PAP - dessert - Barnet Mess

At last Mr Mustard has struggled through the 4 courses, and is enjoying a digestive whilst he finishes the final blog on this subject ( for now ! )

So firstly let Mr Mustard summarise the 10 point plan that Barnet Council come up with - google now think that Mr Mustard has a problem as he went to the Alcoholics Anonymous website to check out their 12 steps but they don't seem to be in use any longer. If you need them their website is here :- http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

Mr Mustard wonders if Barnet Council will be able to stop buying things without a Contract or if they will relapse.

So, here are the 10 points that Barnet Council listed actions and tasks for. Mr Mustard has scrapped the Barnet OneSpeak and used plain English and reduced to as few words as possible what Barnet Council said their plan was.

1. Follow the CPR ( Contract Procedure Rules )
2. Follow the CPR
3. Follow the CPR
4. Follow the CPR
5. Follow the CPR
6. Monitor amendments 
7. Sort out VAT problems
8. Follow the CPR
9. Follow the CPR
10. Monitor the CPR

Not really a 10 point plan then ! and almost nothing new in it.

Measure of success

So Barnet Council have decided upon a measure of success for each of their 10 points ( actions and tasks ). Let us now take a look at them.

1.   Compliance with CPR's (sic) embedded in information systems and monitoring routines.

So the test will be if the Council can lick SAP into shape. Mr Mustard couldn't find a bookie to take his bet that the Council will fail.

2.   All non-staff expenditure for vendors in excess of £25k covered by formal contracts.

That is not a measure of success that Mr Mustard accepts as good enough. 

The Council have given themselves away here. Contractors like Mr Travers are evidently thought of as staff otherwise the phrase "non-staff" would not be used. Therefore Mr Traversty is really staff, ergo he should pay PAYE. There should also be a contract in place.

In addition Mr Mustard does not see why suppliers worth less than £25,000 a year should not be subject to a Contract. It could be a simpler shorter contract. If there is not a Contract how was the price agreed, the time for payment, the specification of the goods, the time for delivery etc etc. Mr Mustard has just found a standard 31 page Contract on the Barnet Council website. He wonders if Procurement know it exists.

3.   Complete documentation and records as required by CPRs and full compliance.

Mr Mustard does not think that there is a hope in hell of this being completed by the target date of 30 September 2011

4. Corporate Security Contract in place

This is now being advertised on the Council website. It is presumed that it is also in the OJEU. Mr Mustard hopes that Evolution Emergency Response do not cause any embarrassment by applying. Mr Mustard is not sure why there is such a great need for extra security guards at Council meetings as they are the tamest of affairs.

5. Compliance with vendor limits in CPRs.

So Barnet Council are expecting to check every vendor against the various spend limits ( £25,000, £156,442 and £500,000 ) by 30 September 2011 and get them all monitored in SAP. This looks overly ambitious to Mr Mustard given that there are 9,700 suppliers.

6. Validated vendor records in place

Barnet Council cannot have checked all 9,700 records by 30 June 2011. There must still be some surprises in the supplier file.

7. MetPro VAT issue resolved and compliance with VAT status requirements of HMRC.

This is scheduled for 30 June & 31 July. VAT has been around since 1973 so you would think that even an organisation as slow as Barnet Council might have read the regulations by now.

8. Nothing.

No measure of success has been listed for ensuring that contract extensions or changes are in line with CPR. Evidently this is not important.

9. Compliance with CPRs

Everyone has to follow the rules by 30 September 2011. Bloggers will check in October.

10. All contracts managed effectively.

It might work for a little while and then a wheel will fall off.

So, is there anything that didn't get a mention.

Well actually yes there is. The Council's Procurement Code of Practice says that, as a minimum requirement, the Council should be less than 25% of a supplier's turnover as "A company should not be overly dependent on the Council for business". Now Mr Mustard would like to wager that the Council was probably a greater proportion of MetPro's business than that but it's not a question that the Council can answer as they didn't have any financial information for MetPro even assuming we know which of its three incarnations we are talking about.

Here is a short list of other Companies for whom the Council is likely to be more than 25% of the turnover of the supplier.

Halliford Associates Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of Mr Andrew Travers

CCMPS Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of Mr Chris Malyon

MJW Office Moves Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of Mr Martin Willoughby

Advance HR Consulting Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of Jason Wheatley

Jacquie McGeachie HR Consulting Limited (100% ? ) supplier of Jacquie McGeachie

Renouval Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of Chris Palmer

Garfield Associates Ltd ( 100% ? ) supplier of David Garfield

So quite simply if the Council was following its own guidelines it would not have employed any of these people through a contractor in the way it has. Doubtless there will be some pathetic excuse as to why the rule does not apply in the cases I highlight; just to everyone else.

Mr Mustard

More PAP - the Plan - Actions & Tasks.

So now we get to the meat course, its a bit old and tough, and may well have been served to you last year but now it's covered in flannel sauce you won't know this.

Actions to Implement Recommendations - AIR ( caution - may be hot )

or the Plan as Mr Mustard prefers to call it. Mr Mustard has added his comments in red as usual.

1.   Contract Procedure rules should be followed by all services to procure works, supplies & services. Of course they should. Non compliance should be gross misconduct at manager level.

A SAP solution should be explored by Corporate Procurement team to enter vendor limits in accordance with the contract procedure thresholds. £20+ million spent on SAP already and it doesn't do the basics. What a waste.

2.   Formal written contracts should be established for all services commissioned by the Council as required by the Contract Procedure Rules. Another statement of the bleeding obvious.

3.   All directors should maintain a complete register of contracts as required by the current Contract Procedure Rules (CPR). This should assist with the completion of a Corporate contract register, which should be placed on the Council's internet to meet the transparency agenda. Should ? should ? Mr Mustard has an attack of the shudders. The word you want is MUST. Do LBB mean internet or Intranet ?

Corporate Procurment should undertake an oversight function to ensure that contracts are in place where expenditure in Services exceeds the stipulated CPR thresholds. Complete and accurate Directorate contract registers should enable this monitoring to take place. Call an ambulance. Mr Mustard has had another attack of the shudders. Remember LBB; repeat after Mr Mustard - Must, Must, Must

4.   A fit for purpose contract service specification should be developed for tender evaluation purposes and monitoring service delivery. Because we haven't had one up until now.

5.   The Corporate Procurement Team should establish a process for identifying and monitoring expenditure by category by service across the Council to ensure that current levels do not exceed Contract Procedure Rule limits. Ban the word "Should" from LBB.

6.   Independent checks of amendments to key Vendor Master Data records, such as bank data, should be undertaken routinely for an appropriate number of records. Nurse, my medicine, quickly nurse. No amendment is to be made ( Mr Mustard wanted to use the word "should" instead of "is to" but he just can't ) to any data without an audit trail of documentation to justify it.

Checks should ensure that appropriate checks are made to confirm details and validity of the requested changes from related parties. Who will check that the checks have been checked ? No-one as it's only a "should" not an absolute necessity.

Management should retain all supporting data for vendor set-up and amendment checks. In particular, necessary records to confirm the checks undertaken for amendments for key data fields, such as Bank details, should be retained. Someone SHOULD stop OneBarnet but will they ? Was that also worked out on the back of an envelope that no-one can find any longer like these vendor changes ?

7.   There should be review carried out to calculate the exact figure the Council has overpaid VAT on this vendor, and immediately contact HMRC. Who will bend over and get their bottom kicked for this one ? Oh, the Council Tax Payer, how silly of Mr Mustard to forget.

Officers should, as standard, refer all name changes on supplier's invoices to the Central Procurement Team who should obtain the advice of the VAT officer for confirming compliance with the VAT regulations before a change can be processed. MetPro this, MetPro that. What about compliance with the Contract as well ? Who is the supplier meant to be or have they substituted a new supplier on the sly ?

Training provided to officers should focus on the implications of name changes on supplier's invoices and how those should be addressed for the purposes of compliance with the HMRC'S VAT requirements. Training course. How to tie your shoelaces.

8.   Contract extensions should be undertaken in line with CPR requirements. Of course, again.

Changes to conditions of service should be formally documented for referral by all parties who may be required to certify delivery and payment. Ooh, "may" this time not "should". Still very vague.

9. Standard practice should be re-enforced (sic) through‐out the Council, specifically:

Changes to contract terms should be formally approved and documented for referral by those
involved in certifying delivery per invoice.So they know what they are signing; how radical.

Invoices should be initialed as evidence of confirmation of service delivery in line with current
terms and calculation check. Initialed, how sophisticated. Is there a register of initials, can a temp or a contractor or an interim initial ?

Supporting documentation should be provided to evidence service delivery. Wow.Rather than those people who cannot help.

Purchase orders should be approved and before delivery of the service to ensure that
expenditure is valid and in line with agreed terms. Before delivery; now that's novel.

10.   Directors/Heads of Service must ensure that systems are in place to manage and
monitor contracts. That's what your six figure salaries are for. 

Now let's take a look at the tasks that are related to the actions. Basically tasks are the to do list. Mr Mustard will use the same numbering as above. 

Tasks

1. Write to all Directors, ADs, and Heads of Service reiterating requirement for compliance with Contract Procedure Rules, enclosing this action plan. Bolt stable door. Go look for horse.
Arrange training programme with mandatory attendance for all relevant officers. Target date 31 July 2011. as we have to write the training course first.
Amend SAP and associated systems to control and monitor spend in line with CPRs. Spend another shed-load of money on software that is too powerful for us to understand.


2.   Put in place contracts for all current spend for all vendors where spend exceeds £25k and no contract currently in place. There are lots of suppliers who do not have Contracts.
Institute key control whereby new vendor records cannot be set up without confirmation of CPR compliance. Let's now do what we should have done in the first place, at least for a while until the heat dies down.

Directors/ADs to submit service scheme of delegation and contracts register to AD Commercial Assurance. If we delegate this and it goes wrong we can sack someone & save our necks.
Directors/ADs to compile and hold audit trail for all entries on contract register. That would be the Contracts themselves wouldn't it ?
Validate completeness of contract registers by crosschecking 2010/11 and 2011/12 to other data sources. Why didn't we think of this before? Maybe against the list of payments made by the Council over £500.
Compile corporate contract register from service contract registers as amended. Another foundation stone that was lacking now being shoehorned into place.
Notify all vendors £25k plus with no contract that service will be market‐tested in accordance with CPRs. Lots of cushy supplier arrangements about to bite the dust.
Forward all contract documents to Head of Legal to be held in corporate repository. Legal department surely haven't been letting any old Officer sign legally binding agreements have they ?
Publish corporate contracts register. Target date 30/9/11. Mr Mustard has set his alarm to ask for a copy of this on the target date if it isn't up on the website by then.
Establish, document and monitor updating arrangements. Because we haven't got any at the moment.

4. Complete tendering of corporate security contract in line with CPRs. The loose thread that caused Procurement's comfy old cardigan to come apart when Barnet's Bloggers started pulling on it.

5.  Establish monitoring of corporate vendor limits in SAP. Is it called Sap as that's what it slowly does to one's bank account ?

6.  Review, amend as necessary, and monitor procedures for amending vendor master data. Mr Mustard misread this. He thought that this was to review all vendors ( suplliers ). It is only to review the procedure for amending vendor data. Big deal.

7. Resolve Metpro VAT issue in conjunction with HMRC. "Issues" - what a mealy mouthed word. It is a problem not an issue.
Procedures for establishing and amending vendor master data to cover VAT status. Because it never did before.
Include VAT issues in mandatory training. We have until 31 July 2011 to cobble a training course together.

8.  Directors/ADs to amend contract registers in respect of all extensions and variations, forwarding amended contract documents to Head of Legal and Head of Procurement. Well it would be pointless to have an out of date contract register.

Directors/ADs to hold audit trail for all extensions and variations. Then next time there is a huge cock-up the blame can be laid at the correct door.


9.  Purchase orders to be raised against all formal contracts A no-brainer.
Directors/ADs to hold evidence of service delivery and record on SAP against purchase order. What, we are going to pay someone £130,000 p.a. to match goods received notes to purchase orders. Mr Mustard doesn't think that sounds sensible.
Invoices to be paid against goods‐receipted purchase orders only. Another no-brainer although doubtless not the custom of the past.

10.  All contracts to be monitored, with arrangements documented in service schemes of delegation. Mr Mustard has no idea what this means. He will have to send in a Freedom of Information request to find out.
Directors to report compliance with scheme of delegation through monthly performance monitoring process. How many months before this falls by the wayside? Place your bets.

Mr Mustard apologises for the length of this blog caused by the tedious bureaucratic modus operandi of Barnet Council.

If you can take the excitement there is one final blog to come which will list the measure of success that Barnet Council are going to use and make some final general observations on the PAP.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

PAP - part 2

Mr Mustard has a busy day dear reader and so will just give you, for now, the second section of this load of PAP which has taken the combined brain power of 3 individuals who are paid more than £half a million a year between them.

If, like a child on Christmas Day, you simply cannot wait to read the whole report then it is available here.Bottom of the page - Item 6

If you were expecting the latest top selling toy for Christmas then Mr Mustard is sorry but you have been deceived. Inside the fancy wrapping is the same toy that you were given 5 years ago but given a bit of a clean up. It will work better now it has been oiled. Well oiled - yes your parents probably were.

Overarching actions
Action	Tasks	Measure of Success	Lead	Target
Establish compliance with corporate systems as key measure of senior officer performance.	Include a 2011/12 personal objective of compliance with all corporate governance systems and procedures for Directors, Assistant Directors and Heads of Service.	Inclusion of specific objective for 2011/12 and monitoring at 6 & 12 month appraisal	Jacquie McGeachie	30/6/11
Introduce Directorate Annual Governance Statement	Directors to sign Annual Governance Statement for each Directorate to support corporate Annual Governance Statement	Annual Governance Statement actions implemented and compliance with governance framework.	Jeff Lustig	31/3/12
Governance monitoring at Statutory Officers Group	Monitoring of governance framework at Statutory Officers Group, including monitoring of the implementation of internal audit report recommendations	Compliance with governance framework	Nick Walkley	30/6/11

Dictionary help: Overarching = Comprehensive & all-embracing.

The cynic in Mr Musatrd notes that there is no plan to include compliance with key systems in senior officer performance in years 2012/13 and onwards. Did management just forget to write this in their blind panic ? 

Mr Mustard notes that the person tasked with checking this action is a consultant. When, hopefully soon, she leaves and is replaced by a permanent employee if one is actually needed, will the new person even know to do this or will they have their own view of how things should be done ?

Will the Procurement department, which is going to be out-sourced, know that the out-sourced HR section are meant to be monitoring senior officers and include it in the outsorucing Contract. Will the senior management of external providers suffer annual appraisals by Barnet Council - Mr Mustard doubts it.

What do you think of the show so far ? Rubbish !

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Procurement Action Plan ; PAP for short. ( part 1 )

Following the statement by the Chief Financial Officer in his weekly message of 10 June that he had seen the Audit Report and would tell us the following week what the rectification Plan was,

and after the bloodbath that was the Audit Committee meeting of 16 June when non-stick Nick Walkley promised action,

Mr Mustard waited with bated breath to see this masterpiece, this highly original work of art, unveiled. 

A week is a long time in politics and so it proved to be for this Plan as :-

version 0.1 was created by C J Cooper on 7/6/11 ( I presume that C J Cooper is Craig Cooper the well overpaid Director of/for Commercial Services £132,480 p.a. )

version 0.3 was revised by C J Cooper on 9/6/11 

version 0.4 was revised by A Traversty himself on 13/6/11, and finally

version 1.0 was produced on 14/6/11.

Mr Mustard doesn't know what happened to version 0.2 either. He hasn't quite got over there being 4 versions of a Plan that is mostly just a rehash of the Contract Procedure Rules.

Its long and boring and Mr Mustard is underwhelmed to find that this long awaited Plan is just a tired old reproduction and not an original work of art at all. There might have been a little light touching up here and there but it is not going to have people queueing up to buy tickets.

Let me start with the Objectives - i.e. what LBB are trying to achieve, which have been called "Issues" - don't you find dear reader that Issues is one of those words that stands in for something else. It is a classic piece of Barnet OneSpeak. In Barnet PlainSpeak it is "balls-ups"

Then there is a list of risks which unusually are just what they say they are.

It's late so this blog post will arrive in at least 2 parts. If you can take the excitement there will be a later post about "Overarching actions".

So this is just the starter from the Plan. The main course will arrive tomorrow. You will probably still be hungry afterwards as it is very light fare.

Objective	Mr Mustard says
Procurement Controls and Monitoring Regime Objectives	Since when did the word Purchasing stop being used.
Issue	Problem
An effective procurement function is pivotal in the successful delivery of the One Barnet Programme.	We won't mention non OneBarnet purchasing as no-one gives a fig about it.
A detailed vendor review and savings opportunity assessment was undertaken this highlighted areas for improvement in how the Council commissions & procures goods & services	Once the bloggers had put the fox in the henhouse we were forced to do some work.
Internal Audit have identified a number of necessary control and monitoring issues across LBB	Internal Audit had their easiest Audit ever. Procurement were caught with their pants down.
Risk
The council could be exposed to unnecessary risk, financial loss and likelihood of challenge arising from non compliant tendering activity.	At some point we are going to take a kicking for not tendering properly.
There is a risk that the Council may not receive the service required or will be unable to recover damages for works not carried out or for breach in the event of the dispute if terms are not formally agreed and clearly defined contracts are not in place	As we don't know what service we have purchased we will not of course receive it. We are up the creek without a paddle.
There is a risk that failures to comply with CPR may not be identified, that the Council may not be able to work collaboratively with other local authorities on procurement initiatives and ineffective budget planning.	There isn't a rush of local authorities heading Barnet's way to share in their lack of success.
The lack of comprehensive contract specification increases the risk of ineffective contract management as responsible officers may not be aware of all relevant monitoring requirements e.g. licences.	What, you mean that security guards have to have SIA licences, since when ? What does SIA stand for anyway ?
In the absence of an effective monitoring and analysis process there is a risk of non compliance with the Council's procurement policies which may then prevent the Council from achieving value for money.	Non compliance has been the norm for some years; since before bloggers existed.
The lack of contract monitoring arrangements generally increases the risk that failures in service delivery may not be identified, that service delivery may not be optimised and failures in regulatory compliance which may expose the council to financial and reputational risk may not be identified	Barnet Council's reputation is in tatters and only abandoning OneBarnet and becoming boring and sensible will save them now.

Sorry, more of this rubbish tomorrow

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Audit follows road spending downhill

Mr Mustard had taken months getting his last blog post together about the spending on Highways, with no thanks to Cllr Rutter who was unhelpful on the subject even after she had been extolling the roads of Barnet - best not to talk hogwash to Residents' Forums if you don't want to read about it in a blog later! 

Also best not to write to residents with the starting line " I can see you have been busy " either Cllr Rutter. It is not the job of the Mayor to try and poke Council Tax Payers in the eye. I am sure that the residents of Brunswick Park ward will be singularly impressed with that approach.

Anyway, Mr Mustard digresses. He is very grateful to the Barnet Bugle who you can follow on twitter and who make many applications under the Freedom of Information legislation using the website http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ 

The Barnet Bugle rather cleverly asked for the figures on Audit spending for the last few years which is a parallel application to Mr Mustard's one about Highways Spending.

Year	Spending £	Staff FTE
2005/6	481,811	9
2006/7	604,482	10
2007/8	598,340	8
2008/9	522,670	6
2009/10	473,363	5
2010/11	410,170	5

FTE=Full time equivalent i.e. how many full time staff the workers equate to.

So there we have it.

Each year there is plenty of money for spending on OneBarnet which is just a money-pit and spending on useful and essential items like Audit and Roads goes down. No sensible Council would do such a thing but then we are in Barnet.

OneBarnet - OneDisasterAfterAnother

Being frugal does not mean cutting spending on services which ensure that money is being spent wisely - services like Audit.

Why not ask the Mayor about this reduction in vital spending on Audit or on Highways, or about MetPro, or about legionella in care homes, or why the Chief Finance Officer is a contractor on £1,000 a day, or any of the other bonkers ideas that Barnet Council are trying under the OneBarnet banner.

This is where and when she has her surgery.

Lisa Rutter (Con) 020 8445 3829 cllr.l.rutter@barnet.gov.uk
Surgery details: Last Saturday every month
Osidge Library, Brunswick Park Road, N11 2.30pm – 4pm
It must be lonely; why not go and ask her some questions to liven up her day.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

(nick walkley)

A prediction -The roads of Barnet will fall apart in winter 2011/12

We have seen what has happened to the roads of Barnet in the recent severe winters and that Barnet had had to have a Pothole Elimination Programme, or PEP, and throw a lot of money into little black holes. Here is a story from the Barnet Times which appeared at the time of the problem: Potholes

Of course what you might think is a pothole isn't necessarily so. If you don't live in the town centre then a hole on your pavement of 24mm ( nearly an inch for us oldies ) won't qualify to be filled, but potholes are like children, they just get bigger, and demand attention.

So what is a pothole. Here is what Barnet Council say a pothole is:-

We, as the highway authority, are responsible for the maintenance of the highway, including pavements and footways on all of the roads in the borough which are public highway.

The severity of defects on the footway or carriageway, and therefore the criteria for attention to detail, is determined by the intervention levels which set out the minimum height of trip hazards for paving or the minimum depth across a pothole which require repair.

You may have received a drop card through your door from one of our highways inspectors with a weblink to this page, stating that the defect you have reported is not within intervention levels. Please read on for more information about intervention levels within the borough.

Designated town centres

Footway: minimum 18mm trip hazard
Carriageway: minimum 40mm constant depth across the pothole

All designated town centres are inspected once a month and any intervention level defects noted will be passed to our contractor for repair.

All other borough roads (other than designated town centres)

Footway: minimum 25mm trip hazard
Carriageway: minimum 40mm constant depth across the pothole ( Mr Mustard's motorcycle would not like this and your pizza delivery man would certainly shake your toppings all over the place if he rode through many holes that deep )

All borough roads and footpaths are inspected through a six monthly cyclical inspection regime. Defects noted that are within intervention levels (shown above) are passed to our contractor for repair. ( pass me that pothole Fred ! )

Now its hard when the sun is shining to think about icy roads and Barnet Council evidently did their weather forecast for this coming winter on a sunny day and their seaweed indicated it was going to be lovely this winter because the budget for Highways has been reduced for 2011/12 as these figures show :-

	Capital	Revenue
Year	Budget £	Budget £	Total £
2007/08	17,325,000	4,928,840	22,253,840
2008/09	12,301,000	5,921,980	18,222,980
2009/10	8,414,000	4,552,970	12,966,970
2010/11	10,069,000	2,789,640	12,858,640
2011/12	10,285,000	1,217,370	11,502,370

So there you have it. Spending on fixing potholes will fall this winter and we have no real idea how bad the winter will be. Will this winter mean that spending can be half what it was in 2007/08 ?

Remember, you read it here first.

Being frugal does not mean failing to spend money on what needs fixing !

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Surely there cannot be 55 temps in Revenues & Benefits ?

It appears, unknown sources reveal ( although Barnet Council will find it to be quite hard to hide them in a corner of the office ) that there may be 55 temps in Revenues & Benefits, all sourced from Hays, and the charge for them is over £20 per hour and they are working 9 hour days so that makes about £200,000 a month. 

This staggering amount would be bad enough if the extra staff were needed but Mr Mustard is told that the permanent staff can cope with both the normal workload and the backlog caused by the forced system change. Unusually it isn't the staff who are pushing for the temps to be retained but management and possibly the top paid temp, the £1,000 a day Mr Andrew Travers. There are 162 staff in this department according to the options appraisal so that would be 1 in 3 extra employees who all have to be shown what to do in what is a complicated area. Mr Mustard feels sure that this must be slowing the regular staff down. 

Now the Hays group companies were paid nearly £4million by Barnet Council in the year to 31 March 2011 so £200,000 would not be an unusual amount for a month.

Mr Mustard is now setting his bloodhound on the trail and will let you know anything else that he finds. Now if you happen to have any information don't be afraid to share: email it to Mr Mustard, create yourself a disposable email if you wish, although in any event he keeps confidences.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard