Is it worth the time to write to your MP ?

Is it worth your time to write to your MP ?

From: Mrs X
Sent: 05 December 2011
To: FREER, Mike
Subject: Parking

Dear Mike Freer

I was talking to one of our High Street shopkeepers in North Finchley recently and he told me that thirty shopkeepers had met with Barnet Council to discuss the problem of parking. As you know Barnet Council have withdrawn all their meters and left the motorist having to pay by mobile, that is if they can, or if they even possess one. The shopkeepers told the Council that some shops had lost 40 per cent of their trade and would soon be put out of business because of the fall in customers due to the parking difficulties. Apparently the Council members just laughed at them and said that however much the shopkeepers protested, the Council were not going to change their minds.

What I cannot fathom is the lack of understanding on the part of the Council. First of all, there have been so many complaints on this subject, including from the local Press, and I am sure your postbag is full of letters such as mine, that anyone with any common sense should realise that what the Council is doing is wrong. Surely the Council is there to serve the people of Barnet not to obstruct them. Do we not live in a democracy?

Secondly, where is the logic in putting the high street traders out of business? Shops will close and the Council will not receive any rates, and the more shops that close, the more will follow as shoppers will start to go elsewhere, (a) because of the parking problems and (b) because of the lack of shops.

Thirdly, the Council has now had the £27 million returned to it from Iceland. How can they justify all these cuts and the necessity to make more money from parking.

Fourthly, anyway the Council will end up receiving less in parking income because of the above.

As you were formerly Leader of Barnet Council, perhaps you can understand the mentality of this intransigence? More importantly, is there anything that can be done about it?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely

and the reply

Mike Freer MP
Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley & Golders Green
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
020 7219 7071 (Westminster) & 020 8445 5875 (Constituency)

Dear Mrs X,

Thank you for your email.

The pay & display machines were at the end of their life and replacing them across the 17 major town centres and many secondary shopping parades would have cost £1m hence the move to payment by phone. 

I have no real objections to the payment by phone (most Councils operate this system) BUT the changeover should have been accompanied with other payment by cash alternatives and a proper information campaign. The Council has now introduced two alternatives. Local shops that offer the pay point service (see www.paypoint.co.uk) can take payment for parking using cash. In addition the Council have just introduced a scratch card type system that people can buy from the Council and I believe this will be extended allowing shopkeepers to buy them and sell them (or give them away./discount them) in their shops. These additional are sensible but should have been done at the same time as the introduction of payment by phone.

With regard to Business Rates, the Council doesn’t receive business rates. Once collected they are paid over to the Treasury.

The deposits recovered from Icelandic banks is capital not revenue (income). Capital can be used to fund services but only whilst the capital lasts. Eventually the spending has to stop or income has to be increased to replace the capital used. For example if my salary is not covering my living expenses and I have some savings then I can use by savings to top up my salary and pay for living expenses. Once the savings have been exhausted I have to cut my spending. Hence Councils use the capital for spending that doesn’t have to repeated – building new schools or resurfacing roads.

Sincerely

Mike Freer

and now let's look again at the questions posed by Mrs X.

Do we not live in a democracy? 

A. No answer

Secondly, where is the logic in putting the high street traders out of business?

A. No answer

How can they justify all these cuts and the necessity to make more money from parking.

A. No answer

 

As you were formerly Leader of Barnet Council, perhaps you can understand the mentality of this intransigence? More importantly, is there anything that can be done about it?

A. No answer

Mr Mustard's conclusion. Mr Mike Freer, MP, doesn't care about residents or shopkeepers and besides, he can't really interfere in what Barnet Council choose to do; Barnet Council might listen to his opinion as a resident who happens to be the MP but they don't appear to listen to anyone. Mr Freer has not 1 but 2 parking permits that let him park anywhere for free in any CPZ in Barnet.

The letters were reproduced with permission from the Finchley Arrow website which is a non-political organ and not associated with any remarks made by Mr Mustard. Mr Mustard's remarks on this matter are not political either, he is more appalled at the clueless way in which parking meters have been removed and the inept implementation of (almost) cashless parking than by one email from a politician which doesn't answer the questions or offer any helpful suggestions or empathise in any way.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mike Freer appears in an episode of The Billion Pound Drop.

Mr Mustard has now found an article that appeared here in publicservice.co.uk about the savings that Mr Freer believes can be made in central government. Mr Mustard hazards that these are the kind of potential savings he will highlight to Francis Maude MP.

You can play TV show game The Million Pound Drop here


So here is the article with added comments by Mr Mustard in red.

---

The cost of government
15 April 2011

Questions from MP Mike Freer recently uncovered more than 10,000 mobiles in just one government department. Having achieved efficiencies when he was Barnet Council leader, he looks at how central government could learn from the 'easyCouncil' approach. The department was the Ministry of Justice. It has 81,000 staff. So one in eight has a work issued mobile.

Mike Freer was elected as MP for Finchley and Golders Green in the May 2010 general election. Previously he was leader of Barnet Council and previous to that was the lead member for driving efficiency.

Barnet Council took nearly £90m out of the annual £600m+ revenue spend during the period May 2002 to December 2009. It reduced the back office costs to the second lowest in London, reduced it's workforce and moved services from two star to three and four star. How very odd. In this article they were only claimed to be the fourth lowest in London. Statistics eh? slippery devils. Mr Mustard refers readers to the Q2 2010/11 performance report on the Deputy Chief Executive, available here, which says in respect of indicator 17b that no benchmarking data is available as the calculation is unique to Barnet and that "We recognise that the council's true back office costs, when taking into account back office functions embedded in frontline services, are much higher than this ( £59.41 )" and yet someone gave Mr Freer comparative figures previously?  How odd.

Many of the savings were driven by monthly meetings of each spending department to drill down into over/under spends. Both the chief executive and I would lead the review and each service director and lead councillor would be expected to attend and know their departmental budgets – line by line. Spend lines forecasting an end of year under spend were returned to central contingency; any unreported under spends (slush fund) discovered were 'confiscated' and returned to central reserves. The monthly meetings maintained the pressure and the fact that they were driven by both 'the council leader' and the chief executive established an culture of driving out costs; that budgets were not a 'target for spending' but to be under achieved. I fear that in government, spending departments regard their agreed budgets as a spending target. Mr Mustard does not know if this still happens but suspects that it does not. He has seen this system in use in the private sector and it worked very well indeed. It should be reintroduced at Barnet Council.

The year on year 'salami slicing' that identified the £90m also drove us to understand some three years ago that central government support would inevitably be severely reduced. We embarked on the a major review of how to structure the council for an age of austerity; the programme – the future shape of the council was dubbed 'easyCouncil' because of its relentless drive for spending transparency and efficiency; a drive for merging back office functions within the borough's public sector (rather than sharing back offices across councils) and a co-ordinated drive to resolve the causes of dependency costing the council and public sector partners huge sums (300 families cost Barnet £16m a year, every year). Mr Mustard is all in favour of efficiency and not wasting money. The forerunner to One Banet, called Future Shape, was a much more modest programme and unfortunately it is now like a runaway horse. The rider really needs to stop it but can't.

Recently I have been looking at key lines of expenditure for central government to see if the learning from Barnet could be carried across. Early indications are that nearly £900m could be saved without impacting front line services: reducing office accommodation by adopting private sector space per employee allowances; introducing hot desking and flexible working - £832m; moving all departments to paying invoices electronically and driving down the cost of invoice processing to 'best of government' – £9.1m; releasing surplus office accommodation - £61.4m; reducing employee annual days lost to private sector average - £63m; and cutting the amount spent on magazines and periodicals - £6.3m. On top of this my next round of enquiries has identified that 10,000 mobile devices, costing £2.3m a year, are issued to just one government department – the Ministry of Justice.( Hot desking is an abomination. Where is the feeling of security for the employee, driving to work not knowing if there will be a space for them or not. Barnet Council seems to still have lots of offices, surely room still for some further consolidation. Mr Mustard will make some enquiries about the number of mobiles at Barnet Council and report back.

A simple review of usage identified how many mobile handsets had been issued; looking at spend anomalies – highlighting unusually high usage (inappropriate numbers e.g. sports results lines) or high data downloads (inappropriate web access). Also identifying unusually low usage; those whose bill was just the minimum monthly charge identified those who were not using the phone (a surprising number were in desk drawers, unused or rarely turned on). Not only did this lead to the withdrawal of mobile that were clearly not needed because they were not being used but also drove management to refresh the list of blocked sites/numbers. Hopefully this will not be an issue in Barnet Council?

The exercise also gave a clearer insight into the volume and type of calls. The information allowed a complete renegotiation of the contract, shaving significant sums off the annual cost. Money that was redirected to front line services. There are contracts now that allow calls to other mobiles within an organisation and even desk phones to be made for an all inclusive price – irrespective of the volume. The challenge is for central government – is there one contract or does each department negotiate it's own. When was the last time the number of handsets issued and usage was seriously reviewed? Above all, which minister is responsible for in-year savings? EasyCouncil can deliver some easy wins. Barnet Council's notorious procurement section will have tackled this already, won't they?

Nothing radical or novel then in what Mike Freer has to say. It will be interesting to see what comes out after his meeting with Francis Maude or whether this story quietly  disappears.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard