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

Children's Service performance report Q1 2011-12

click to enlarge; back to return

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

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

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

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

Red red red.

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

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

20% of emails not replied to within 2 weeks. 

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

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

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

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

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

The council year 2011/12 has started very badly.

Will it get better or worse.

Worse, probably.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic light sequence 2010-11 whole council

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

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

What do we notice from this summary ? 

A lot of red. 

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

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

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

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Some green traffic lights disappear - Q4 2010-11

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

as you know, click to enlarge & back to return

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall performance for the year?

falling off a cliff

 

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

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


"Better management for less money" please.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic lights on red - Q3 2010-11

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

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

Waste & housing still causing problems.

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

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

More volunteers needed. 

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

Mr Mustard will have to ask.

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

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic lights on red Q2 2010-11

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

click to enlarge : back to return

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

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

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

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

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet's traffic lights keep going red

Corporate performance is represented by charts of pretty colours known as the traffic light methodology. The colours are used although I don't recommend being a passenger with any Barnet executives as they use Red ( a lot ) Green amber, amber & green which is not a true representation but you get the idea; there are 4 levels of performance, or more likely, lack of performance which are represented by pretty coloured charts.

As Mr Mustard is about to blog the last 5 quarter's reports on consecutive days this week then you need to know the rules. Here they are

click to enlarge & back to return

It all seems to be too involved so let's do a Mr Mustard's simple summary.

Green is good. Everything else isn't.

Right, now you are ready to be confused by even more coloured charts.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard