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Go-ahead for new FOI system

Thursday, 22 March 2012 11:51 Schroder, Johnathan

Implementation plans for a new FOI system are well underway and the Standards and Information Rights Team are working hard to ensure a smooth transition.

The new case management system (iCasework) will be a welcome and much-needed improvement to the handling of cases and will assist the council in achieving the Corporate Plan target of responding to 90% of requests for information received under the FOI Act within statutory timeframes.

iCasework will make better use of resources and:

• allow active monitoring of deadlines

• improve management reporting

• provide greater transparency with an automated disclosure log

• improve data quality.

All Link Officers have received the necessary training and managers, assistant directors and directors are being asked to support their Link Officers during this transition period.

The new system, integrated with the soon to launch new corporate website, will also enable FOI responses to be published on the council's website when they are sent.

Plus....

Changes are underway in the Governance Service. Look out for news on the launch of the new Committee Papers system, coming soon.

Executive summary:

Jam tomorrow

The Friday Joker

Small business owners don't always make good big business leaders

picture credit: www.banffcentre.ca

Mr Mustard's alter ego runs a small business, he is not sure he could run a big one as different skills are needed.

Richard Cornelius runs a small business (and very well at that if profit is your guide; he improved the reserves of Cornelius & Davies Ltd from £403,021 to £867,411 in the year ended 30 November 2010. That is a profit after all expenses of £464,390 in a year. Don't buy jewellery; it is all profit!) Richard does not appear to need the money from being the Council "leader" unless he is trying to buy Old Masters or something, like this one which recently sold for $250m.

filling in time before a committee meeting.

Now Mr Mustard thought when Richard Cornelius was appointed as "Leader" last year that we might see a change of direction and that we would see some old school financial management and common sense. Mr Mustard was, sadly, completely wrong and now we have a "Leader" who doesn't lead and who has no vision.

This was brought home to Mr Mustard on Monday evening at the premiere of "A Tale of Two Barnets" a film which Cornelius has slated despite not having seen it. Now Mr Mustard may not be very good in front of a camera but at least he has something to say and knows what drives him and where he is going. Just watch this short clip, Cornelius is at the end of the clip, it's only a minute or so long:

Now Mr Mustard tries to be fair. He thought that the footage of Mr Cornelius's ideas must have ended up on the cutting room floor and so he wrote to Mr Cornelius to ask him what ideas he had. Here is the email.

Dear Cllr Cornelius

I am sure you will recall taking part in the above film.

I note from the final part of this trailer ( top item on this link ) that you were not sure that there was anything you could change about Barnet.

I do not believe that you did not then go on to list all of the things about Barnet that you, as leader, wanted to change.

Could you please enlighten me as to what they were?

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

You have to give Mr Cornelius a mark for effort as he replied straightaway but he gets nothing for content.

---

Dear Mr Mustard

I do remember being interviewed.  I do not remember all that I said and how I said it but I can re-assure you that the things that I would like to try and change would be those, that most people would wish to improve.

Richard

---

That was no answer at all and also opened the door for Mr Mustard to tell Mr Cornelius, and he hopes that he got the selection about right on behalf of "most people", what most people want.

Dear Mr Cornelius

Thank you for your brief reply.

I have come to the conclusion, since you would most like to change what most people would like to change, the thing I would most like to change, is you (as "Leader" that is).

I am not entirely sure, however, that you are the most urgent case for replacement as there is a close run battle at the top of my league table of "What is wrong with Barnet", to replace/remove/change:

Brian Coleman
the parking payment method (bring back the meters & our own traffic wardens)
the parking tariff
the fairer contributions policy (a misnomer if ever I heard one)
One Barnet and all the attendant overpaid consultants and the hundreds of temporary staff
don't allow private events in public parks
Nick Walkley
Andrew Travers and all the other Town Hall Tax Dodgers

the lack of cycling infrastructure

stop expanding the borough population by 1% p.a. and the attendant horrible buildings

keep Friern Barnet library

re-open Church Farmhouse Museum

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

The press office will now be tearing their hair out, oh well. Mr Mustard forgot to put down the emasculation of Residents Forums but he can add those in if he gets another response, which doubtless will be drafted by someone else on behalf of Mr Cornelius. If another response does arrive Mr Mustard will be sending a much expanded email which dissects every one of the above policies in fine detail, and he will bring the exchange to you on this blog.

Now should Mr Cornelius be reading this he needs to ask himself why he is the "Leader", how he is making Barnet a better place and whether the light is worth the candle?

At the moment you are the corniest joke going Mr Cornelius. Your tenure has been brief but your legacy will be nothing at all so why not step aside and let a younger man/woman have a go (someone with drive, vision, energy, intelligence, enthusiam, ability - what's that, oh an email from Mrs Angry - stop being silly Mr Mustard there isn't anyone ...)

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No more dodgems for the Town Hall Tax Dodgers

Picture credit - The Mirror

The reign of the Town Hall Tax Dodger is about to come to an end.

Deep in the budget paperwork is the following statement:

2.207 Personal service companies and IR35 – The Government will introduce a package of measures to tackle avoidance through the use of personal service companies and to make the IR35 legislation easier to understand for those who are genuinely in business. This will include: strengthening up specialist compliance teams to tackle avoidance of employment income; simplifying the way IR35 is administered; and subject to consultation, requiring office holders/controlling persons who are integral to the running of an organisation to have PAYE and NICs deducted at source by the organisation by which they are engaged. (Finance Bill 2013)

Welcome to the deduction of Tax and National Insurance under PAYE everyone. All those consultants who live miles away from Barnet; no more tax relief on your travel or accommodation costs so go back to Peterborough and let us employ local people. It looks like a level playing field is starting to arrive.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No-one knows anything?

picture credit : bbc audio

One would rather hope that the Council had a list of all long term contracts it has placed. Apparently not. Here is a Freedom of Information request from 1 December ( revised 19 December ) and the non-answer which arrived somewhat late, after a nudge, on 6 March 2012.

Dear Mr. Mustard,

I am writing regarding your request, received by the London Borough of Barnet (the Council) on 1 December 2011, for the following information:

1. Please provide lists of suppliers with whom there is currently an approved list of suppliers to the Environment Planning & Regeneration directorate giving the date of approval, the maximum contract value and the approved types of work.

2. Please also provide a list of all suppliers with term agreements for all directorates ( I have assumed the number is modest ) giving the date & duration of the agreement and the kinds of work carried out by that supplier which is covered by the term agreement.

3. Please also provide a list of all suppliers with framework agreements for all directorates ( I have assumed the number is modest ) giving the date & duration of the agreement and the kinds of work carried out by that supplier which is covered by the framework agreement.

This was further clarified on 19 December with the following:

Thank you for quoting my reference. I am interested in any contractor who has a contract in place with EPR, whether or not they also happen to work for other departments.

Term contracts, or agreements, get a mention at para 6.14 of the Contract Procedure Rules.

If we turn the question around it might help. I am looking for a list of all contracts currently in place with EPR of any kind which cover regular suppliers of repeated similar items over a period of months or years as opposed to one-off tenders for specific items. I tried to set out the varied kinds of contract which the council seem to have ( I may have missed some? ) so that I got them all whatever they are called. Does that help? It would be helpful to have an outline of the work types for each contract.

We have processed your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA). I apologise for the delay in providing this response.

Response

1. I can confirm that information is held relating to your requested. However, I estimate that identifying, locating, retrieving and extracting the information referred to in Part 1 of your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the FOIA. This is currently £450, or 18 hours of officer time at a standard rate of £25 per hour.

The information in this case is not held centrally, either in the Council as a whole or by EPR itself. In order to comply with your request for information, each service area in EPR would have to run a report from our database and examine it line by line in order to identify similar items. As EPR contains 5 divisions, each containing a number of services areas, this would be an extremely lengthy process and the Council has estimated that it would easily exceed 18 hours of officer time to identify, locate, retrieve and extract this information.

2. I can confirm that information is held relating to your request. However, as above, I estimate that identifying, locating, retrieving and extracting the information would exceed the appropriate limit. Again, the information is not held centrally or in directorates in this form, production of the information would entail line by line examination and analysis of spend reports for all departments and service areas across the Council. Again, this would be an extremely lengthy process, and would take the response well over the 18 hour limit, especially when aggregated with the response to part 1.

3. Would exceed appropriate limit, as above.

Refusal Notice

I estimate that identifying, locating, retrieving and extracting the information requested by you would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the FOIA. This response therefore acts as a Refusal Notice. It is possible that if you narrow the scope of your request we may be able to provide related information. I cannot, however, guarantee that this will be the case.

Your rights

If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled, you can request a review within the next 20 working days by writing to the FOI Officer at: The London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London, N11 1NP (email foi@barnet.gov.uk).

If, having exhausted our review procedure, you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint, you will have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF (telephone: 08456 306060 or 01625 545745; website www.ico.gov.uk). There is no charge for making an appeal.

Yours sincerely

JH

Information Governance Officer

---

The council was quite late in providing this non-reply.

Mr Mustard finds himself quite worried that this Directorate does not have a list of all the contracts which are in place for a year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years etc. so that it can renegotiate them in good time before they expire and also so they don't try to put in place a contract for the supply of something when there is already a term agreement in place for everything which covers that one-off purchase.

Over £20m has been thrown at SAP. Surely the council can run a report which produces what should be a fairly short list of all term agreements / contracts? SAP really is appalling value.

There is a duty under FOI to be helpful. Mr Mustard does not think that the council have been in this instance and so will ask some more questions.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Cloak and Dagger

DRS scoring session at Trowers & Hamlins?

Executive Summary:

The identity of the people choosing who will supply Barnet residents with a large bundle of services is top secret and the scoring was carried out under ridiculous conditions at great expense. The lawyers hosting the team are making a bundle.

---

So who has been reading too many books by John le Carré, like that one Mr Mustard is also keen on: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Cooper? Mr Mustard thinks that from now on he might start referring to the North London Business Park as the "circus".

Now DRS, the cobbled together bundle of largely unrelated services with incomings and outgoings totalling about £250m over the 10 years of the contract, is a large value and vital contract of interest to, and with implications for, all of Barnet's residents. Mr Mustard decided to ask who had done the scoring that reduced the bidders down to two; Capita and EC Harris.

Barnet Council DRS ISOS Evaluation Strategy

Who decides your future? Mr, Mrs & Miss redacted. Do you think that we have a right to know? Mr Mustard does. Decisions on £250m should not be made by faceless individuals. Where is the democratic accountability and scrutiny. Here is the refusal notice from Barnet Council.

We have redacted all names appearing in the document as they constitute personal information exempt under section 40 of FOIA.

We have also withheld Appendix 1 as this information is exempt under section 41 of the FOIA. (provided in confidence)

 
Refusal notice

Section 40: Personal information

Section 40 FOIA sets out an exemption from the right to know if the information requested is personal information protected by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The DPA governs the processing of personal data and defines personal data as any information which could lead to the identification or (sic) living individuals.

Section 40 (2) FOIA exempts disclosure of information if such disclosure would contravene one of the data protection principles. This exemption is absolute and is not subject to the public interest test. Blackstone's Guide to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 suggests that this answer is wrong.

The first of the data protection principles requires that personal data is processed fairly and lawfully. It is our view that to disclose the redacted information would breach this principle, in particular, the requirement of fairness because these individuals are junior members of staff (why are junior members of staff deciding something that is so important) and others are employees of other companies (why are consultants deciding what consultants we use?) who have not consented to their information being disclosed under FOIA. These individuals also have a reasonable expectation of privacy and do not expect to be subject to public scrutiny especially with regard to a project which is in its procurement stage. (Every business person prepared to put their hand in the public pocket must expect to be be in the public spotlight if they earn at the rate of £58,200 p.a. or more )

Mr Mustard has decided that we should know this information and so has asked for a review. Once a professional FOI officer gets hold of it instead of an unhelpful Business Support Officer in the One Barnet office ( who is so secretive that he doesn't even put his job title on his emails - Mr Mustard had to FOI for it - this could be why FOI numbers are going up?)

What is really bonkers, absolutely mind-numbingly stupid, is that the officer (somebody sensible should confiscate his black marker pen) has redacted the name of the Commercial Services Director. The council themselves publish the name of Craig Cooper in the corporate structure chart, in the Annual Accounts, in various Delegated Powers Reports, in public reports to committee, in fact, all over the place. Why cross his name out?

Mr Mustard will give you all of the names soon. Either because one of his moles will put it in the dead letter drop at Chipping Barnet library (Robert Rams can go into and out of Mill Hill library unseen, Mr Mustard does the same at his nearest library) or because the Review will be carried out by a proper FOI officer with some common-sense and the answers will then be forthcoming.

Appendix A is probably deadly boring but as every single word of it is apparently a state secret it might prove a little harder to challenge. I expect the Information Commissioner will have to decide.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Not the retiring type

New schools, like Colindale, can only be built if we all pay proper taxes

Let Mr Mustard say straight away that he has been told that Ieuan Renowden is a good chap. It looks like he has got in with bad company though.

Executive summary:

There is another "consultant" not paying PAYE

You can take early retirement and then come straight back to work as a consultant.

There is no need to bother with tiresome paperwork like contracts in Barnet Council.

Consultants can set their own charge rate.

Tax dodging is endemic at Barnet Council.

---

Until about 2005 Mr Renowden was the Head of Colindale Junior School. Then he became a Learning Network Inspector and must have been on the council payroll (Mr Mustard does not know if he was simply a shoe-in or if an advertisement and true competition was necessary).

In School Circular #25 of 26 March 2008 it was announced that "Mr Renowden, the Learning Network Inspector for the West will be taking early retirement at the end of this academic year" i.e. in July 2008. He was only 58 at that time so that would be early retirement, if he had stopped working. He took the summer holidays off. His pay at that time would have been in the range of £59,155 to £65,276. The range is now £60,781 to £67,071 (Soulbury Scales 27-33)

So what happened next. Take a look at these payments to IJR Associates Ltd , whose Director is one Ieuan Renowden. Someone at Barnet Council might have put him up to the idea of using a Limited company. For some reason these payments have not been re-routed through Hays from April 11.

Date	Paid £	Service Provided
11/11/2008	6,750	consutancy Oct to Dec 2008
04/12/2008	5,400
08/01/2009	5,850
10/02/2009	1,800	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring, spring 2009
10/02/2009	1,800	consultancy - cover, Learning network Inspector
20/02/2009	1,600	Interim management of Early Years Capital grant
09/03/2009	1,350	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring, spring 2009
09/03/2009	1,350	consultancy - cover, Learning network Inspector
12/03/2009	1,200	Management of Early Years Capital grant
03/04/2009	1,800	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring, spring 2009
03/04/2009	1,800	consultancy - cover, Learning network Inspector
09/04/2009	2,000	Interim management of Early Years Capital grant
11/05/2009	450	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring
11/05/2009	2,700
22/06/2009	4,500
07/07/2009	5,400
22/07/2009	4,050
05/10/2009	5,850	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring
05/11/2009	4,950
01/12/2009	5,400
08/01/2010	4,050
12/02/2010	5,400	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring
03/03/2010	5,400
07/04/2010	6,300
10/05/2010	2,700	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring
02/06/2010	5,400
02/07/2010	5,850
28/07/2010	4,950
04/10/2010	6,300
09/11/2010	4,500
03/12/2010	5,400
11/01/2011	4,050
11/02/2011	5,400
15/03/2011	4,050
13/04/2011	6,300
11/05/2011	3,150	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring, Summer 2011
03/06/2011	5,400
05/07/2011	4,950
02/09/2011	2,700
02/09/2011	1,800	DfE grant for 1 to 1 tuition programme, Local Authority management and monitoring, July 2011
Total	160,050

The daily rate appears to be £450 and using the 195 day school year this would lead to annual payments of £87,750.

Can a consultant really be employed for 3 years on what looks like a pretty constant basis, i.e. like an employee, without them being on the payroll. The problem here is that for part of the time at least Mr Renowden was doing his old job of Network Learning Inspector so if he was on PAYE doing that job in 2007 then he should have been paying PAYE when doing it in for 3 months in 2009 and so Barnet Council are at fault. The length of time that you are doing the job is irrelevant, it is a question of if you are acting as an employee and clearly he was when he was a NLI. Here are the Accounts of IJR.

Accounts of IJR Associates Ltd

If you are wondering what has happened since the payments stopped the answer is on a different blog, here. If you don't want people to know your business then don't put anything on the internet. Mr Mustard will be looking out for more payments to you in the future, once you have come back from around the world, Mr Renowden and he hopes he won't find any.

Normally when consultants are being employed on a doubtful tax basis there is an indemnity in the contract (there is one in the Jacquie McGeachie contract, for example, although it is badly worded) so that the council can recover any tax it ultimately has to pay on behalf of the "consultant". Is there such a clause in the contract with Mr Renowden? No, there isn't. Why is that? It is because a contract does not exist. That is correct. Another £160,000 paid out without any contract whatsoever. Disgraceful. This missing contract did not get picked up in the review of procurement presented to the Audit Committee on 6 September 2011. How many others were missed?

If you are aware of any other Barnet Council or ex school ex-employees retiring or being made redundant and then coming back fairly quickly as consultants please do send the details to Mr Mustard. Your identity will not be disclosed (if in doubt create a gmail address just for this communication).

The BBC have been looking at Town Hall Tax Dodgers and report that there might be 100 across all local authorities. They are being very cautious for some reason. There are 33 London councils who will probably account for 1,000 on their own. Mr Mustard has identified several so far in Barnet alone and there are more to come from his records. No dodger is safe.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard