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

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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

Why was this DPR top secret?

GCHQ - possibly less secretive than Barnet Council

When Mr Mustard sees that a Delegated Powers Report has been issued and it is entirely exempt from publication he firstly thinks "what a load of tosh; it can't all be secret" and then he thinks "I will have to ask for that under FOI" thus a secretive council can expect more FOI requests.

So having seen that the DPR to reorganise, once again, the departments which are now called Environment, Planning & Regeneration, the second game of musical chairs in 12 months, he wants to see the document. Here it is.

1499 Reorganisation of EPR

So now you have seen it, was it really worth keeping secret?

Feel free to explain in the comment box why this document was so secret that only it's existence and the overall subject matter was known.

Naturally you would think that having released the document under FOI it would now be in the published list of DPRs? No, it is still showing as exempt.

Yours openly

Mr Mustard

The second interesting Xmas Eve DPR

Here is the DPR to implement annual inflation increases for the Environment Planning & Regeneration directorate starting on 1 February 2012.

1508 EPR charges 2012-13

Mr Mustard notices that this increases the price of a Resident's CPZ Permit from £100 to £105 despite Cllr Coleman saying at the recent Cabinet Resources Committee ( 14 December 2011 ) that these were being looked at again. Maybe they are but the proposal to increase them by 5% has still been published. Keep your eyes peeled.

Maybe this is procedurally correct but somehow Mr Mustard doubts it as this DPR is signed by Pam Wharfe who has form for signing DPRs that don't accord with the constitution e.g. RM Countryside and the removal of parking meters.

Barnet Council regulation issue DPR signing kit

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Time to keep your head down and get some results in EPR one would think

If your department's performance was as bad as this and a resident pointed out that you had failed to comply with the constitution would you:

a) arrogantly write "I have nothing more to add" after having failed to answer their searching questions, or 

b) thanked the resident and fixed the problem in a proper manner.

c) ignored the problem and hope it goes away


d) none of the above

click the heading below for a larger version.
Barnet Council - Environment Planning & Regeneration Performance Report q2 2011-12

The Interim Director Pam Wharfe thinks that (a) is the best course. Best not go on "Who wants to be a Millionaire" then. That word "Interim" is looking rather temporary.

Look at all that red ink. The Interim Director doesn't look to be up to the job to Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A one-man performance appraisal system - I don't think it will catch on

As you know from reading my blog each directorate of the council gets a quarterly performance appraisal which is a process entirely conducted within the council (as far as Mr Mustard is aware).

Mr Mustard will be bringing you the report on the newly formed Environment, Planning and Regeneration directorate's performance overview in the next few days but thought that you might like to see first of all what Cllr. Brian Coleman, a member of the Cabinet made of it. The members of the cabinet are in effect senior councillors, the kind from whom one would normally expect to receive words of wisdom and leadership.

Parking is part of this Directorate. You will have to judge for yourself what effect this performance appraisal will have on staff morale and whether that is the sort of leadership you might want to use in your own organisation. 

Is it the sort of language that should be used in the council chamber? 

Barnet's Parking Service is a "Pile of Crap" from The Barnet Bugle Ltd on Vimeo.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard