Spot the difference ?

MetPro Emergency Response 

( now called Evolution Emergency Response )

MetPro Rapid Response

Everyone likes a game of spot the difference ?

Click on the links above for 2 brochures or see the MetPro page on the right.

Sorry, it was too easy, even a novice would spot the change of name ( no, not at Barnet Council, really ! ) no prize, apart from a £100k + salary or consultancy fee, for spotting the change of word from Rapid to Emergency.

Did you spot though that both claimed to have been working for Barnet Council at Barbara Langstone House since December 07 - funny that, as MetPro Emergency Response were only incorporated ( i.e. came into being ) on 13 January 2011 because there was an emergency, the impending Liquidation of MetPro Rapid Response.

I have put the two brochures on pages to the right as they will probably drop out of sight on the internet before too long.

Of course it could also be that other old game "Spot the ball"(s up ) - Deluxe executive version 2006 -2011 - Blogger rules apply.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Where were those 5 extra Officers earning £50k+ p.a. ?

Mr Reasonable kindly let me know that the first set of unaudited Accounts for the year to 31 March 2011 were ready to look at. He has already given them a good blogging here: £1 million to leave Barnet Council

Mr Mustard has taken a look at the salary levels that have to be put in the notes.

Although inflation is generally low in the UK, in the parallel universe that is Barnet Council, it seems that inflation is rampant. The notes to the Accounts have to include all staff paid over £50k in £5k bands.

I have put the tables of 2 years together.

Each set of Accounts shows you this year and last year.

So you have 2011 & 2010 in the latest Accounts and

2010 and 2009 in the Accounts of last year

and of course the figures for the year to 31 March 2010 will be the same in both sets, will it not ? Let's see:-

35.      Officers’ Remuneration
	Accounts to 31 Mar 11	ch		Accounts to 31 March 10
Remuneration band	2010/11	2009/10		2009/10	2008/09
	#	#		#	#
£50,000 - £54,999	195	166		177	167
£55,000 - £59,999	122	92		95	79
£60,000 - £64,999	61	60		60	64
£65,000 - £69,999	63	59		58	37
£70,000 - £74,999	40	27		27	35
£75,000 - £79,999	20	16		14	15
£80,000 - £84,999	10	14		15	12
£85,000 - £89,999	16	13		12	7
£90,000 - £94,999	10	7		3	5
£95,000 - £99,999	10	3		3	2
£100,000 - £104,999	5	5		4	1
£105,000 - £109,999	2	4		3	5
£110,000 - £114,999	2	-		1	4
£115,000 - £119,999	2	6		4	1
£120,000 - £124,999	3	4		2	1
£125,000 - £129,999	2	1		1	-
£130,000 - £134,999	2	2		2	2
£135,000 - £139,999	3	3		2	1
£140,000 - £144,999	-	1		1	2
£145,000 - £149,999	2	1		-	1
£150,000 >_	8	8
Totals	578	492		487	444

Now what do you notice ?

- The number of higher paid employees is rocketing from 444 to 487/492 to 578 in 3 years.

- When the Accounts were signed off for 2010 there were 487 higher paid employees and suddenly now there were 492 of them for the same financial year. Where were those 5 employees. Perhaps there weren't any Contracts of Employment for them and so no-one knew they existed ? Or can't the bean-counters count ?

This table doesn't include Contractors as they are not employees so there are actually more high paid employees than the table shows. At least 5 that Mr Mustard knows of.

Two examples are :

Mr Andrew Travers, the £1,000 a day consultant Deputy Chief Executive and

Jason Wheatley - Interim Resourcing, Performance & Talent Manager ( the Audit Committee yesterday evening was certainly a right performance - they must have had some coaching although there was a distinct lack of talent in evidence amongst Officers although plenty from Councillors who were rocking the OneBarnet boat ) who was paid £104,500 in the year ended 31 March 2011. Actually not quite true, he wasn't paid it but his company Advance HR Consulting Ltd was.

So who signed off these incorrect Accounts in 2010. Oh no, it was Mr Travers. ( Sorry Lord Palmer, your name is on them as well but Mr Mustard takes the view that day to day preparation of these was not within your control, you sign more as a honorary duty because you are quite entitled to rely on the work of someone paid £1,000 a day. ) Hey, Mr Mustard has an idea. You are a proper Chartered Accountant and could be the Chief Finance Officer instead of being a Councillor. How about it Lord Palmer ? The money is good although we do need a bit of a reduction against the current excessive fees.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Once upon a time

from LocalGov.co.uk

11 February 2003

Barnet poaches IDeA’s Walkley

Barnet LBC has poached its new assistant chief executive from the IDeA. Nick Walkley will have responsibility for managing corporate performance, policy improvement, procurement and strategy. He has been at Barnet since March last year on secondment from the IDeA, helping the council prepare for its CPA. He joined the IDeA three years ago, when it was set up, as senior best value consultant and was promoted to acting assistant director for improvement last year.

He has also worked for Haringey and Lewisham LBCs and was director of studies at the University of Liverpool where he lectured in public management.

Mr Walkley said: ‘I am delighted to be joining Barnet. I am impressed by the council’s strong commitment to providing first class services and I believe that Barnet can become an excellent authority within a short space of time.’ 

Mr Mustard replies - It hasn't 

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The MetPro Audit Meeting - 16 June 2011

Mr Mustard is in a bad way. He has just spent over 3 hours in an Audit Committee meeting. Lord Palmer did a good job of chairing the meeting and he was somewhat unhappy himself with the state of affairs. 

There is a complete lack of humour in this blog and that is because the meeting was not at all funny. Sorry.

The meeting started on time at 6.30pm and a good job too as otherwise we would be there beyond mid-night.

There was good a turnout of bloggers who supplied most of the questions and were the main reason that MetPro were on the agenda.

Lord Palmer told us that the real problem was that some years ago a firm of consultants ( remember those people who pop in, change all the systems, trouser a bundle of notes and pop off again to leave others to pick up the pieces ) suggested that procurement ( or purchasing if you want a Plain English word - The Chief Executive doesn't seem to be a fan of Plain English ) be spread around the services areas and corporate procurement lost control. Lord Palmer was "very disappointed".

After being unable to answer the next question, as he deftly left it for an Officer to reply to in writing later, Lord Palmer said that the boss of Audit, Maryellen Slater, is excellent. No argument there. Lets hope that the Officers don't try and get rid of here.

Audit has done a sample of 15 invoices and found that the purchase orders were all raised on or after the invoice. ( An absolute Travers-ty of good practice ).

Lord Palmer said he didn't think that in the past Audit had been taken seriously enough. He also said that the Audit team is only the boss + 3 staff and 1.5 external accountants. After a supplementary question about further investigations he said that additions to the planned audits would put back other audits. There is one basic idea that has been missed. Beef up the audit department. There is plenty of money for OneBarnet consultants; just divert some funding to Audit and increase the number of audits.

Lord Palmer felt that, in the age of the computer, spotting contracts which pass certain thresholds should be easy to monitor. Spot on Lord Palmer. Will the £1,000 a day consultant ( see earlier blog - a grand day out ) be able to implement this ? Might be too difficult for him ?

Lord Palmer wanted to hear further questions because he thought it would be useful. The Director of Corporate Governance, Jeff Lustig, stopped him because standing orders could not be suspended. Lord Palmer very gamely carried on for a bit and then stopped before the water got too hot. In a democracy why restrict questions from concerned residents to 30 minutes; it is simply undemocratic; stifles debate and leads to a good blogging.

Mr Reasonable spoke. He used words & phrases like disgrace, shocking, deep seated problem, management culture is flawed, eye taken off day to day work, focus on the basics, management systems missing, challenge the Council structure, audit committee kept in the dark and fed rubbish. All of it true. His summary " Are Barnet council running the £1bn business properly" You know the answer and it only has two letters in it. And no it isn't "Yo".

The £1,000 a day Chief Financial Officer then spoke, very nervously I thought. 

He accepted that core processes were fundamental ( he didn't mention how that could be the case during his 14 months in charge ) 

that the OneBarnet changes should not detract from that ( are OneBarnet tablets slipped into the tea and coffee machines as its like a drug that the Officers have to have their fix of ) 

he takes full responsibility for sorting it out ( and none for not sorting it out before ) 

he accepts the challenge ( well if not your £1,000 a day is toast ) 

the failure in one contract means they cannot rely on current systems & need to put that right  ( news for you Mr T - there wasn't a MetPro contract - you meant arrangement )

and then there was a 4 point plan for how things would be rosy in the garden by September 11 ( the garden is full of weeds and Mr Mustard's allotment tells him that once weeds take a hold they are pretty resilient and hang around and keep cropping up ) - the bloggers will check later.

To finish ( thank goodness ) he assured the committee he was fully committed to these improvements despite OneBarnet. Mr Mustard thought there must be an analogy he could draw here and he wonders if this is like trying to satisfy a wife and a mistress ( a matter of which he has no personal experience before you ask). You know, the mistress is new and exciting and there are different things to try but at the same time he has to keep the wife happy, but life at home is a bit stale and routine and there just isn't enough time so things slip at home ( like checking paperwork ) and they probably aren't going to last with the mistress either as she too will get older and some new distraction will come along and boy is she expensive and it's no expense spared and when the money runs out she will be off to pastures new, Suffolk possibly, or  anywhere there is a new wide-boy whose money she can spend.

Anyway, back to the meeting. 

Cllr Schama is evidently old school and to be praised for it. We need steady & sensible Councillors. He was evidently incredulous that there wasn't a simple checklist ( he called it a due diligence template - a snappy acronym that, DDT - I think its been banned Councillor ) of vital supplier statistics like vat and bank account numbers and unique supplier numbers and every other basic data that any other £1bn business that wasn't in Broken Barnet

Cllr Rayner was right behind him, and next to him at the same time, quite a trick that one. Cllr Rayner claimed to know nothing about audit but he did know that the Audit recommendations were so fundamental that he couldn't believe they were not already being done. Bloggers used to think like that and now they expect the worst.

The £1,000 a day man then, according to my notes, said these were all things they needed to consider in the control framework ( I wish these Council people would use English ) and they are looking at them ( you know I am sure that Mrs Angry set the MetPro gun off - or was it the self protection pepper spray - months and £100,000 ago - a bit late to be still considering things ). Then my notes say that compliance is being done but it isn't. Not sure if I added the second part or if he really said it. I will have to check the tape but I haven't got until 3am. He did say that they couldn't rely on systems that compliance is being done.

The Chief executive had to say something. He was concerned that departments knew there was a problem and did nothing. Mr Mustard is concerned that Mr Walkley didn't know what was going on at the Council. Its what he gets £200k a year for.

I think that it was Mr Harbord the independent member of the Audit committee who said " This problem was found by error and not by systems" So there you go bloggers; you are just errors. Actually I don't think he was being disparaging about bloggers but he sure was about the Council.

Mr Walkley then spouted a load of his management speak rubbish which I really can't be bothered to repeat. It started by him saying it ( MetPro - he couldn't even use the word ) happened 5 years ago ( a not my fault for openers ? ) devolution, challenged, difficult, challenging shift, loss of power, transfer to the centre, not simple to fix in 3 months ( setting early expectations for failure ? ) deeper cultural something or other but my eyes had glazed over by then....

First interview with Nick Walkley after becoming the boss of Barnet Council

I have, the morning after the meeting, found this interview with Nick Walkley which appeared in the Barnet Times ( click on the title to read the article ). Look what he says when he arrives at Barnet in relation to the Icelandic Bank deposits:

"This is an officer failure that we need to deal with, and I can’t emphasise that enough,” says Mr Walkley. 

“What is pretty unique about this case is that the officer drafting the strategy and making recommendations to members then contravened his own strategy.

And there is more ( sorry that you have to read this rubbish )

Well it is not unique any more is it Mr Walkley as it seems that just about every officer is ignoring the procurement rules ( buying rules for normal people ) . Echoes of MetPro. You obviously haven't emphasised to Officers that they must follow the procurement rules despite that being your supposedly specialist subject.

One thing he is certain about is the need to “improve things”.

“I am pretty much restless about everything and want to make things better. It’s my trademark and why people find me really quite annoying at times. 

I don't see the improvement Mr Walkley.

March 2009 - Officer ignored bank deposit rules

March 2011 - Officers ignore procurement rules

Mr Mustard sees a theme here.

Are you quite annoying? I don't know about you as a human being, but as a Chief Executive I find your inability to change things ( and I don't mean the eminently scrappable One Barnet  - I mean fixing the broken basics ) and your salary very annoying indeed.

Here is how you can make things better. 

Stop being annoying and become boring ( you can go mountaineering & white water rafting or race motorcycles at the weekends if you want exciting ) 

stop One Barnet

chuck all the consultants out and

make all heads of service do the basics properly in a consistent and reliable manner.

If you do that residents might even get to like you.

The final remark by Debra Lewis, another independent member, was "A shocking report" but I am not sure if that was the MetPro Audit report, the annual Audit report or the final quarter Audit report. It could have been any of them.

I could write another page of negative adjectives about the rest of the meeting but this blog is deadly dull already and its gone midnight so off to bed and another blog about the desperate state of Barnet council tomorrow when I will share with you some of the more interesting items from the draft Annual Accounts.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Car accident - that will be £20 please or £4 a day

I really don't think that it is the duty of Barnet Council to kick a man when he's down but they seem to think otherwise. Here is an email I received from an acquaintance who wishes to remain anonymous - probably a good choice as far as Barnet Council is concerned.

Thought you might like to know this -

1.  My son was in a car accident.  He rang Parking re dispensation for courtesy car.  Can only get 5 working days dispensation.  Longer than 5 working days either use Parking Voucher (£4) OR switch resident's parking permit to courtesy car (free) BUT to switch back to his own car when repaired will cost admin charge of £20. 

2. My son, who has for the last five years been second car for resident parking, renewed his permit and was not allowed to be second car as he applied first. This means he pays £100 and I pay £120 even though I'm the houseowner and pay the council tax and for the last 12 years have been first car.

  

Is Barnet Council's aim to make life as difficult and expensive as possible for the people who pay their salaries etc.

Its stressful enough when you have a car accident dealing with the insurance company, the other driver, the garage etc etc without Barnet Council then making your life administratively more difficult and more expensive. 

So where has this new 5 day rule come from then. On the Council's own website it says 14 days. Click on this link Barnet Council Parking info

I don't suppose that customer services (sic) are being trained in the art of mis-selling are they ?

They very wisely didn't offer the driver the option of a 3 month temporary permit because they are now £240. Bonkers ! a 3 month permit costs 2.4 times what an annual one costs; who is going to buy that ?

It also appears to be quite arbitrary  as to what constitutes the 1st or 2nd car. I would certainly be writing to my local Councillors about that. They are the newly important Cllr Longstaff, and Cllrs Perry and Prentice, one of whom simply echos what Cllr Longstaff says and the other never replies to anything. And only one of them lives in a CPZ but they all have free Permits for every zone. Of course, they don't use them except when they are on Council business. Sorry, lost concentration for a moment.

So here are their email addresses so that you can kick back.

cllr.d.longstaff@barnet.gov.uk

cllr.b.perry@barnet.gov.uk

cllr.w.prentice@barnet.gov.uk

or you can beard them in their den, otherwise known as Chipping Barnet library, on the 3rd Saturday of every month, 10.30am to 12 noon ( no appointment necessary - I don't suppose security guards are needed to control the crowds trying to get in ). Oh how handy, the next 3rd Saturday is the 20 June.

You could also email Cllr Coleman whose portfolio these CPZ charges fall into but I must warn you his replies are usually short in length, and sometimes even shorter in the phrasing of the content.

cllr.b.coleman@barnet.gov.uk

So there we have it Barnet Council; another unhappy resident - so much for "OneBarnet - better services for less money" - such a hollow ring to that mantra.

And by the way Barnet Council if you look at the page I link to above I think you will find it is "separate" not "seperate". ( I expect that you will now go off and spend £100,000 on an on-line spell checking system. ) The whole page could do with a rewrite in the opinion of Mr Mustard both in its use of the English language and as it is not comprehensive and is possibly mis-leading.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

How an old mobile phone will save you £60 p.a.

Go on have a look around your home and see how many old mobile phones you have.

This is how you make a possible £60 or more a year from one.

• You live in a London Borough of Barnet CPZ and drive a car
• You now have to pay at least £100 a year for it to be somewhere near your home
• A Finchley resident, David Attfield, a Solicitor, has applied for judicial review
• He needs funds for the judicial review 
• see the website http://barnetcpz.blogspot.com
• He can get some funds by selling old mobile telephones
• If he wins the resident permits will once again be £40 and you will save at least £60 p.a.

All you have to do is to post your mobile to :-

Barnet CPZ Action

88 Summerlee Ave

London

N2 9QH

Thank you for helping

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Audit of the cashbook

For Mr Mustard this audit of the cash book for 2007/08 dated 21 December 2010 is a really worrying one. Control of the cashbook is fundamental to the control of any organisation and nowhere that he has worked has let it get out of control but we are now in Broken Barnet and cash book control is well and truly broken. The words in blue come from the audit report of Barnet Council. Any comment by Mr Mustard is in red.

The objective of the Cashbook Reconciliation process is to ensure that the balances as per the bank records match the balances as per the SAP (accounting package) Mr Mustard is sure that he has been told that SAP is more than just an accounting package - he forgets for now but perhaps he was told that it was in fact a £20m disaster. General Ledger and other organisation records such that any discrepancies / timing differences may be correctly identified and rectified.

The Cashbook section is required to ensure a timely and accurate preparation of reconciliations for all main accounts. Standard operating procedure except in Barnet.

There are five main accounts; General (income), expenditure payments, expenditure Housing Benefits, expenditure Salary and Wages, and Returned Cheques. ( Mr Mustard added a comma to make this clearer, although it is clear as mud why these 5 particular accounts are chosen  )

The Cashbook section are also responsible for ensuring that unidentified items are investigated promptly and action is taken to clear suspense accounts of unallocated payment and income items. ( Suspense accounts are the black hole of accounting and it is best to simply not allow them )

The scope of the audit was to assess arrangements to ensure the timely and accurate preparation of reconciliations for all main accounts and was focussed on:

Reconciliation procedures and guidelines;

Cash book, bank and ledger reconciliations;

Cash book reconciliation records and supporting documentation;

Roles and Responsibilities

Access Rights & Back Up Arrangements; and

End of year procedures.

We noted the following areas of good practice during the audit:

Procedure notes for some of the key Cashbook processes exist and are available to staff within the Cashbook section; ( some, what percentage ? )

Systematic reconciliations are performed for all the Council’s main bank accounts; ( eventually, and so they should be )

Reconciliations performed for the General account and expenditure accounts are subject to independent review from a Senior Officer; ( at their level of pay I should think so )

Reconciliation Summary Reports are created to provide an adequate audit trail for variances that are highlighted by the reconciliation of the bank accounts; ( a reconciliation without a report would be useless )

Roles and responsibilities within the Cashbook team have been clearly defined and there is minimal duplication in work; ( I wonder which departments have maximal duplication ? )

There is adequate segregation of duties between officers responsible for the reconciliation of items on SAP to the bank accounts, and those responsible for reconciliation of amounts from AXIS to SAP. ( AXIS ? thanks Baarnett for the explanation - being a newboy my command of common Council words & acronyms is still building up )

However the following issues were identified during this audit: ( here comes trouble )

A number of procedural notes have not been fully compiled with and there is no protocol for reporting anomalies and variances in a number of the relevant procedure notes; ( rules - why should I waste my time on those ? )

Independent review of cashbook reconciliations performed is not always conducted in a timely manner; ( Late again )

Variances have not been adequately escalated, investigated and resolved; ( There are lots of entries that cannot be identified but its not our money so who gives a stuff ? )

Cashbook reconciliations are not always performed in a timely manner; ( where's the fire ? )

Reconciliations performed for the Returned Cheque suspense account are not subject to independent review from a Senior Officer; ( too busy with the king in his counting house to do any real work )

Bank statements/ files are not stored securely; ( whose desk did I leave those statements on ? or was it on the copier, or at lunch - I really cannot remember )

and

Suspense accounts are not always promptly cleared of unallocated payments. (Hercule Poirot couldn't work these out )

There was one priority 1 (high) recommendation from this audit: ( If we don't do these we are in hot water - and if what priority 1 is needs explaining then you might as well just put "High" in the first place ? - KISS - Keep Things Simple Stupid )

Cashbook reconciliations performed in a timely manner – 

Cashbook reconciliations should be performed in a timely manner, before the next period end date. ( because the longer we leave it the worse it gets )

So money comes in and money comes out but it isn't our money so who gives a fig.

Mr Mustard is struggling to believe that an organisation the size of Barnet Council, with all those expert consultants available to it has taken its eye off the ball to such an extent that a basic foundation stone of good accounting has been left to rot.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard