....we are willing to pay any price....

http://hiddlesquotes.tumblr.com/

Executive summary:

It is impossible to get some people to follow the rules at Barnet Council, it is the law of the jungle when it comes to procurement. Senior management have failed.

Some background:

The council paid over £1m to an unlicensed security guard company (MetPro - ooh not typed that name for a while - a stink takes a long time to disperse) without a contract being in existence.

This led to the production of a Procurement Action Plan (Mr Mustard christened it PAP and pap it certainly is) which Nick Walkley presented to the Audit Committee on 16 June 2012.

Before he did so Mr Reasonable was able to speak for 5 minutes and one thing he said was "the management culture is flawed".

The soon to be ex CEO Nick Walkley said he was concerned that departments knew and did nothing (has anything changed since?).

The now mayor, Brian Schama, said that the council cannot rely on systems that compliance is done.

Andrew Travers said that he accepted that core processes are fundamental. He is the line manager of all contracts. He takes full responsibility for sorting it out. The action plan is to be implemented by September 11.

Mr Mustard sees from his 12 pages of longhand notes that later on in the meeting Nick Walkley said "have to change the culture" (you didn't manage it Nick and now you are on your bike) and he also spoke about "finishing what we started" (oops, One Barnet not finished).

Cllr Geoff Cooke said "we have to make the officers buy in".

Cllr (Lord) Monroe Palmer said "people too busy not doing their job".

The 6 September Audit Committee saw the arrival of Mick Stokes (he's already history) to present an update on the PAP and the traffic lights were all blue (closed) or green (on target). No blogger, who was present, thought the plan was satisfactory (whitewashed in blue & green is an unusual combo). The plan included the embedding of Contract Procedure Rules in information systems and monitoring routines. Instructions were issued to all relevant staff by email on 20 July 11 regarding new procedures and controls which will also be included within staff training.

At this meeting Mick Stokes told the committee that potential cavalier spend is restricted and constrained (did he leave because he found it wasn't?).

Monroe Palmer (he is so good, he really should be listened to more) said he "doesn't want to be bitten again" (by poor procurement controls).

On 26 October 2011 Mr Mustard put the cat amongst the pigeons by sending the following email to Pam Wharfe, the interim director of parking and other stuff.

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

Part 4 of the council's procedure rules says that for a contract with a value of £75,000 to £156,442

Request three(3) or more written competitive quotations but must have minimum 2 returned. Less than 2 bids returned then repeat competition.

Please can you tell me why you have signed DPR 1419 in breach of that very clear rule.

The Procurement Code of Practice says that a supplier should not get more than 25% of its business from the Council. What percentage of the turnover of R M Countryside Services Ltd emanates from Barnet Council?

---

On 9 November he wrote again

I note that the council has a 10 day target for replying to correspondence. I hoped that having raised such an important point, especially after the Procurement Action Plan was presented to the Audit Committee, that a reply would already have been received to my below email. I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

---

On 28 November, failing a response, he turned his enquiry into a complaint. 

This caused a reaction and he got a reply the next day, part of which was

I have reviewed the issues you have raised about this contract. I have thought carefully about the withdrawn tenders and I am content that officers still achieved value for money by using the term contractor who did competively (sic) bid for the work. My overriding duty is to secure value for money and the best available option for the council (5-1) and I think that officers had reasonably sought a good price for the work using a competitive process.

On 5 December Mr Mustard wrote again (why do the council think they can fob Mr Mustard off, he just keeps on going?)

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

You have repeated the supposed value for money for your actions which I have already discredited. You are in breach of the Constitution. This is what the council website says about the Constitution ( which includes the Contract Procedure Rules ).

"This Constitution sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people"

You are bound by the Constitution as otherwise there would be little point in its existence. On what grounds are you ignoring the rules and continuing with a contract that has not been lawfully made?

---

and the highly unsatisfactory response was:

I have nothing more to add.

Pam Wharfe

Interim Director Environment, Planning & Regeneration

You might be adding something later!

The final piece of background is the report of the Task & Finish Group on contract monitoring. It was presented to the Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 29 February 2012. Mr Mustard was in the public gallery.

Monroe (Mr Mustard is a big fan of Lord Palmer) agreed that more robust monitoring was needed. He also said that "people who place the orders disregard the rules" (proof to follow Monroe) and "officers simply do what they think is right" (even when it is wrong). He asked if the service areas were buying in? Monroe was worried about "people doing what they want" (bang on again).

The smoking gun

Mr Mustard asked on 27 April 2012 to see emails about the use of RM Countryside. He got his answer on 10 October 2012 (the longest 20 days ever). There were over 30 pages of emails. Mr Mustard showed you one yesterday and there are 3 more today. The other pages, not released by Mr Mustard, simply show in general the topsy turvy way in which goods are purchased in Pam Wharfe's directorate.

emails about paying any price for parking meter removal

Well look at that.

"Haven't heard back but we are willing to pay any price to have one or both of them start removing ASAP!"

Any price! Any at all, just choose a number and the council will pay it. That is Mr Mustard's money you are spending Barnet Council. If it is going to be wasted Mr Mustard can do it himself.

You can see some people trying to follow the rules. The Highways Manager knows that Pam Wharfe has asked Audit for advice. He also knew that Declan (his boss, the Assistant Director of Highways & Transport (a no. 2 to Pam Wharfe) was reviewing the RM FOI question. Now that was Mr Mustard's question and he should simply receive factual answers and not have his questions subjected to review meetings where risk is minimised.

The interim Parking Maintenance Manager knew that RM were up to their limit. They did not have a contract and had been given a purchase order for £30,000 both of which were rule breaches but at least he knew he had already gone far enough.

Other quotes were being sought but they were for more money. The net should have been cast wider.

The problem is that Cllr Brian Coleman, at that time the Cabinet Member with irresponsibility for parking, simply wanted meters gone and was asking for RM Countryside to be used. Mr Mustard does not have any proof that Brian was told that they were over the spend level for RM (you can form your own conclusion on that point).

How could Pam Wharfe have written to Mr Mustard that she was content that her officers obtained value for money when they were prepared to pay any price? any price!

Yours frugally (unlike the council)

Mr Mustard

An earlier Barnet Joint Venture?

Which Councillor would you vaporise first Mrs Angry?

Dear reader

As you will have seen from the joint blogger letter to the "leader" of Barnet Council, Richard Cornelius, the long in the gestation One Barnet programme, about which Mr Mustard has read dozens of interminable reports, was basically the out-sourcing of £1bn worth of vital services over a 10 year period (+ a possible 5 year extension). Suddenly last week, Pam Wharfe, the interim Director of something or other and with possibly the least firm future employment prospects, was passed the poisoned chalice of slipping out to staff in an internal email the startling news that the out-sourcing was now going to become a Joint Venture. Stone the crows, something has gone seriously wrong in the process somewhere if after over a year of every report saying that out-sourcing is definitely the way to go. The Mars Rover shown above, called Curiosity (how apt for this One Barnet change of mind, which is a curiosity) took over 8 months to reach its destination. If Barnet Council had been in charge they would have re-routed to Venus after 6 months of travel.

Now we need to think about a Joint Venture. Has Barnet Council been in one before? In effect yes as Barnet Homes, the arms length management company, or ALMO, entered into one in the recent past and although called an arms length company the arms are not that far from the body of the council as Barnet Homes is housed in Barnet House a council building (the old Ever Ready building at Whetstone) and as the funding is from Barnet Council for the specific purpose of looking after council house stock there is zero prospect of a JV being entered into without the council knowing about it and endorsing the decision on the quiet.

So back in 2005 the company called the London Area Procurement Network Ltd (LAPN) was formed and it changed its name in June 09 to Cyntra Ltd (what a vague name). The owners of the company are listed in the attached link and you can see that it contains our local ALMO, Barnet Homes Ltd. That link also tells you that the purpose of the company was that it could, by joint buying, save 13% on the procurement cost of building works for its members. The Directors were from each of the participating local authority housing members so our very own Tracey Lees was a Director.

Savings are very elusive beasts and a saving of 13% on building works can be demonstrated if comparing to a very inefficient company or one that doesn't really want the work. Mr Mustard is completely unconvinced by the figure of 13% as an ALMO that manages 15,000 homes already has enough work to give out to obtain good quotes so maybe the negotiating skills of the buyers at Barnet Homes just weren't good enough or maybe the possible savings were over-stated. For every building job the material cost is about the same whoever you buy through and the labour cost should not vary much because there are recognised daily rates for each trade. The saving can only come from better administration or doing a job a radically different way and if the job is fitting double glazing or a new kitchen or bathroom there really is not going to be much difference in method between 5 different firms.

How was Cyntra doing finance wise? You would think that with a £1bn sloshing about (ooh look the same sum as quoted for One Barnet) that Cyntra could easily make a turn on that but no, its finances were pretty sick from the start

Thank you to Duedil

The blue line is turnover. Most of the 06/07 turnover was probably the annual fees paid by members which were about £40,000 p.a. at the start and these reduced to a maximum £25,000 as extra members were signed up.

Net assets (the orange line) remained stubbornly in the negative. It is harder to increase profitability than turnover.

One of the changes was to move to a paid board of Directors. This meant saying goodbye to Lesley Meeks who had served on behalf of a different authority from October 08 to May 09. This will be the same Lesley Meeks who is now the Assistant Director of Commercial Assurance (Town Hall Tax Dodgers branch) at Barnet Council. Mr Mustard is sure that if he had been on the recruiting board he would have looked more closely at her history and had some testing questions for her at interview although as Craig Cooper claimed to have poached her from Westminster Council, Mr Mustard supposes that her interview, if there even was one, was not that probing and probably just consisted of a phone call, something not at all like this one "when can you start, yes that is fine, part time at first and then full, OK, off payroll, no problem, £772 a day, a bargain. Bye, see you soon, Craigie xx"

Here are the minutes from a Barnet Homes board meeting in May 09 when the changes to Cyntra were taking place:

Proposed changes to London Area Procurement Network (LAPN) Board Structure.

The report outlined proposed changes to the governance arrangements for LAPN to make it more businesslike and robust and for which the Board’s approval (as one of the Beneficial Owners of LAPN) was sought. It also advised the board of a proposal to review BH’s continued

involvement over the longer term.

TL (Tracey Lees) explained that all other ALMO Beneficial Owners had approved the changes (so you lot had better do so) and Barnet Homes was the last such meeting to take place. TL further advised that the formal arrangements of the new structure would be decided at the last LAPN Board meeting on 17th March 2009.

AS (Angela Spooner) asked if there would be any costs to Barnet Homes as a result . MW (Mike Wiffen) advised that the proposed introduction of board remuneration would be £50k a year but it was not clear how this would translate into fees although this was expected to be self financing in the future (the future never comes). MW outlined the benefits that BH had gained from membership to date and the further benefits that may result from the distribution of surpluses to the beneficial owners who remained in LAPN (a cracker Mike, surpluses, would that be why Barnet Homes are now filing a claim as a creditor in the Liquidation, i.e. you lost money).

EM (Eric Misewe) asked what kind of business LAPN were thinking of developing. MW confirmed that this would mainly be based on construction services for Registered Social Landlords and ALMOs.

JM (John Macfarlane) commented that this had come about the wrong way round since the LAPN Board meeting is on 17th March and the review would not complete until 2009/10.

MW (Mike Wiffen) said that as a founder member of LAPN, Barnet Homes has had the most benefit with considerable efficiencies achieved. He also informed the board of the significant benefits in remaining with LAPN. (Could you explain these at the next board meeting please Mike. Are they public? Mr Mustard might come along to watch you explain this one away).

The Board considered the recommendations and approved the proposed changes to the LAPN Board Structure.

The Board noted a review of LAPN and the outcomes from the review will be reported at the next Business and Resources Sub Group.

AS had the right idea to look at costs. The whole progress of Cyntra had evidently not been well enough thought through or closely enough managed because there were 7 or 8 owners at the beginning and later on there were other junior partners added which took the membership up to 30, imagine trying to manage anything with even only 8 owners, they were never all going to agree. The founding partners were all local authority based and their funding is secure and profitability is not something that they have had to grapple with.

Cyntra came before the Board again in September 2010.

Barnet Homes Board Meeting Re Cyntra Sept 10

There is lots to be gleaned from this set of minutes.

A loan extension is agreed before the review of Cyntra has taken place. It is now self evident that calling in the loan would have been a better choice.

Para 1.1 is the sort of thing Richard Cornelius is saying about One Barnet savings. "It was felt" that goods "could" be bought more efficiently. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Para 3.4 shows the problem of getting things done the way that you want in a JV with 6 out of 9 members needing to agree something and then it goes ahead whether you like it or not. Barnet Council may only have 1 or 2 partners in its JV but they will have to agree. If they are 50/50 partners in profit share then some interesting and difficult discussions will inevitably have to take place in the future.

Para 4.1 Barnet Homes have lost at least £35,000 in Cyntra.

The Teckal exemption workaround is a bit like investing in a pyramid scheme because of the tax advantage. The fact that you are going to lose all of your money should not be over-looked but of course in Barnet Homes and Barnet Council they lose someone else's money when they take bad decisions, ours.

There is hell to pay with Cyntra Ltd going into liquidation, as you can read here. Creditors, amount to £1,600,000 and the ALMOs have been happy to dump Cyntra Ltd into liquidation and leave creditors to see what can be recovered off the carcass and the answer will be not a lot. Fees for the liquidator will be paid first and employee claims are higher than unsecured creditors. Now there is a moral question here. If the joint venture company had simply been eight councils acting together without the umbrella of a Limited company and they decided that the time was past for their informal joint buying group and stopped using it they would have had to pay all of the creditors including the  £173,000 of VAT.

One of the dangers of being a Town Hall Tax Dodger is illustrated in this case. If you are not an employee paying PAYE then you do not get preferential status for your pay as it isn't pay. In this case Hann Barton Ltd are listed as owed £10,500 presumably for the services of Robert Hann, a non-exec Director, Sallet Consulting Ltd are owed £11,340 which presumably is for the services of Paul Orrett, the Chief Information Officer at Cyntra (sounds very much like an employee post) and those are just the two cases that can be easily identified. There will be more. There is no reason why the ALMOs will have checked if Town Hall Tax Dodging was going on in the companies they own because they are at it themselves.

So now that we hear that the DRS out-sourcing is going to be a Joint Venture company just like Cyntra.

Lessons for Barnet Council before they go ahead with another JV are that there is a loss of control and there can be a loss of investment. Internal audit will not be as strong as in the council (and theirs needs beefing up as it is) and there are costs. Cyntra's cost of sales + administration costs came to £3.3m in their 2010 accounts. The extra layer of management in a JV will need to be replicated by a client side at the council to keep an eye on them and whether you call it a thin client or not it will cost money. There will be delay in implementing any service changes that the council wants to implement. If it all goes wrong I don't think that when c.£275million over 10 years is at issue and there are maybe £10m or £20m of losses and unsecured creditors that a council will be able to simply dump a JV company in which it holds a 50%+ stake and not expect to be sued to the ultimate as a shadow director or whatever other way the creditor can find to get their money back. With his credit consultant hat on Mr Mustard would advise any company offering its services to an ALMO or a JV to get a parent company guarantee from the council itself before agreeing to supply anything.

It is early doors yet but if the council think that politically they can present the same partner, BT or Capita, in a JV rather than as a provider of outsourced services and that this will suddenly become acceptable to the luddites, whingers and complainers (Mr Mustard is not any of those) and to the Barnet Bloggers, then they are as is so often the case sadly mistaken.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Procurement Centralisation Plan

Richard Cornelius, I agree with you, the stuff of nightmares

Executive summary : Despite paying Craig Cooper £132,480 p.a. for some years to be the "Commercial Director" procurement has not been properly controlled and maverick buying is systemic.

The plan

There is a plan to centralise procurement. This is the antidote to the previous plan to move procurement to the directorates. After, procurement will be out-sourced and they will probably ditch the centralisation plan as being over-managed.

Mr Mustard can't bring you the whole plan, although he has it, but the bits he does bring you will be more than enough to shock you.

The plan was produced in April and has the name of Lesley Meeks, Assistant Director of Commercial Assurance (Town Hall Tax Dodgers branch) at the end. Snippets will be presented by Mr Mustard along with comment.

...complying with contract procurement rules is paramount, this does not necessarily make procurement efficient. Not complying with contract procurement rules, as in the olden days (2011!) certainly wasn't efficient.

Any change to 'the way we do things' has three elements, tools, processes and people.

The graphic is out of focus probably because it has been cut and paste into the plan from somewhere else. That is Barnet Council to a t - out of focus. If you search for tools, process and people you find lots of example in google images; this is not an original concept, we are paying people massive salaries to repeat textbook stuff.

Tools.

Presently there are a number of reports that present data. One of the changes to the tools will be to build reports that provide management information. A simple area would be the reporting on vendors. The vendor list has already been reduced by 50% and the objective is to further reduce. The current reports don't appear to be useful is the conclusion that Mr Mustard draws from this. The vendor list being reduced by 50% is another example of local business being sacrificed on the altar of administrative convenience. 

What does the guide "How to do business with the council" say:

The Council cannot discriminate in favour of local suppliers but they will be given every encouragement to compete for Council contracts.

Chopping the supplier list in half, thus making the probable average contract value double what it is, will naturally discriminate against local business who have already suffered enough from the hike in parking charges and difficulty in paying. Have you noticed this councillors so you can rein in the officers?

Presently when a requisition is raised in the system it can be raised against an existing contract or vendor. The route to ordering directly from a supplier can lead to over-spend and non-compliancy as it is not going through a compliant contract. This buying route will be closed in the system. So it looks like anyone can order anything against an existing supplier and this is why the £25,000 limit was so easily breached in the past. This will be stopped; it has only taken a year since MetPro, such a turn of speed!

With the procurement route to vendors is (sic) closed off in the system, the only route available will be through an existing contract, catalogue or framework (the 'green route').  = In the future we will be compliant. Are we supposed to cheer?

At present approximately 1000 purchase orders per month are raised using the 'free text' or 'red' route and of these a large number are raised verbally and then purchase orders raised retrospectively (there were ~800 retrospective orders in March 12). There is work presently underway, which is planned to be completed end April 2012 that will limit spend on contracts, however the route direct to vendors also needs to be 'closed'.

Sadly Mr Mustard had to listen to Craig Cooper, the unCommercial Director waffling on at the Audit meeting of 26 April 2012. He has his manuscript notes, and probably a tape recording as well. His notes about retrospective purchase orders are that Cooper said "still a number coming through. Are an expected activity - are trying to manage it down". Lesley Meeks, Assistant Director of Commercial Assurance (not on the payroll though?) said she was "going round service areas to look at exceptions. Will monitor retro P.O. in order to stop them in the future" 

Lord Monroe Palmer said he did not want to see retro P.O. in non urgent areas and Meeks hoped to show if it was achievable at the next meeting.

This is all very unsatisfactory to Mr Mustard. Officers when reporting should not waffle "still a number" Craig, really how misleading of you. When officers report they should be asked to report facts. If any councillor had asked how many PO were retrospective we could have had a much more informed discussion on the subject.

Also when the boss of the Audit committee says he wants to see something, especially something enshrined in the rules, then the correct answer should be that it will not be done, not I'll see what I can do.

Mr Mustard can't recall, and his notes do not show, this specific question coming up at  the June meeting. The Procurement Action Plan had by now been in existence for over a year and still there is a problem with retrospective purchase order. Note no. 8 said "Each Directorate is reviewing the use of retrospective purchase orders in their area and reporting  back to the Working Group. Presently we are identifying exception (sic) where it may be necessary to raise a retrospective order. We will then report and monitor by purchase type and ensure that orders are placed with corresponding purchase orders. Action on track for July deadline."

Mr Mustard will check, properly.

The closing down of the 'red' route has impact on people in both delivery units and CPT. For this reason the approach will be a three step approach: all contracts will have contract limits; workshops will be run with delivery units to change process and the vendor buying route will be closed down. The workshops will establish a new way of working as well as identifying any exceptions and uniqueness's (sic) within the delivery units.

So a year after MetPro and contract limits were not in place. Pathetic.

Processes

As described in section 2.1 the first level processes of the P2P systems will be changed in order that there is only one process available to selecting a buying route. (ie through compliant contract, framework or catalogue). This process change will stop the potential for contract overspends and maverick buying. 

( P2P = Purchase-to-pay systems automate the full purchase-to-payment process, connecting procurement and invoicing operations through an intertwined business flow that automates the process from identification of a need, planning and budgeting, through to procurement and payment. )

Barnet Council - the home of the maverick buyer.

At this point the ridiculously complicated chart which is at the top of the article appeared and then the following text.

The aim is to have this process working smoothly before the transition to NSCSO provider.

Two comments.

1. That doesn't leave long.

2. The NSCSO provider will almost certainly scrap the lot as they are not bound by EU rules or probably any council rules either.

A contract management e-training tool will be rolled out during May 2012. The process will ensure compliance with contract procedure rules as well as providing guidance on how to monitor the effectiveness of the contract and gather performance information. We'll see how they do.

People

The approach to implementation is through workshops with the delivery units, establishing those processes which are common across LBB and those that are specific to units. The workshops throughout May will identify the interfaces between a centralised outsourced procurement and the delivery units, agree roles and responsibilities, map top level processes (recognising exceptions and uniqueness) and agree management reporting. We will work it out as we go along.

Will the NSCSO want a well overpaid AD? 

An unknown number of buyers, what sort of plan is that? Craig said 5 or 10 at one meeting and got pulled up on it.

Enough, even Mr Mustard, a former purchase ledger manager can't write any more.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Sloth Society - New Southgate branch

Mr Mustard likes 3 toed sloths. Its embarrassing when they make you look slow.

Readers will recall that in March 2011 the wheels where shown to have completely fallen off the procurement arm of Barnet Council and a Procurement Action Plan ("PAP") followed quickly on the heels of the critical "MetPro" Audit Committee of June 2011. The PAP did not mention that the Procurement Code of Practice was to be updated (the one on the council website is from March 2006). The PAP also didn't mention that a Procurement Centralisation Plan ("PCP") was envisaged. Perhaps these decisions were only taken later but if so they display a complete lack of joined up thinking as the council had 3 months to think about the matter before non-stick Nick Walkley had to try and tell the Audit Committee why procurement was so appalling.

Now back in November 11 in response to an FOI request by Mr Mustard about how the financial strength and council business share of major suppliers is regularly monitored ( not sure that it is ) he received a specially created policy extract containing parts of the Procurement Code of Practice. Mr Mustard noticed that the paragraph numbers of this document (thick end of 2 A4 pages) were different to the March 2006 version. So assuming there was a new version and the website was slow in being updated ( quite normal! ) he asked to see a copy. The answer he got was that he couldn't have a copy because it was not yet approved and it was for future publication (a  standard exemption under FOI). 

He has, of course, already seen 2 pages. It is all routine stuff and no harm would be done by the public seeing it all and it would save the time of FOI officers if this sort of document was released without question, it isn't the recipe for coca-cola (which Mr Mustard does not drink!). In fact they might even make free suggestions for improvement as the public will include real world procurement experts. That is called crowdsourcing.

Curious to know when the updated code would be available and thinking it must surely be very soon as procurement is still in such a mess ( RM Countryside Services! ) he asked the question. The verbatim answer from 16 December was:

the publication date is pending it is envisaged this will be achieved for the end of the financial year, March 2012.

Please note : This document is subject to authorisation prior to publication.

Procurement Manager

Now you would think, wouldn't you, that having right royally messed up procurement, that there would be a rush to get all the building blocks in place and not take a slothsome year to come up with an updated code and then also unwisely plan to update the website at the very time that is is being completely updated.

This sort of speed of inaction is what gives local authorities a bad name and you would think that Barnet Council might think that theirs was bad enough already and try to perform their duties speedily and impeccably.

You might think that but you would be wrong.

To make sure this sort of Code is in place is why Craig Cooper, the Commercial Director, is paid £132,480 p.a.

In the next 20 working days Mr Mustard also hopes to share the PCP with you. 

Yours, far from slothfully

Mr Mustard

Move over MetPro : here comes another Barnet Council procurement scandal, and this one is even bigger.

This is an open letter that was emailed to all councillors very early this morning by the Famous Five Barnet Bloggers:

Dear Councillor

Barnet bloggers earlier this year exposed the scandalous use by Barnet Council of MetPro, an unlicensed security company which was paid a total of more than a million pounds worth of residents' money despite the absence of any tender process, contract, or properly regulated payment system.

MetPro proved to be just one among hundreds of similar irregular arrangements sanctioned by the Tory authority, which is currently negotiating the outsourcing of £1billion worth of our council services to the private sector under the One Barnet programme.

During the months of the outsourcing tender process, in blatant defiance of the government’s stated policy commitment to transparency and greater accountability by local authorities, Barnet has consistently resisted, delayed or obstructed Freedom of Information requests by bloggers in relation to matters of public interest, including the much criticised procurement of contracts with service providers. We think we know why that might be.

At this coming Thursday’s audit meeting, 8 December, we are submitting questions to the committee about another case investigated by local bloggers involving the council’s long term use of another private company, RM Countryside, which has been paid more than £2 million pounds of local tax payers’ money with an apparent lack of compliance with the proper processes of tendering, contractual arrangements and the regulations set out in the Constitution.

We are questioning the efficacy of the internal and external audit procedures which are supposed to regulate the commercial activity of the London Borough of Barnet.

The integrity of the One Barnet outsourcing programme is clearly fatally compromised by the failure of the authority to regulate its own procurement, contractual and payment processes and we call therefore for an immediate halt to be made in this programme, and for an urgent, independent inquiry to be held into the disastrous lack of control of the authority’s commercial activities. MetPro was a warning: a warning which has been ignored. Now is the time to stop, investigate and hold the authority to account to the residents and tax payers of Barnet.

Signed:

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

---

The following is Mr Mustard's view alone.

After bloggers had discovered that procurement  was a disaster ( one wonders how the Commercial Director, Craig Cooper, £132,480 p.a. could fail to know the basic workings of his own department ) a Procurement Action Plan was put in place. Progress on this plan is reported to successive audit committees of which there is one tomorrow ( 7pm Hendon Town Hall - do come along and say hello to the bloggers in the public gallery ). However last night at the Budget & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee there was a sign of what is to come. 

One of the key performance indicators that was measured in quarter 2 ( July to Sept 11 ) was #7004 ( see page 16 of agenda item 6 here ) and it related to the number of vendors under formal contract. 

A councillor ( Schama? ) asked Mr Travers what percentage of the top 50 vendors were under formal contract and there was a lot of hedging by Andrew Travers, the Chief Financial Officer, on £1,000 a day, as to what from memory, the number was and he plumped for 70%. 

Oh dear, the councillor pointed out that the report in front of him said it was already 80% and shouldn't it really be 100% we are only talking about the top 50 vendors after all ( note to self, ask to see a list of the top 50 ). At this point the question got shunted back to Thursday when doubtless Craig Cooper will get put up to be cross examined.. 

So what do you get for £1,000 a day, you get a Chief Financial Officer with his head so full of fluffy OneBarnet figures that there isn't room for any knowledge of how far the repairs to the disaster of procurement, with all the attendant financial and legal ramifications, has progressed.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Commercial Directorate not an advert for high performance

Hello Mr Craig Cooper, Mr Mustard hasn't mentioned you on this blog for a while and at £130,000 a year you really should figure more often with stories of the fantastic work you are doing as the Director of Commercial Services but instead here is the performance report for the 1st quarter of 2011-12 which is April to June 2011 inclusive.

click to enlarge; back to return

What an achievement. Millions and millions of pounds on offer at the market day and potential suppliers turned up. Mr Mustard is astounded at such success!

The HR rating of negative 4 looks like a complete disaster though especially as last quarter it was only minus 1. It would seem that the directorate is losing its grip on the staff.

Mr Mustard just loves that word "issues". Someone with behavioural issues tends to thump people. Mr Mustard thinks that there is nothing wrong with the words "challenges" or "problems".

It's no surprise is it that the security contract is still rearing its ugly head.

MetPro

not too obvious is it?

Interesting wording. managing "potential disputes" is one of the top three issues. Mr Mustard therefore concludes that there are not 3 real issues if a potential issue has made it onto the list. 

Oh yes, IS, or Information systems - they have become the new MetPro by the looks of it. Another complete and utter shambles.

Now that's what Mr Mustard calls an overspend. An overspend of £516,000 on rents and service charges. You are outstanding at controlling your budget then Captain Cooper, but in the same category as Simon Cowell's "that was a Triple A performance" - Awful, Awful, Awful. Overspent on IS transformation as well - Mr Mustard expects there will be more of that to come.

For the benefit of readers the CPI numbers have all been changed. Barnet Council manage to use both the old and the new numbers in one document without any explanation ( well they wouldn't want you to work out what is going on ). Mr Mustard thinks that CPI314 became 7001 and CPI205 became 7003. 

That was good bit of work wasn't it. Decide on CPI314 and then find out it's too hard - lots of forethought went into that one then.Echoing the explanation Mr Mustard has his own to add:-

"Whilst in principle One Barnet seemed like a good idea t the time, in practice it is an expensive white elephant"

If vendors are reduced from 9700 to 5820 won't that leave small local suppliers out in the cold?

Look at the first 6 lines. If Mr Mustard wrote these they would say "The original targets were too hard so we will replace them with something easier"

CPI333 might be 7004 but there again it might not. Someone at LBB will hopefully add a comment. Fancy writing reports that cannot be understood if you don't work at the council.

Look Mrs Angry no top female earners in the whole directorate. What do you think the problem is? Mysogynist management? or just that Captain Cooper hasn't realised your brilliance in commercial areas. Perhaps he was admiring your intellect and not glowering at you at that meeting we were at recently? Staffing is definitely a problem in this directorate, stuffed with fixed term contract staff - they will soon be gone - just holding their hand out every month.

So nicely put. A number of long term absence cases have been exited from the organisation. If you get seriously ill in Barnet you get your P45 - such compassion.

Evidently the managers hold you in great awe Captain Cooper as despite your great emphasis on submitting absence returns only 75% of the managers bothered. One in four said "up yours Delors" ( for students of the EU ).

Appraisals are only completed by 42%. A ghastly performance that does not need further appraisal.

So even more staff are temps and the procurement team are struggling to implement the PAP ( procurement action plan ) and estates are in bother with rents. There are 10 amber risks, what a pity that we don't get to see what they are.

There is always a plan. Usually one brought in after someone has pointed out a disaster.

Barnet Council are so good at procurement ( MetPro anyone; £17 an hour rather than £9 ) that they are teaching the landlords to educate them. Grandma and eggs springs to mind.

Evidently if a clear asset map has to be drawn up no-one knew what assets the council owned. A 5 year acquisition and disposal plan. That will be an interesting document to ask to see a copy of.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Economical with the truth ? - Glass bottle - bottle glass.

Mr Mustard had the dubious pleasure last week of sitting through Council Committee Meetings on two consecutive nights. He is still shocked by how quickly he is back out of Hendon Town Hall each time and home again with oodles of time to write his blog before bedtime.

Often in advance of the meeting Mr Mustard sends any question he has, or points he would like to make, to Councillors in order to stimulate some debate as he thinks that Committee Rooms should be like debating chambers involving serious intellectual argument.

One of the comments he sent to all the Councillors who were going to Thursday's General Function Committee was that if Procurement was outsourced then the Council would not have full and proper control of the purchasing function and it would still need a layer of management to oversee the outsourced function which has a cost and carries risk.

Sadly Cllr. Thomas did not get the benefit of what a Council Tax Payer thinks about this as someone deleted the message unread from his inbox. You need to have a word with them Cllr. Thomas as the matter was important. Other Councillors have found that if they delete ( unread ) messages from Mr Mustard the postman kindly delivers another copy by snailmail.

Now Cllr. Suzette Palmer does pay attention to what the electorate has to say and she also happened to ask a question about Procurement. I expect she had thought about it as soon as she saw the agenda, and then had Mr Mustard's timely reminder, and what with MetPro procurement having broken every rule in the book she was worried for the Council's sake about what might go wrong. She probably didn't like Lord Palmer having to stay out till mid-night either trying to get all the muck out from under the carpet in the audit room.

So, about 15 minutes into the meeting, after Craig Cooper had presented his rather thin 5 page report she said she needed to know a lot more about these changes to the Procurement team and expressed her concern that OneBarnet was being rushed through without any proper checking.

Cllr. Thomas jumped into action then and he asked Craig Cooper if he would clarify some points ( oh how pleased he must have been to have been fed to the lions ) and then set out the clarification points that he wanted Craig Cooper to say, which were that this paper ( committee agenda ) did not authorise outsourcing, the MetPro problem ( yes, he actually said MetPro - I thought the word had perhaps been banned at Barnet Council )  was devolution of purchasing to the services and that this would just streamline and consolidate Procurement and thus there could be some reduction in posts.

Cllr Thomas had evidently forgotten where he was the previous evening. Mr Mustard had not !

Craig Cooper then said ( I have edited out all the "errs" that nervous people pepper their speech with, there were quite a few. Mr Mustard takes dictation at a fair old lick )

"Yes, I can confirm that this is not seeking authority for any form of outsourcing.

It is starting a process of consolidating the capability.

And yes, creating a capability that can perform these functions effectively for the Council".

Oh how Mr Mustard laughed at that last line. Mr Cooper's fine sleight of hand reminds Mr Mustard of the Tommy Cooper glass & bottle trick. Here it is.

The difference is that Tommy Cooper remembered where everything was.

At the previous night's performance of the Cabinet Resources Committee, the Chairman, one Cllr. Daniel Thomas, had, at act 7, witnessed the unveiling of the "New Support & Customer Services Organisation Business Case" 

Click here

which at the head of page 13 lists the Council Services that are in line to be outsourced. What is the first one listed, yes you guessed it "Procurement".

So although that day's report did not seek permission to outsource, the report of the previous day had done so. Oh, and who is listed as One Barnet Lead Director in the Business Case document mentioned above. Yes, that's right, its Craig Cooper.

So nil points for Cllr Thomas, and as for Craig Cooper, Mr Mustard thinks that from now on the Councillors are going to have to ask you a lot more searching questions including :-

"is there anything you have omitted to tell us in your report that you really should mention"

Mr Mustard is thinking about taking up his 5 minutes next time you are presenting a report Mr Cooper. Who will be laughing then ?

Thank goodness also that the Leader, Cllr Cornelius confirmed that the Customers Services outsourcing had to come back to committee before it could go ahead.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard