 136,339 out of 282,311 so 146,000 calls not answered 

i.e. 62% worse

So Barnet Council said "Our telephone performance had dropped...........a backlog due to the new system implementation, this led to an increase in the number of calls received"

What the council didn't say. We answered 22,000 less calls in the April to June quarter!

The third paragraph illustrates exactly the problem with merging customer services. Staff are to be cross-trained in Planning and Housing Benefit. Don't do it; these are two completely different specialisms. If you want expertise ask an expert. If dear reader you have a planning enquiry, insist on talking to a planner. Don't be afraid to ask the staff member what their qualifications are or work experience is (nicely please) and ask if you can some someone with the requisite knowledge to save time in the long run.

Staff are under stress due to uncertainty and so an increase in sickness levels is not a surprise. Mr Mustard surmises that the absentees are all sick of One Barnet.

Managers are not managing to submit monthly absence returns so the data must be wrong to boot. Why is this not an automated process linking SAP personnel & payroll?

15% of staff have not had any objectives set. Just drift along; that will be fine.

26% of appraisals have not been carried out. Not much point in an appraisal system that is not followed. Mr Mustard knows that employees in other departments were put under huge pressure to carry out appraisals on time and yet the Chief Executive's Directorate can't manage it. Wonderful leadership!

Mr Mustard cannot understand why spending 4% under budget is a cause for an amber return. 4% over, fair enough, but within budget? According to the +/- 5% criteria being exactly on budget to the penny would warrant an amber. Mr Mustard comes to the conclusion that these reports are just an end in themselves and don't lead to any changes in behaviour.

More disabled staff should be employed. Barnet Council are lagging in this area.

From the FTE ( full time equivalent ) statistics we can see that 235 - 192 = 43 posts are filled by temps / interims / contractors and 1 consultant ( details on the next page ). This is not likely to be the most efficient of operations for that reason.

So 1 in every 40 employees has a grievance.

Libraries and customer services have high levels of sickness which are possibly related to the risk of being outsourced or closed, that or the increase in absence is because previous records were inadequate ( now that is a good word to describe the management of Barnet Council ).

There is more talk of the need to maintain a flexible workforce. I don't suppose that the councillors have specifically asked for this?

Risks

ST0034 - So even internal relationships are not governed by a service level agreement (SLA)

ST0035 - A risk of being misreported in the media. Surely not. The media will only report what they see. Questioning of journalists - you have it the wrong way round Barnet Council : journalists ask questions - you provide answers.

ST0036 - It looks like One Barnet is leading to statutory services not being delivered.

ST0037 - This is on the next page. If the telephone system fails there will be big trouble.

How interesting, the Tell us Once service, which is optional for residents, is not designed to prevent benefit overpayments or for the correct follow up action to take place. The Department of Work & Pensions say "This will save time and money for citizens, and enable government to provide a more efficient and accurate service." So there we see how Barnet Council looks at its residents, as process objects and not as human beings whose lives could be made easier. How telling.

Mr Mustard collects money in; he knows that is hard. Giving it away must be a doddle so no wonder the status is green. Mr Mustard will reserve judgment on the 40 good quality ideas until he has seen what they actually are.

Overall this quarter does not look like a good one for the Chief executive and his Directorate.

When will a pay packet of £200,000 be justified?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard