A traffic warden is a complete liar.

On Monday Mr Mustard attended the Budget & Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee. It is not as dry as you might think. Mr Mustard was there because he has been expecting the budget to be broken for 2 years because the way the council was overrun with consultants and temps had to eventually have consequences. All those Judicial Reviews for radical and/or stupid decisions also carry a fair cost. The Special Parking Account is short by £1,081,000

There were also other items on the agenda like reviews of parking in North Finchley (with Edgware and Chipping Barnet to be reported to the committee soon).

That item led to Cllr Alan Schneiderman, who is in opposition but is always working hard asking questions about parking, as it is in his shadow portfolio, wanting 30 minutes free parking in town centres (some ruling councillors agreed but with the hole in the budget that would create it will be a long time coming) and he also wanted less zealous enforcement. The Director of Place, Pam Wharfe, went into Yes Minister mode and said that he should of course bring her examples of such a thing and she would look at the specifics. Of course the whole of Barnet knows that enforcement in 2012-13 was much worse than in 2011-12, you only have to look at the 25% increase in the number of PCN to see that or read this blog but hey, let us help Ms Wharfe out. Here is the report of an adjudication that took place at PATAS very recently, it is case number 2130357773.

The appellant, who appeared before me today, said that his vehicle had been parked outside his house he being unable to move it because its battery was flat he submitting that there was a fault with the battery he maintaining his vehicle properly he stating that the whole of the incident had been filmed by a cctv camera installed in his premises he having put that footage on his iPhone he playing it to me at the hearing.

The footage showed the appellant pushing the vehicle from its parking space the attendant being at the location on a bike & not as he claimed serving the notice by handing it to the driver the appellant pushing his vehicle away from the location the attendant leaving it. It was clear on that footage that the attendant had been untruthful about that aspect of his evidence.

I was satisfied that the appellant had been prevented from moving his vehicle through circumstances beyond his control finding that the exemption in this regard applied and found that the penalty charge notice had not been served.

So there we have it. Proof from a member of the public that one Civil Enforcement Officer (on a scooter so that cuts it down a bit) or traffic warden as they are commonly known, is a lying toerag.

From the PATAS report you can see the PCN number, AG32027447, and from that the council can look up the badge number of the warden. Then Mr Mustard might suggest stripping him/her of his/her badge (actually Mr Mustard has only seen male scooter riders) and epaulettes and sending him/her on their way as we do not want dishonest traffic wardens in Barnet.

However, it probably isn't the traffic warden's fault. We are forever being told that there aren't targets for the issue of PCN but there almost certainly is pressure on CEOs to issue a certain number of tickets otherwise the budget for parking income will not be met (there is that small matter of a million pound shortfall) and NSL have been under pressure for their performance with KPI not being met in the year to March 13. Mr Mustard is more inclined to think that NSL put terrible pressure on the traffic wardens to dish out parking tickets and thus this sort of behaviour happens. Mr Mustard is sure wardens are not instructed to cheat but they are certainly issuing more marginal and/or questionable parking tickets and leaving the motorist to appeal their way out of the problem. Without cctv it is the motorist's word against the traffic warden's.

Luckily our honest hero motorist, who lives in Park Road (not sure which one, there are four Park Roads in Barnet?) provided incontrovertible evidence. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that this is the only case of cheating by a traffic warden.

If the motorist is reading this you have a perfect case for claiming costs as the council has been wholly unreasonable or vexatious in issuing and pursuing the PCN.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Injecting with botox whilst Barnet Council apply the leeches

A leech, stay well away!

Mr Mustard wants our high streets to remain otherwise one day we will all be born, come home from hospital if they still exist, and not leave home again until we go out in a box and that is not the kind of society that appeals to Mr Mustard.

Mr Mustard was invited to attend the launch event of the Future of North Finchley at the Arts Depot and he duly did having also blogged the poster for others to see.

There was an introduction by David Longstaff, a talk by Sally Williams of Retail Revival, another by Liza Fior of MUF Architects (MUF stands for Modern Urban Fabric) another by Tracey Cooper of ArtsDepot, another by a local resident Brenda Goldberg (not Barbara as she was styled on the invite, oh dear a lack of attention to detail there) and then finally Helen Michael the queen of parking got up to speak.

Mr Mustard has a couple of bones to pick. Sally denied, with respect to Mr Mustard's interjection about money on shopfronts in High Barnet perhaps not being the best example of what to spend on, that money had been spent on Cafe Pacino which has since closed down. Bloggers remember lots of detail. Here is what the Barnet Residents Association had to say in their newsletter

In the lower half of the High St two shops, Chudys and Cover - along with Café Pacino in Church Passage - were similarly treated along with the provision of new awnings. The next task of course, and decidedly more difficult, is getting other shops to create more tasteful frontages that will contribute to the overall kerb appeal of the town.

Now Mr Mustard does think Sally is on our side but he will have to put what she says through a verification filter from now on. A bad start but every dog gets two bites.

Lisa Fior of MUF architecture said "we have used the bloggers", No Liza. We are independent, there were two of us there, + Dan of the Barnet Bugle (a newspaper that looks like a blog) and we did not confer before advertising the event or afterwards about what we would write, if anything. We decide individually what, when, why and how we write. Barnet Council should not be proud of the number of bloggers that write about Barnet (and there are more than the famous five, see the side bar to the left) they should be sitting up and taking notice and trying to be so boringly efficient, display so much common sense and good judgment and spend money so wisely that there is absolutely nothing to write about (a vision that Mr Mustard hopes will one day come to pass).

Helen got up to speak and of course most things had been said by then. She also wasn't given much notice that she had to speak and so it was off the cuff. Helen loves North Finchley as she lives and works there but gagging her by telling her not to talk about parking was pretty stupid.

Not Helen Michael (gagged) but an ex parking meter (bagged)

There are lots of problems facing the High Street although exactly what they all are and the size of each problem is a subject that one could argue about in the Bohemia for hours on end. One problem is simple to solve. We know that traders across the borough saw falls in trade of 30% to 40% as soon as coin operated parking meters were taken away and for most this will have turned their profits into losses. Put back coin operated meters (yes they could also take credit cards) and trade will magically improve to somewhere near where it was 2 years ago (the charges also need to be lower and there should be more free parking bays - calm down cyclists, you will get thought of)

So as soon as the speechifying was over Paul Shea of Tally Ho Discount (and now also selling lots of low priced fruit and vegetables - follow him on twitter @thfruitandveg ) was away like a pack of hounds after a fox and asked about parking. Everyone wanted to talk about parking except Barnet Council and its consultants. The council and its consultants want people to give up their time to make North Finchley a better place which is all right up to a point but why do we pay council tax or business rates,  is it just to fund the £130,000 salary of the Director of Place who wasn't in attendance, and most people are pretty busy, Helen, for example, works at least 12 hours a day 7 days a week and many other traders are having to work long hours to try and improve their turnover or to cover for staff they could no longer afford to employ once the council kicked them in the shins. So really the council should do all of the work because it is why they are there; people should simply be asked to contribute ideas.

There were only about 100 people at the launch. There should have been a lot more. That was fewer than half of the traders there and hardly any residents. Publicity of these events needs a much greater effort in future. Mr Mustard has had a business in Barnet, with a registered office having a Barnet postcode for a lot of the time, for 25 years and he cannot recall more than one approach from the council on a business matter (and that was whether he was interested in bidding to collect poll tax from which he ran a mile) and so he wonders how many businesses Barnet Council just don't know about. In Mr Mustard's road of 30+ properties there are 14 businesses run from home and he doubts that Barnet Council know about more than one of them. An architect who lives and works in North Finchley was spitting nails because he only heard about the event as he is a member of the folk club.

What the council does do is take away easy payment methods and give us hard ones that don't cater for all of the populace (unlike cash which does) and squeeze the motorist for over £12 million giving them a net annual profit from parking (income and parking tickets) after costs of £5 million of £7.5 million. The council should simply aim to break even from parking and no more. The council are hindering the high streets by taxing them out of existence.

Mr Mustard noted down one or two of Helen's ideas. She wanted coin operated parking meters but didn't say so as she was asked not to, she wanted to improve footfall, she wanted to get University business students into one of the empty shops so all the latest idea would pour forth, she wants a website listing all of North Finchley's businesses, she wants the Finchley carnival back, she wants better Xmas lights, she wants to improve the market and possibly relocate it and generally she wanted the town centre to be accessible and attractive partly by making it much greener.

There was some anger that the £1.1m (not Boris's money but our money) seemed to have been carved up into chunks already without the traders and locals having had their input into what they would like to see which bespeaks of the usual council arrogance and it is clear that the 2 council officers who are charged with getting the Town Team that is to be formed are going to find it challenging (as problems are euphemistically called these days) but they have both shown themselves prepared to listen even though they don't have the authority to sort out the debacle which is parking but the face lift that they are charged with managing will be to no avail until the council remove the blood sucking leeches from the legs of the patient.

Dean Cohen was another councillor notable for not being there and David Longstaff who should have stepped in when the meeting was going all wrong (you can read Roger's report here) sat on his hands. Mr Mustard has been in touch with Sally, Liza and David and given them his tuppenceworth and he will be of positive help once parking meters are installed.

An ugly rumour has reached Mr Mustard that there are plans afoot to spend £30,000 on new rubbish bins. What is the point of asking for ideas if someone in authority has already taken a decision. £30k on new bins would be a waste. Does anyone go to a high street elsewhere for shopping because they have new rubbish bins? No. £30k would buy 6 or 7 coin operated parking meters. That Mr Mustard and probably every trader in North Finchley would vote for.

What else would Mr Mustard like to see?:

A tram, look here is one in High Barnet

and another at Tally Ho

they would be so much better than buses. Mr Mustard would use them all the time and leave the blogger bus at home. Trams would reduce town centre pollution levels which are, he is told, very bad in North Finchley.

If we want people to cycle to work then facilities have to be provided. There is a cycle shop in North Finchley (Shorter Rochford) but it is on the edge of the shopping district in Woodhouse Rd. What is really needed is a cycle shop that does sales, repairs and all day secure bike storage, lockers and showers if we really are going to get an uptake in the use of cycles. No-one wants to sit next to a sweaty colleague so showers are a must and most shops and offices won't have any.

Mr Mustard loves French towns with their town square. He would create one in North Finchley. How? He would compulsorily purchase the building that stand between the Lodge Lane car park and the High Rd and make a square that joins to the High Rd. Shops could be built around the edge of the square with restaurants and offices above and flats above them. Car parking could be provided in a car park underneath the square. That is what they do in France and we should copy them. The council will say it is a lot of money but this is the sort of project that the council should be looking at to make the town a place to visit rather than trying to concrete over Cricklewood / Brent X. Look at this corner of a square in Bordeaux, Mr Mustard just wants to go there this minute, we need to develop the same feeling for all of the town centres of Barnet, not just North Finchley.

Bordeaux

Mr Mustard does hope that coin operated parking meters and other good things do come out of this opportunity.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Why contractors don't often get sacked - maybe?

link to BBW article about DVLA

This week is Crapita week but Mr Mustard hasn't finished doing his research and he has a related blog post to write as to why local authorities and governments don't often take contractors to task.

Has Mr Mustard told you the joke, or is it, that he tells his clients? Mr Mustard has been in business for 25 years helping to sweep up the mess that supposedly commercial companies have made of their businesses. His firm acts in effect as an outsourcer to liquidators providing a service that is subject to peaks and troughs in demand and which needs considerable negotiating skills and the ability to ask people to pay up (which is a skill that the reserved British seem to find hard to master). His firm has been the recipient of a government contract in the 90's which was rarely the subject of a complaint and so it was held for several years.

What Mr Mustard tells his clients is that his firm is only average but because he always follows people who are useless then his firm looks brilliant. Clients are never sure if Mr Mustard is having a laugh but they do stick with him for years and years.

So when Mr Mustard discovered that Big Brother Watch had asked a very interesting question of the DVLA about which councils had been banned for various periods from obtaining details of car ownership he went off to see if Barnet Council were in the list. They were, on three occasions as follows:

24/3/11 to 11/5/11 - not authorised to make enquiries

27/1/12 to 26/3/12 - audit issues

19/6/12 to 24/9/12 - no contract in place

Now the parking enforcement contract with NSL started a month late on 1 May 12. One wonders if part of the reason for the one month delay was to allow time for the council to get out the pickle they had got into in the first quarter of the calendar year 2012. They weren't to know when the DVLA might lift the ban and so 1 April was a bit tight for being able to fulfil the council's presumed part of the bargain of providing access to DVLA. (Mr Mustard has about 90% of the contract, all the really interesting sections have been redacted, but from what he can see the responsibility for the DVLA link rests with the council). 

Now readers will recall that the Special Parking Account was down by £1.2m at 30 June 2012. When the interim Director of Environment, Planning & Regeneration, Pam Wharfe, who is the chosen one in the new order (otherwise known as commissioning chaos) to become the Director of Place (were there really no better candidates?), reported on the parking recovery plan to the Budget & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee on the evening of 25 October 2012, she didn't mention that for two of the weeks in that quarter the council had been unable to obtain details of car ownership and that must have affected the income.

This must be one of the reasons why when put in the spotlight about claiming compensation from NSL by Cllr Cooke the reply was an irrelevance about not having targets for parking ticket numbers and that "the contract had been properly managed". Did Pam not know about the lack of a contract with DVLA, especially after the Procurement Action Plan had by then been in place for a year? in which case her competency is questionable, or did she know and did she just fail to mention it as a factor which is.....well, you dear reader can make up your own mind what that is.

(Digression - Whilst we are on the subject of Pam Wharfe, Mr Mustard hears that when she took the e-learning module for Contract Management Introduction, she failed it the first time getting 3 of the 15 questions wrong. A much better score the second time, just 5 minutes later, with only one wrong answer; let's hope it wasn't for something vital.)

Now the parking enforcement contract is one of the simplest that could be imagined and it should be a simple task to highlight all of the failures of NSL but if on the client side you have a worse failing then as an Officer (employee of Barnet Council) you are going to shy away from involving legal as your own inadequacies are about to be thrust into the spotlight.

Multiply the contract up to a humongous one with Crapita and try to blame them for failure and their clever lawyers will be all over the contract looking for the client side failures, which given the general ineptitude of Barnet Council overpaid senior managers, will be easy to find, especially as under the new corporate structure it isn't entirely clear who is meant to do what and internal division and infighting will be rife.

Councillors on scrutiny panels. In future you might like to ask Directors if there are any parts of a contract which the council itself have not fulfilled 100%.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Friday Joke - Teething troubles

Last week Mr Mustard sat through the Budget & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee. He watched Cllr. Alan Schneiderman gamely try to get an answer as to how much compensation the council would get for the dismal performance of NSL Ltd in the first 2 months of their contract, the period for which the figures showed that the Special Parking Account was £1.2m behind where it was expected to be.

(It isn't all down to NSL as they weren't signed up to the contract until 1 May - the contract was a month late being implemented as it happens - and partly because they do not set the parking tariff which affects supply & demand and NSL don't issue permits, the council do). 

The fob off was basically that the teething troubles were now behind us. Here is the interim Director, Pam Wharfe, who is paid £132,480 p.a. saying so on 25 October 2012.

Now Mr Mustard repeats below the conclusion of an Adjudicator of the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service the very next day, 26 October 2012. (All adjudicators are legally qualified and have seen thousands of parking tickets)

The appellant appeared before me at the personal hearing listed for today.

The local authority have issued a penalty charge notice "for being parked without payment of a parking charge".

The appellant states that he was helping his father who is disabled to the chemist and was gone for less than a couple of minutes. He also states that he did not receive the original penalty charge notice or see the civil enforcement officer, and categorically denies that it was "handed to the driver" as alleged. There is a direct conflict of evidence on this issue. However I find the appellant to be a credible witness and accept his representations.

In addition there have been several procedural errors in the case.

The local authority served their evidence for the appeal late. This tribunal only received the evidence on 24th Oct and the appellant says he received it "yesterday" the 25th October, which is less than three clear days before the hearing.

The local authority, by their own admission also served the charge certificate prematurely.

In light of the above I am not satisfied that the penalty charge notice was properly issued or the appeals process correctly administered, and therefore allow this appeal.

(An allowed appeal means that the parking ticket gets cancelled. Note that the poor motorist has had to waste at least half a day going to Islington and back which has a time and money cost. The charge certificate is when the penalty gets increased by 50%.)

If that is a properly managed contract please don't show Mr Mustard one that isn't.

The parking contract is a joke. Misleading councillors isn't.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

....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

Black Tuesday in North Finchley

funwithhistory

Since at least the start of July, North Finchley has been suffering the attentions of a person or persons unknown who has taken to spray painting the parking signs black thus meaning that motorists could park for free. Now this is naughty behaviour but perfectly understandable when you have a council that doesn't really listen to traders about the 30% downturn in business they have suffered. Richard Cornelius, the council "leader" claims to listen and then says there is nothing he can do or else postulates the theory that a good conservative does nothing. Well Councillor Brian Coleman certainly did something. He single-handedly ruined many businesses in Barnet in 2011 when he hoiked up the charges and took away the cash parking meters. Cash was a convenient payment medium for everybody in the country save for the Queen, who famously doesn't carry money.

Councillors are tinkering with the charges taking 30p off here and there and talking about introducing meters again (when? some unknown future date) for credit and debit cards at least and are now consulting businesses about what they should do. The answer is simple, go back to the situation in 2010 BC (Before Coleman).

Despite having a registered Limited company business in Barnet since 1987 Mr Mustard's alter ego was not on the list of businesses whose business received a consultation letter. He has asked for one. Will it arrive by the 28 September deadline?

What should Barnet Council have done with a vandalised sign? They should have replaced it. They should have done that as many times as vandalism occurred. Ironic that one of the claimed reasons why parking meters were taken away was the cost of repairing vandalised machines (which wasn't as bad as was made out and a profit of £5m p.a. was still made even after all costs of maintenance and cash collection). It has taken the council or NSL at least 2 months to replace these vandalised signs. In the parking contract it says that lines and signs are the responsibility of NSL (although the cost will get passed on doubtless with a markup) and word on the street is that Barnet Council are having to do them because NSL would not take responsibility for signs and lines until they were brought up to snuff.

Simply fixing signs wasn't the council's or NSL's plan. Instead all of a sudden this morning workmen turned up and replaced all of the vandalised signs and a posse of 6 traffic wardens descended like praying mantises and gave all the cars parking tickets. The motorists who have been penalised are not the people who vandalised the signs; they are innocent bystanders caught out by the childish behaviour of the council or their contractor NSL. If this has happened in your area, anywhere in the Country, do please let Mr Mustard know. Unamused Mr Mustard wrote to the "interim" Director of Environment, Planning & Regeneration (parking tickets are not going to regenerate North Finchley now are they?) with a copy to Declan Hoare, the Assistant Director of Highways, and Ian Baruch the Parking Manager (a temp from Hays HR because the council haven't yet been able to find a permanent employee) and to all 63 councillors who need to start to exert some authority over the senior officers if they want to be re-elected in May 2014.

This is what he wrote:

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

North Finchley this morning 

Council has just changed the blacked out parking notices and then systematically given everyone parked there a ticket, no warning, nothing.

Looked liked the (6 at least) parking attendants were laid on especially

arguments
shouting
police called

I am aware that a naughty individual has blacked out some signs and they may or may not be parked there today.

Was this vindictive and stupid idea of retribution one thought up by a member of your team or by NSL?

Innocent motorists are now suffering for having parked perfectly properly and then made into rule breakers by the acts of the council or its contractor.

I note this was done the morning after the North Finchley Traders Forum.

The council really is going out of its way to win friends and influence people.

By the way, there is a general requirement at law for the council to be fair in its dealings with motorists. Do you suppose that a swoop of this kind fits into the fair" category?

Yours sincerely

---

Mr Mustard looks forward to reading the reply.

This is what the council website says its wardens will do:

"We aim to deliver a good quality service in a fair manner, and to provide help and assistance"

except in North Finchley where the traffic wardens saw the signs being installed and then pounced. If you received one of those tickets Mr Mustard will help you appeal for free. Wait until the Notice to Owner arrives and then contact mrmustard@zoho.com

Why did it take from 4 July when the following photograph was taken until 11 September to change a few signs?

This week Barnet Council countenanced squatting at Friern Barnet library. They may just have opened the floodgates to copycat anarchist actions as that is what they react to.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Who runs the council?

Who runs Barnet Council?
A question for Barnet leader Richard Cornelius from the Barnet bloggers.



Dear Councillor Cornelius

We wrote to you last week in regard to the announcement by Pam Wharfe, Barnet Council’s ‘interim’ Director of Environment, Planning and Regeneration, that a decision has been made to abandon the One Barnet Strategic Partnership proposals for the outsourcing of £275 million worth of our local services in favour of a ‘Joint Venture’.

You have since contradicted her statement, saying:

“No decision has been made. No case for a jv has been made beyond the suggestion that there might be such as case. The decisions will be made by elected members in due course.”

In a subsequent message to staff Ms Wharfe has informed staff that:

“...the project Board recommended to Corporate Directors Group that this be formally advanced in discussion with bidders and indeed is currently our preferred option.”

Neither the DRS project board nor the Corporate Directors Group includes any elected members of the council. Membership of the DRS project board, we understand, is restricted to a small number of senior council officers and two consultants from Agilisys/iMPOWER, the company working as ‘implementation partner’ to One Barnet, at an average cost to local tax payers of £250,000 per month.

It would appear that Barnet Council is preparing to commit the financial security of this borough to a new model of outsourcing – one that its own consultants’ advice identified as more risky and costly than the one originally chosen, and that this decision has been made by senior officers before any consideration or approval by the elected members of the council.

Ms Wharfe’s own comments about the new Joint Venture seem to suggest that senior management are not at all concerned by the increased risk of failure that this new commitment will entail, or the increased responsibilities for the authority that this option would involve, as a result of guaranteeing more favourable terms for the successful bidder at the conclusion of the dialogue process.

As residents, however, we are concerned: and we believe that you should be too.

We would ask you and your colleagues to consider the real possibility that in the event of the new Joint Venture failing, the council will still be left with the duty to provide the affected services, whilst the successful bidder may simply walk away with no obligation.

We believe that councillors have clearly not been fully informed as to the details of the Joint Venture, and that the scale of risk that the One Barnet programme presents is simply not fully understood by members. It seems that the need for members to be fully informed of developments and involved in the formation of policy at all stages of the dialogue process has been deliberately overlooked.

Perhaps as well as a decision to pursue a new model of outsourcing, the council is committing itself to a new form of local government, in which the democratic process is set aside for a bureaucratic dictatorship, entirely controlled by the senior management team.

If Barnet is indeed determined to bypass the democratic process, and to give the role of policy and decision making to senior officers, rather than to the political leadership of the Conservative group and the Cabinet, we would suggest this makes the role of the elected members completely redundant, although of course it may well offer a new opportunity for cost cutting exercises in the withdrawal of members’ allowances.

Failing that, may we ask you to assert your authority as leader of the council, recognise that the outsourcing programme has been totally discredited, and instruct your own officers to follow a course of action which is the result of proper consultation and policy formation rather than one shaped by the motivations of their own agenda.

Yours sincerely

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

---

A personal footnote by Mr Mustard:

When reviewing the agreed draft of their communiqué Mr Mustard noted that the bloggers were using the phrase "Corporate Directors Group" as used by Pam Wharfe. The word corporate suddenly spoke volumes to him. Indeed the Directors are aiming to have the most corporate council in history with their ambition to be a commissioning council and pass the maximum amount of services out to the private sector to be run for profit (Mr Mustard is a company Director and will celebrate 25 years of trading next month so he must know something about profit himself).

The other thing was that he thought that it was called the Council Directors Group (there can't be two damn groups of Directors sitting around doing blue sky thinking can there?) and this is supported by the council's shiny new rusty website, here,and if you search on google for "Barnet Council Directors Group" you find Craig Cooper the unCommercial Director using the term. Needless to say the website page about One Barnet is itself already out of date (this website really was a waste of £700,000) and doesn't yet mention the JV. Or is it up to date because it isn't going to happen. Who knows?

Mr Mustard

3 shades of grey (budget cutbacks you know)

JV or not to JV

Sorry no sexual innuendo in this posting but plenty of intrigue.

JV =  Joint Venture (have they all been on the spliffs?)

Shade 1 : Pam Wharfe - interim Assistant Director of something or other

we have decided to form a Joint Venture organisation

The Joint Venture approach does not change the approach to TUPE of staff

We shall provide further information on the Joint Venture in the next week

and re "new commercial opportunities" in the JV

They are under negotiation as part of the competitive dialogue process and therefore I cannot give examples as they are obviously commercially sensitive matters.
Pam Wharfe Interim Director EPR

Shade 2 : Cllr Richard Cornelius, the council "leader" (officially but actually?)

No decision has been made. No case for a jv has been made beyond the suggestion that there might be such a case.
The decisions will be made by elected members in due course

Shade 3 : Cllr Daniel Thomas, chair of Cabinet Resources Committee (he should have a handle on the numbers then?)

full marks to Dan O'Brien of the Barnet Press

The other 47 shades of grey (and Barnet are normally so black and white) will doubtless arrive over the next few days.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Commercially sensitive - yawn

so not a secret

As a quick follow up to today's joint blogger statement here is an exchange of emails in which Mr Mustard tried to find out what these fantastic new commercial opportunities were that had caused a huge out-sourcing project to suddenly change track and become a Joint Venture opportunity.

 

 
From: Mr Musatrd
To: Wharfe, Pam
Sent: Sat 18 Aug 2012
Subject: my ref #1358 - DRS Dialogue Update

Dear Ms Wharfe

I note the sudden change in direction of the DRS outsourcing to a JV.

I am particularly interested in these words of yours "has great potential to generate new commercial opportunities, both in Barnet and further afield."

Please enlighten me.

What are the potential new commercial opportunities?

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard


Dear Mr Mustard,They are under negotiation as part of the competitive dialogue process and therefore I cannot give examples as they are obviously commercially sensitive matters.
Pam Wharfe Interim Director EPR

to foi@barnet.gov.uk

Dear Sir or Madam

 

Please provide the information requested i.e. a list of the new commercial opportunities

 

Yours sincerely

If the information gets refused under FOI, and one would think that the public interest lies in knowing what our council are getting up to behind closed doors, the request will be sent to the Information Commissioner to decide upon. Mark your diary for about March 2013!

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Friday Joke - Water(proof)Gate

15 May, absolutely siling down, warden in woolly hat & jumper

The warden did not know this picture was being taken. You can see from the puddles at the kerb how heavy the rain has been and still is.

Sadly today's joke is deadly serious.

Let us remind ourselves of some of the content of the weekly message that Pam Wharfe, the Director responsible for parking & the interim (for now, but how much longer?) Director of Environment, Planning & Regeneration spouted on 4 May

From: First Team Sent: 04 May 2012 15:20 To: AllStaff Subject: Weekly message - Pam Wharfe, Interim Director for Environment, Planning and Regeneration Nick has asked me to write the weekly message as he is at Alexandra Palace in his role as Returning Officer for Barnet and Camden in the GLA elections. Most of my week has been tied up with the implementation of the One Barnet programme. Monday was the last full day of the parking staff working directly for the council as they transferred to NSL and RR Donnelly on Tuesday. We had an informal farewell on Monday organised by their colleagues for the staff working in NLBP and the Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) had an event last week. On Wednesday I met with Tracey Lees (Chief Executive) and Deep Sagar (Chair) from the Barnet Group to discuss how things are going with the transfer of Housing Needs staff and looking ahead to how we can work together to address various challenges facing the council. Mr Mustard notes that Pam Wharfe knows so much about the companies to whom she is content to abdicate the responsibility for staff that she can't even spell their name correctly. It is "Donnelley" not "Donnelly". Tracey in passing said she had noticed that the CEOs out and about in North Finchley had smart new uniforms. This is a striking comparison to my first winter when I was responsible for the service and we discovered we couldn't actually provide enough coats for all the staff. This is a practical example that shows the new provider has a better understanding about how to run this service. Pam Now read what the GMB union have just said.

Gmb Demands Barnet Parking Enforcement Officer Sacked for Asking for a Waterproof Coat in the Recent Wet We...

So there is the joke. Pam Wharfe says that before NSL, Barnet council couldn't afford enough coats for their outdoor employees (which is palpable nonsense but what she wrote) and NSL have sacked someone partly for asking for a coat (per GMB) in the wettest summer we have seen for ages.

The non-joke part is that an employee who was not on the largest salary, about £110,000 less than the obscene amount that Pam Wharfe is paid, now doesn't know where his next pay cheque will come from or even when he will next have one and he has family responsibilities.

It should go without saying, in a civilised society, that staff who are expected to work outdoors all year round should be automatically provided with the necessary clothing to do their job without the risk of catching pneumonia.

It is also important to note that councillors bang on all the time about how employees who are transferred to a new employer under TUPE+ have the same terms and conditions as they had before the transfer. That must mean that if there is a family friendly staff policy at Barnet Council  then the same family friendly policy should be in place at NSL. The staff did not ask for a new employer and should be no worse off if one is foisted upon them. 

Mr Mustard will follow the story of Mr Ojikutu and report the outcome to you.

Update 08.30: Mr Mustard found a little time to see what he could find out about family friendly policies at Barnet Council and here they are.
The London Borough of Barnet - Pay and Benefits

You will have spotted the howler on the first page. "High caliber individuals" and of course there is no such thing. There are "High calibre individuals" around but one of them didn't write the offending page. Caliber is the spelling favoured in America and if all the One Barnet consultants could move there, as they will evidently feel right at home, Mr Mustard would be delighted.

Have a nice day now.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard