Councillors & public - put 7 July in your diary (please)

Councillor: I can't see anything wrong with One Barnet

 

If the One Barnet programme is robust it will be able to withstand proper scrutiny. I don't mean some feeble committee which will ask a few questions and then vote for what their colleagues have decided upon without proper understanding, real research or penetrating questions. I mean the sort of study that questions the fundamentals of something and gives them a good shake to see what happens.

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Imagine that the purchase of a table is proposed.

Under proper scrutiny one would ask what is the purpose of the table, is it the best size of table, is it the best shape of table, is the surface properly finished, can sufficient people sit at the table, will it withstand the effect of hot tea cups, can one stand on the table (tables are not for standing on but it will happen at some time so best to plan for the probability) does the table have enough legs, what could we use instead of a table, do we even need a table, have we gone out to tender for the table?...............etc (you get the idea)

If a One Barnet table is proposed the scrutiny committee would probably coo over what a lovely OB table it was, ask the officer if other tables had been considered and get the answer "Yes, but they weren't as good" and then not ask any penetrating follow-up questions and go on to vote in favour of the table.

(The next chance for the public to see scrutiny in "action" is on Monday 11th June at 7pm when Business Management Overview & Scrutiny committee meets. Be at Hendon Town Hall by 7pm and see for yourself whether you think scrutiny is wonderful or woeful)

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Many people know that the council is embarked on possibly the largest local authority outsourcing project ever seen. Other councils have started down this route, looked over the edge of the cliff and pulled back. The first section to be outsourced was parking ticket issue and enforcement on 1 May and already one of NSL's managers has had to be removed because he had tried to buy an iPhone using a fake credit card. Hardly a good start and an illustration of how outsourcing leads to lack of control.

Mr Mustard has looked at a lot of One Barnet reports and has yet to see a fully worked Cost Benefit Analysis. Mr Mustard does not mind if some services are outsourced if that would lead to economies of scale but for most services the council already has those. Take the parking contract. There were 75 people working on it. That is an organisation that is big enough to have economies of scale. Show Mr Mustard a service with just 2 employees and then he would agree that if say 10 of the councils in London got together that they could manage with less than 20 people and outsourcing might well make sense but even then it would be cheaper if one of the 10 councils took charge and simply spread the cost.

Unison exists to represent its members and can foresee that if One Barnet proceeds to the end that they may lose 70% of their local membership because their jobs could be exported to anywhere. We have already seen that 25 parking back-office staff have been made redundant and their jobs have been exported to Worthing. The council don't listen to Unison although they say they do (which is a different matter and will be the subject of a future post) and so Unison decided to commission an external consultant to study One Barnet. The consultant is called Andy Mudd and he is from APSE who say this about themselves:

The Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) is a not-for-profit local government body working with over 300 councils throughout the UK promoting excellence in public services. APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority frontline services, hosting a network for frontline service providers in areas such as waste and refuse collection, parks and environmental services, leisure, school meals, cleaning, housing and building maintenance.

So you would think that if Unison arrange for APSE to run the ruler over One Barnet and produce a briefing that councillors (especially the conservative ones who run the council) would want to see it because it will vindicate their course of action? One would hope that was the case but sadly it isn't. Conservative councillors are showing a reluctance to attend any presentation by APSE (10 out of 63 councillors of all political hues have so far said they will attend the briefing being put on especially for councillors. The Salingers are notable, as ever, for their willingness to listen). What on earth can the rest be so worried about? Maybe that their grand project does not stand up to expert scrutiny (they can try and brush off criticism by Unison claiming ideological opposition and by Barnet's bloggers although they are possibly a bit harder to give the brush off to given the mounting readership and visibility that they are getting) but scrutiny is necessary and scrutiny is what you will get.

The public know very little about One Barnet, they have not been asked to vote on it by the local conservative candidates (although that is coming from opponents as the Brunswick Park by-election recently demonstrated) and residents are not allowed to ask questions about it at residents forums as it is a banned question, being about policy. Opponents of One Barnet have decided that if conservative councillors won't tell the public about One Barnet then they will. Surely councillors, you want to ensure complete accuracy, openness and transparency by being involved. Here is a second chance if you can't make the private screening. A public presentation by APSE, Professor Whtfield and Mr Reasonable (details copied from the Citizen Barnet blog) three men who know a lot

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Barnet Council Not For Sale

Saturday 7 July 12–3pm,

Greek Cypriot Centre, 2 Britannia Road, North Finchley, London N12 9RU

A special conference by Barnet Alliance for Public Services and Barnet Unison

Speakers include:

Prof. Dexter Whitfield, Director of the European Services Strategy Unit

Mr. Andy Mudd, Principal Consultant in the Association for Public Service Excellence

Mr. John Dix, resident and "Mr Reasonable" blogger.

Refreshments provided. (councillors like free refreshments don't they?)

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There is a small free car park at the centre for the first people to arrive but otherwise you are going to have to use pay-by-phone parking or do what Mr Mustard will do which is to drive about 250m north up the High Road (A1000) until you reach the end of CPZ zone sign and then park for free. Councillors can park for free using their any zone permit (if they haven't handed it back due to misuse) because this would be classed as on council business.

Mr Mustard hopes to see you there. This is only a mile or two from your home in Totteridge, Councillor Cornelius. Have a look in your diary and see if you can make room for this meeting. An easy walk also for Robert Rams and for Lisa Rutter who both also live in N20.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Drip, drip, drip

Barnet leaks are much more than a dripping tap, they are an absolutely unstoppable wall of water cascading out of N11. Red type is by Mr Mustard

 

From: Murphy, Bill
Sent: 13 April 2012 08:48
To: Housing Benefit - All Staff; Revenues Control Group; Revenue Services
Cc: Gregson, John; Burns, Robert; Singh, Monika
Subject: Feedback from Revenues & Benefits Transformation Board

Dear Colleagues,

We are now moving into a critical implementation phase in the Transformation Project.

As you know, in common with all local authorities we have substantial budget savings to achieve. In addition, we need to set ourselves up improve customer service as much as possible, succeed in the outsourced world next year and at the same time retain as much benefit within the council as possible.

The coming months will see a period of considerable change as we gear ourselves up to meet these challenges by making significant changes in our working practices and structures. This will include re-engineering our new benefits claims process, transferring some staff into the Contact Centre and restructuring the management of the service to clearly separate operations from support activities.

Following the presentations on the future structure last week we have already lodged a Q&A brief which addresses the points you have raised to date. Further briefs will be placed there as we move forward.

Other key documents, including the presentations I made last week, are also lodged there. These are internal documents and not intended for publication and I would like to remind staff of their obligations to keep internal documents confidential and they should not be circulated external to the council. Mr Mustard will tell you if any documents he publishes are internal and so you should not read them unless you work for the council.

The Revenues & Benefits Transformation Project Board met this week and considered a number of topics relating to the forward programme, including the transfers to the Contact Centre, the new claims pilot and a number of management workshops that will define the ways we will work under the future structure. Some of you have asked for a timeline of future events in the consultation process. Whilst the detail may change as events unfold, the current schedule is as follows:

Start of consultation period	4 April
Additional  presentation	17 April
Presentations to staff on Customer Services Organisation	late April
Managers:
Consultation 1:1s	w/c 16 April
Confirmation to posts in new structure	25 April
Team Managers:
Consultation 1:1s and assessments	23 April to 4 May
Confirmation to posts in new structure	15 May
Officers:
Consultation 1:1s and assessments	30 April - 22 May
Selection of staff for Contact Centre	23 - 25 May
Confirmation to posts in new structure	29 May
Transfers to Contact Centre	6 June
Formal end of consultation period	2 July
New structure launch	early July

I am aware that, due to leave or other commitments, some of you may not have been able to make any of the presentations I made last week.

Therefore please note the additional session as indicated above - please come along to this if you did not attend any of the earlier sessions.

In the meantime, please continue to use the Questions box, the One Barnet email box and your line managers (until I make them redundant anyway) to raise questions and concerns and provide any other feedback regarding the changes. I will make sure that these are answered and the responses shared with everyone in the service.

Bill Murphy
Assistant Director, Customer Services

London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 2002
Mobile 07847188983 (in case you need to ring him to complain about customer services at all, anything at all; don't be shy, he is paid a packet to take your calls)

That timetable above looks a bit rushed to Mr Mustard and possibly pre-ordained. Here is what the government says should happen (emphasis in red by Mr Mustard)

Collective consultation process (from direct.gov.uk)

The consultation must be meaningful. It must be genuine and conducted with a view to reaching an agreement. It must cover:

• ways to avoid redundancies
• the reasons for redundancies
• how to keep the number of dismissals to a minimum
• how to limit the effects on those dismissed (e.g. by offering retraining)

There may be special circumstances where it is not reasonably practical for your employer to consult fully. In these circumstances your employer must do everything they can to ensure that the consultation is as full as possible. One Barnet is not such a reason.

Information during consultation

To enable reps to make constructive proposals your employer must provide them with enough written information in good time (how long before the 90 days started were the union given the information?- Mr Mustard's wild guess would be a day or two but it could have only been an hour or two - he doesn't know)  including:

• reasons for the proposed redundancies
• number of employees that are proposed to be made redundant
• different types of employees that are proposed to be made redundant
• number and types of employees
• how any employees to be made redundant will be selected
• time period over which any redundancies may be carried out
• how any redundancy payments will be calculated

Consultation period and termination notices

A termination notice tells you when the last day of your employment will be, eg the day you will be made redundant. Termination notices cannot be issued until after the consultation has been completed, even if the consultation needs to go beyond the minimum period.

If the consultation is genuinely completed within the minimum period you may be issued with a termination notice. This cannot take effect until after the minimum consultation period ends unless you agree to leave early, for example by taking pay in lieu of notice.

A consultation must begin ‘in good time’ and take as long as is necessary. It should be conducted with a view to reaching agreement, but can end before agreement is reached. Your employer should give your reps a fair opportunity to comment on the proposals and suggest alternatives, to which your employer should give genuine consideration. The final decision rests with your employer.

There is no time limit to how long a consultation period may last but there is a minimum period between the start of the consultation and actual dismissals. The length of the minimum period depends on the number of redundancies that your employer is proposing, if they are proposing:

• 20 - 99 redundancies, they must start the consultation at least 30 days before any dismissals take effect
• 100 or more redundancies, the consultation must start at least 90 days before any dismissals take effect

Failure to consult

You or your rep might be able to make a claim to an Employment Tribunal for a ‘protective award’ if your employer:

• does not begin consultation early enough
• ends the consultation early
• doesn’t consult properly

An Employment Tribunal could make a ‘protective award’ of up to 90 days' pay for each affected employee. The amount will be decided by the Employment Tribunal, based on the extent of your employer’s failure and the circumstances.

It looks to Mr Mustard like staff will be made redundant before the end of the consultation period. If you happen to be reading this Mrs Sarah Brookman-Murphy could you spare the time from sorting out the staff car parking to assure Mr Mustard by email (mrmustard@zoho.com) that the staff are going to get the whole 90 days of consultation and not be hurried out of the door before then.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Group Hug and now you're fired.

Here is one of Nick Walkley's messages to staff ( stick with me here )

It is a masterpiece of communication, tactful, empathetic and shows his human side; he really does care. He is a highly skilled modest executive worth every penny of the £200,000 that he is paid.  He completely understands budgeting, works all hours, is politically neutral, is good at blue sky thinking and is a role model for other council chief executives to aspire to. Every council should have a Nick Walkley.

Later today, the council will publish next week’s Cabinet papers, including the budget proposals for 2012/13 through to 2014/15. Cabinet will debate the proposals next Thursday (3 November) and their decision will be put out for consultation until early January. 

The papers propose savings in service costs of £13.6million in the coming financial year with Council Tax frozen for the fourth year running.

92 members of staff have been identified as ‘at risk’ of redundancies for the coming financial year. Last year, the final number of redundancies was around 40% of the ‘at risk’ posts.

Managers will be briefing those individuals who are at risk of losing their job during the day. 

This is always a difficult time for the wider organisation. The likelihood is that you all know at least one of the people who have been told their post is at risk. At times like this, we all need to be supportive to staff who, whatever fine words senior managers use, will be feeling “Why me?”. The larger financial challenges of the council and the economy as a whole will seem a long way off at this moment. 

As those of you who have attended the budget briefings will be aware this council is dong all it can to minimise redundancies, including holding vacant posts open. I hope we can reduce that 92 number and I hope many individuals can be redeployed. I obviously hope to work with the trade unions during the consultation to see how we can minimise redundancies. 

We have tried to identify our budget proposals as early as possible this year, to give individuals six months to plan their future and managers time to plan different models of working before we make any changes to services.

In the meantime, the work of the council goes on. The same Cabinet that will debate budget proposals will be discussing how we provide thousands of new primary school places and changes to council house tenancies.

All of the work that we do is important, and all of the people doing it are important. I hope you will all be supportive of those who will undoubtedly be feeling less valued today.

Nick

Now normal service will be resumed. It has occurred to the bloggers that if we keep pointing out how poor the management of Barnet is, then no other council will give any of the management a job and we will be stuck with the ones we don't want ( except that they provide plenty of good material ) so my complimentary paragraph at the top is for other council's to consume and believe even though Mr Mustard doesn't mean a word of it. Like those mis-quoted reviews outside of theatres non-stick will be able to cut and paste my praise into his CV. Imagine.

The decisions will go out for consultation but they aren't likely to change.

Managers will be giving the bad news to 92 people. How many will the Chief Executive bother to go and see and thank personally? Zero is Mr Mustard's guess.  Mr Mustard does have experience of being made redundant and he thinks that it would be better to have about 14 days notice of redundancy rather than 6 months of worry.

Doesn't it make you feel better that it's not personal, it's the economy which is at fault, not the fact that Barnet Council have been faffing  about with the OneBarnet project for years and have employed an army of consultants, temps, interims & contractors as well as setting off along the discredited road ( in Suffolk at least ) to privatisation.

So managers have yet to plan different ways of working so they don't yet know how many staff they will need but 92 of you are heading towards the scrapheap. Genius.

How many consultants will be going as a result of budget cuts and how many Assistant Directors are going? Probably none at all. Far too important.

So do hug your colleagues who are at risk and help them look for a better job either in the council or elsewhere. There is more to life than Barnet Council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard