Short and to the point but does it motivate you?

Mr Mustard was sent this weekly message ( non-stick off in the sun already? Caribbean maybe? who knows, or cares )  with a covering note which was too rude to repeat and instead he will have to change it slightly.

"What a twit"

From: First Team
Sent: 23 December 2011 13:41
To: AllStaff

Subject: Weekly message from the Deputy Chief Executive

Thank you to everyone for their contribution in 2011. We have achieved a great deal, and we have reason to be proud of what the council has delivered.

I would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, with a special thank you to those staff working to maintain our essential services over the holiday period.

See you in the new year.

Andrew

The bloggers are publishing one by one the highlights of what Barnet Council has achieved this year. It hasn't been a "great deal" for motorists, or people receiving care, or back office parking staff, or procurement or Barnet FC fans or...............fill in your own selection here..............

What is the point of these weekly messages? It must be in part to motivate the staff.

It doesn't seem to be working does it?

Other things being equal Mr Mustard will be with you on Xmas Day for his message to Barnet and on New Year's Day with a pictorial review. Citizen Morris has been busy with her camera and Mr Mustard is off to take a look now. Why not come with him, here.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Move over MetPro : here comes another Barnet Council procurement scandal, and this one is even bigger.

This is an open letter that was emailed to all councillors very early this morning by the Famous Five Barnet Bloggers:

Dear Councillor

Barnet bloggers earlier this year exposed the scandalous use by Barnet Council of MetPro, an unlicensed security company which was paid a total of more than a million pounds worth of residents' money despite the absence of any tender process, contract, or properly regulated payment system.

MetPro proved to be just one among hundreds of similar irregular arrangements sanctioned by the Tory authority, which is currently negotiating the outsourcing of £1billion worth of our council services to the private sector under the One Barnet programme.

During the months of the outsourcing tender process, in blatant defiance of the government’s stated policy commitment to transparency and greater accountability by local authorities, Barnet has consistently resisted, delayed or obstructed Freedom of Information requests by bloggers in relation to matters of public interest, including the much criticised procurement of contracts with service providers. We think we know why that might be.

At this coming Thursday’s audit meeting, 8 December, we are submitting questions to the committee about another case investigated by local bloggers involving the council’s long term use of another private company, RM Countryside, which has been paid more than £2 million pounds of local tax payers’ money with an apparent lack of compliance with the proper processes of tendering, contractual arrangements and the regulations set out in the Constitution.

We are questioning the efficacy of the internal and external audit procedures which are supposed to regulate the commercial activity of the London Borough of Barnet.

The integrity of the One Barnet outsourcing programme is clearly fatally compromised by the failure of the authority to regulate its own procurement, contractual and payment processes and we call therefore for an immediate halt to be made in this programme, and for an urgent, independent inquiry to be held into the disastrous lack of control of the authority’s commercial activities. MetPro was a warning: a warning which has been ignored. Now is the time to stop, investigate and hold the authority to account to the residents and tax payers of Barnet.

Signed:

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

---

The following is Mr Mustard's view alone.

After bloggers had discovered that procurement  was a disaster ( one wonders how the Commercial Director, Craig Cooper, £132,480 p.a. could fail to know the basic workings of his own department ) a Procurement Action Plan was put in place. Progress on this plan is reported to successive audit committees of which there is one tomorrow ( 7pm Hendon Town Hall - do come along and say hello to the bloggers in the public gallery ). However last night at the Budget & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee there was a sign of what is to come. 

One of the key performance indicators that was measured in quarter 2 ( July to Sept 11 ) was #7004 ( see page 16 of agenda item 6 here ) and it related to the number of vendors under formal contract. 

A councillor ( Schama? ) asked Mr Travers what percentage of the top 50 vendors were under formal contract and there was a lot of hedging by Andrew Travers, the Chief Financial Officer, on £1,000 a day, as to what from memory, the number was and he plumped for 70%. 

Oh dear, the councillor pointed out that the report in front of him said it was already 80% and shouldn't it really be 100% we are only talking about the top 50 vendors after all ( note to self, ask to see a list of the top 50 ). At this point the question got shunted back to Thursday when doubtless Craig Cooper will get put up to be cross examined.. 

So what do you get for £1,000 a day, you get a Chief Financial Officer with his head so full of fluffy OneBarnet figures that there isn't room for any knowledge of how far the repairs to the disaster of procurement, with all the attendant financial and legal ramifications, has progressed.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

"Learn from their success and mistakes"

Well how interesting. The heading was taken from the Capita conference brochure ( below ) which you can download in full here. So it is success in the singular and mistakes in the plural

Here is the brochure for your delectation and delight.

click to enlarge; back to return

So there you will see one Andrew Travers, the £1,000 a day Chief Financial Officer, speaking at a Capita conference ( Mr Mustard wonders if Capita are paying him for today or if Barnet Council tax payers are? ) So will he be speaking about success or failures? Make you own mind up, although the following might help you.

As luck would have it, the corporate performance results of Barnet Council for the 3 months ended 30 September 2011 are out today. You can get them, and lots of other stuff, on the Barnet Council website here or in the box below.

Corporate Performance results Q2 2011-12 Barnet Council

You don't have to go far ( summary on page 4, detail on pages 16/17 ) to see the results for the two targets set for the Deputy Chief Executive and they are both red i.e. as bad as it is possible for them to be. In fact his directorate is the worst performing of all of them with all of his targets in the worst performing category. None were pretty and Corporate Governance weren't far behind in the poor performance stakes. Notice also the DoT ( direction of travel ). Things are getting worse.

Who would want such a low performer to speak at their conference, oh Crapita do, absolutely nothing to do with them bidding for huge contracts at Barnet Council and hoping to curry a bit of favour ( see Mrs Angry's blog on this subject, she was on the bed ball this morning ).

Wouldn't your time have been better spent in improving the performance of what you are paid a vast amount to mismanage ? rather than gallivanting off to the Lancaster Hotel ? Enjoy your lunch.

If amongst Mr Mustard's readers today there are any delegates to this conference would you please send him a copy of the Travers handout. Much obliged.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard