Sharp as a beachball / the secret State.

The above wording is from the notes given to councillors, and afterwards on request to interested members of the public, from a "secret" meeting of a working group of the Environment Committee. The council will say the meeting was not secret but public although they didn't advertise it anywhere and didn't give any notice of it to the public and didn't make papers available on the day so the dedicated public who heard whispers of a meeting and went along on the off chance didn't even know what the agenda was. The chairman of the meeting, Dean Cohen, could have told the public gallery, which had more members than the committee did, they numbered 5, the public were double that, what the agenda items were but he didn't care to inform us which was not Open & Transparent the alleged default state of the council. You can judge if that is so.

Paragraph 1 is simply astounding. An external sales company is given roundabouts on which to sell advertising space and for being so diligent as to do some work they slice off 50% of the value. 50% is just too generous even to have a proper discussion about. Have proper approaches been made to find other local marketing companies who would compete and drive down the commission? Who knows as the report is silent on that subject.

What could the council do? It could identify from local knowledge the businesses which are likely to be interested in being promoted locally (although given that the head of communications lives in Tooting he can't have the same local knowledge as a local member of staff would) a look through the non-domestic rates database (if this is allowed) would find all businesses of a certain size or an advertisement could be placed in the local papers.

The roundabouts could then be sold on ebay once possible interested parties have been warmed up. Really not that much work and a chance to talk to local businesses about other things of possible interest.

So for 25% of the signs the council (i.e. us) initially got £28k and so could in theory garner £112k from this source, let's call it for £100k if you take the lot. Not sure what the agency commission was, probably a ridiculous 50% as for roundabouts leaving £50k for the council i.e. for the sale (giving away really) of our assets.

Now we have presumably sold them all?, the report is silent on the matter, and we are only getting £26,500 for them! A hopelessly non commercial outcome.

The new deal is very bad value indeed and if the whole Capita deal is based on such faulty "reasoning" we are all doomed.

You've seen the hideous advertising hoardings all over the borough. Like this one

which makes the life of the blind much more difficult. As for this, North Finchley is not Paris.

What a monstrous carbuncle. What is the point of these structures and what a waste of the world's resources as well as being visual pollution. The Barnet Bloggers' Uncle, Eric Pickles MP wanted High Streets cleared of clutter and how right he was.

Rather than the miserable income of £68,000 p.a. Mr Mustard would rather see a fiver added to his council tax and have more attractive High Streets.

Mr Mustard would have liked to know what is bring done to make Re (Re Regional Enterprise Ltd the joint venture with Capita) perform to contract but that vital information was not in the report. A report of other contract terms which seem to be optional in the eyes of the sub-contractor would also be very interesting.

Finally just to show how uncommercial the deals were Mr Mustard looked at the Accounts of the marketing agency mentioned, Marketing Force (Ltd). Here is a nice, for them, graph of  their assets steadily rising:

Clearly Barnet Council aren't their only mug customer.

This is all small beer. Look at how well Capita are doing out of Birmingham Council.

Only time will tell how well Capita managed to out-negotiate the council's negotiators most of whom will probably have moved on before the truth hits home.

Here is a picture of the council's sharpest negotiator.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A 41,000 to one chance

Birmingham is famous for Baltis. This meal from Adil's.

There are about 41,000 employees at Birmingham City Council.

Mr Mustard's alter ego made a FOI request to Birmingham C.C. on 10 August and on which they have faffed about, asking for clarification of a simple request for a copy contract, then releasing just a pre-contractual document, a specification, then sending some annexes which had the name of the applicant added into the documents as a footer (a sneaky move in case they were passed on, they could be traced back) and then sending what was meant to be the rest of the Contract but it wasn't and none of the documents were the signed ones so could have changed before the actual signatures were added. A painful process which has seen emails back and forth over 5 separate days including today.

FOI requests are meant to be answered under the rules that they are motive and applicant blind (i.e. bloggers get the same factual answer as everybody else). The Information Tribunal has stated:

"FOIA is, however, applicant and motive blind. It is about disclosure to the public, and public interests. It is not about specified individuals or private interests."

Mr Mustard keeps an eye on who visits his blog, and the Famous Five blog, and what search terms are used. When anyone at Birmingham City Council lands on a blog he knows. The search came from the computer with address 80.249.57.49 which is Birmingham City Council - Service Birmingham Ltd a JV between Capita and the council to provide their computers. The search term was the name of Mr Mustard's alter ego and the search came from a computer using Internet Explorer 8, Windows 7 and with a screen resolution of 1440 by 900.

Unless there happens to be another employee at Birmingham City Council who just happened to search for another person of the same name and landed on the blog by accident, although the name is thought to be unique in the UK, then the FOI officer has googled him. It has taken 3 people at the council so far to fail to answer a simple question for a copy contract (one that Barnet Council managed to answer in a mere 5 months except that part of the answer has gone missing and there are some redactions which Mr Mustard has to think about) and Mr Mustard has challenged the two most recent respondents and one has said that it was not her. She is far too busy to carry out research (well done - correct answer, and also irrelevant to her job).

Let us see what the other one says.

Mr Mustard doesn't mind FOI officers looking up his details but only after they have answered his questions on an applicant blind basis and he suggests they do it at home so they don't show up in the search trail.

Barnet Council have described Mr Mustard looking up staff using google as akin to cyber-stalking. Mr Mustard has instructed Birmingham City Council that they may not communicate with Barnet Council but should you get a request Barnet Council you will have to tell Birmingham CC that you can't answer any questions that emanate from their "cyber-stalking".

What might the Information Commissioner have to say about this? 

Birmingham City Council would be well advised to now work their socks off to provide the entire Contract with exempted items redacted before a complaint gets made.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

An awesome apology (not from Barnet, naturally)

Mr Mustard tweeted liked this at the weekend; it felt good.

Before Mr Mustard shows you what an awesome apology looks like (and he has written a few in his time having got things wrong from time to time) and once you start on an apology it might as well be a good one with feeling, he will give you some examples of how not to right, which are all from Barnet Council.

So you are technically right - Bill Murphy. Assistant Director of Customer Service (and of being technically wrong and writing like a spoilt child)

I have nothing more to add to my previous emails to you on this matter - Pam Wharfe

Interim Director Environment, Planning & Regeneration (how to remain an interim! - Mr Mustard wrote back as the question had been ducked)

I cannot understand what bit of don't e mail me again, you don't understand - Cllr Brian Coleman

The bit where you want to fail in your duties as set out on the Barnet Council website

"They (councillors) represent public interest" so when Mr Mustard writes a long and considered email to Cllr Longstaff with my thoughts on important matters, and cc every councillor, you really shouldn't ask him not to; no other councillor else did. 

Also, the "leader" Richard Cornelius says that "we conservatives are good at listening" so Richard probably expects you to diligently read what you receive from council tax payers (and probably quietly despairs at your antics).

By contrast and as an example of a fulsome apology look at this from East Sussex County Council which followed me asking them why they claimed copyright when they admitted they did not have any (following this long exchange of emails)

Dear Mr Mustard,

Thank you for your continued patience with us in regards to all matters FOI related. Your blog is great and really demonstrates the value of transparency in local government.

I have read the on-going correspondence between yourself and my team with great interest and some disappointment.

Your comments regarding the format of our email response were very useful and we will of course replace it with something more user friendly and ensure that in future it does not contain needless duplication. As you quite rightly point out, the fact the nobody else had commented is irrelevant and we should welcome feedback to help us to improve our service. I am sorry that we did not acknowledge this at the time.

Please accept my apologies that we did not include your own reference numbers in our correspondence with you. I have advised my team that they must ensure these are added as a matter of course.

The use of the copyright paragraphs was not appropriate on this occasion and should not have been included in the response from us. Once again, your feedback has great value and I have advised my team of the somewhat rare circumstances that it would be appropriate to include them.

These issues have highlighted that we need to review our correspondence more regularly to ensure that it is in line with current recommended good practice and is customer friendly. It is very regrettable that we entered into such a defensive position regarding this; in hindsight, this could have been avoided.

The response to your most recent request for information will follow shortly, minus the copyright!

Kind regards 

The alter ego of Mr Mustard had not mentioned to East Sussex that he wrote a blog and of course when asking FOI questions if you don't use your real name you can't complain to the Information Commissioner but as his question had been about Andrew "Black Hole" Travers he might have had to explain to FOI why someone from Barnet was asking about his remuneration. That is speculation. The other way is that when anyone hears about a new senior manager arriving at their authority they google them to see what they can learn.

 

Yesterday Mr Mustard heard from Birmingham City Council about an FOI question and he could also see from his visitor log that they had been on the blog at about the same time. Again he hadn't linked his question to the blog.

That aside, you have to admire the tone and content of the above please tickle my tummy apology where the writer has thrown away any defence whatsoever  and completely won over Mr Mustard with their approach. He has deliberately not named them although the writer is free to out themselves in the comment box.

Now Barnet Council what can you learn from this? You are bunkered down in the North London Business Park and possibly think that everything that every blogger says is wrong. We bash One Barnet hard, mainly, in Mr Mustard's case, because of the lack of proper figures showing if it is likely to work or not. We must see a professional and independently produced cost-benefit analysis to be persuaded.

 

The other thing to learn is how to write a proper apology with feeling (in your own words, don't copy any of the East Sussex wording which Bill Murphy certainly didn't teach them when he was there - a bit incestuous all this swapping of officers/Town Hall Tax Dodgers?).

 

Have a lovely day. If you do something wrong today, please say sorry, and mean it.

 

Yours frugally

 

Mr Mustard