Barnet Council - trip over their own shoelaces

Mr Mustard has read the complete judgment in this case.

You can read the entire judgment here. Mr Mustard has picked out the highlights for you to save time but a read of the entire judgment is possible on the link above.

Put in layman's terms, a Mr Shah tripped up on a badly maintained Barnet pavement and was seriously injured. Barnet Council admitted liability and then when they found out that the claim was going to cost them a lot more than they thought they tried to change their mind (resile) but the High Court made them eat their words.

Comments in advance of each extract: The outline.

Barnet's chronology was short on detail.

Liability wrongly denied

Mr Shah's accident was a serious one.

Barnet Council are incompetent

WO = work order.

Barnet Council admit liability: there should be no going back on that.

The route of Mr Shah was obvious to anyone who looked at an online map.

The lack of other complaints doesn't prove there wasn't a defect only that other defects hadn't been reported.

Several problems with Barnet Council's evidence.

Barnet Council evidence is 'hopeless'.

Barnet Council described as 'barely credible' which is almost accusing them of lying.

Why wasn't a better search made for evidence by staff within Highways who knew how to find it?

Conduct of Barnet Council - they didn't invite Mr Shah to the site inspection when he could have identified the trip hazard. Rude, unbusinesslike and, in the event, expensive.

Barnet Council - inefficient

Barnet council - inadequate record keeping.

Barnet Council don't convince the judge that they have much of a case should they be allowed to fight it.

Barnet Council largely ignoring Mr Shah and laying tarmac over the location didn't help them.

The trial of  the application by Barnet Council to resile from their (change their mind about) admission of liability and of the claimant Mr Shah for judgment to be given in his favour will have cost thousands. Costs are usually awarded to the succesful party so Barnet Council have wasted more of our money. They may say they could have won and there sometimes are surprising judgments made but based upon what we can all read here of the exhibited incompetence of the council this case was only ever going to go one way.

Barnet Council Highways department. Remind Mr Mustard who ran that in August 2018. Yes, Regional Enterprise Ltd, a company 51% owned by Capita. This has been earmarked for return to the council in 2023. Were the councillors who made the decision told about this legal case which was heard in July 2021 and the judgment was handed down in September 2021 such that highways knew about it? Probably not is Mr Mustard's guess.

End.

TfL desperately needed the revenue

 

Add caption

Thank goodness for adjudicators bringing the law and common sense to bear.

Whoever at TfL/Capita decided to reject the representations and leave A1 Loo Hire with the choice of paying £640 or going to the tribunal made a terrible and unfair decision.

Too much power has been given to faceless stupid local bureaucrats.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Printed visitor parking vouchers (permits)

It is often whilst searching for something else that Mr Mustard finds useful information. That was true in this case, he found this report.

 

 

Within it, there is the following decision.

 

Mr Mustard emailed the parking manager to find out when he could once again buy printed vouchers as although he is a big computer user he finds it quicker and more convenient to give his visitors a printed voucher which is their responsibility to complete and display and not his fault if it all goes wrong.

 

As is usual he received a quick and informative response, as follows:

It was a few days before he made the phone call, partly because he expected it to go wrong & extra hurdles to be put in his way, but Mr Mustard is pleased to say he was wrong.

Mr Mustard already has an NSL Apply account for his resident permit so his identity and entitlement to buy visitor vouchers was not in doubt. It would probably take longer if you are a resident without a vehicle such that you don't have an NSL Apply account and have to provide some proof of residence within a Controlled Parking Zone.

The customer service representative pointed out to Mr Mustard the option to have electronic visitor vouchers and Mr Mustard politely explained that most of them are used by his gardener when Mr Mustard is away on business. Printed vouchers means that his gardener can get straight on with the garden after 30 seconds spent scratching out the relevant boxes as Mr Mustard gives her a few vouchers in advance. Once Mr Mustard told the nice lady the reason why he needed printed vouchers the transaction proceeded smoothly, the operative simply having to record the reason before going ahead.

Other reasons which you might wish to use are that your computer is broken, you don't have a computer, they are mostly for use by your cleaner, carer, decorator, family member etc who visits when you are not there. If you think of any other good reason why you really need printed vouchers do please let Mr Mustard know (email: mrmustard@zoho.com) and he will add them to this post.

The vouchers come in blocks (often still referred to as books) of 4 and 50 blocks per annum is the maximum purchase, 3 books the minimum.

Do let Mr Mustard know if you encounter any problems.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council - Capita - data harvest reduced

Capita recently demanded that Mr Mustard prove he was still entitled to the single person discount and he had a choice of completing the form they sent him or going on line and completing a form, as above. Mr Mustard started by having a look at the on line form and decided that his telephone number and email address should not be compulsory information.

Mr Mustard complained to Barnet Council and they have half agreed with him.

I can advise that the email address is collected to provide automatic notification to the customer that their review has been submitted successfully. As part of this notification the customer is given a reference number that they can quote if they have any queries about us receiving the online form. We do not send any other response to the review.

I am satisfied that the collection of the email address is not excessive and that the collection of this information is necessary and relevant to the processing of form.

The telephone number is collected in case there is a need to contact the customer about their form, however I agree that this should be optional field as alternative contact details are available. In my view making both the email address and telephone number mandatory could be considered as unnecessary.

With that in mind I can confirm that the form is being redesigned, making the email address mandatory, and the telephone number optional. This will become live in the next three weeks.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Mr Mustard does not agree with the reasoning as they could simply provide a confirmation of receipt reference number on line. If they want to contact you they can write as it is a property that is the subject of the enquiry, it isn't going anywhere, or they can make an email address optional should you want to be contacted that way.

Mr Mustard sent his response in by post and the form does not say you must supply an email address and a telephone number, boxes which Mr Mustard would have put a dash in anyway. Did Capita send an acknowledgement that they had received his completed form, no they didn't so they only want to send one if it doesn't cost them anything.

Did they tell Mr Mustard the outcome of their review?

No, of course they didn't, as they only get paid when someone loses their single person discount, so they want to cut out all possible costs, even at the expense of providing a resident with the reassurance that all is well.

Rather than being left in the dark, Mr Mustard has now written to Capita to ask them to confirm the outcome of the review and to see the data on which they based their decision.

Mr Mustard is also now going to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner to see if they agree that the collection of an email address on line is not necessary, it should be optional.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Capita - not at all helpful

A minor gripe is that Capita left part of the postcode off their address.

The rest of the letter isn't of much use either.

The 2018 statement was wrong so must be chucked away.

The 2019 statement didn't arrive.

What is the recipient to decide upon receipt of this letter? nothing, as there aren't any figures with it.

What should it have contained?

A statement as at the date of normal pension age (NPA).

A list of the possible options.

A request for your bank details so that the arrears can be paid asap.

A calculation of the compensation which will be paid to the pensioner for not paying them for up to 2 years.

The letter as it stands merely tells you they messed up and then wants the pensioner to make the running.

Mr Mustard's advice.

Don't phone them and don't write (unless you don't do email) you'll need to complete the post code, it is DL98 1AJ

Mr Mustard would email and ask for the information that you should have been given on the NPA (normal pension age) and for the relevant facts and figures and options. You want everything in writing, phone calls can lead to disputes.

Having right royally messed up Capita should be going the extra mile to provide information & compensation to the adversely affected parties, not putting the onus on them to phone up Capita. They should be offering the affected parties individual appointments at which Capita can demonstrate that they have now got the pension records correct and explain the options available in each case.

Mr Mustard really doesn't understand why councillors don't kick out Capita given that this is just one more example in a long list of administrative incompetence. They are truly awful and yet on we trot lurching from one dreadful story to the next.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Capita - 'not minded' to provide assurance

At the Barnet Council Audit Committee on 1 May the external auditor from BDO made some very worrying and serious statements about the controls systems in place. This follows a £2 million fraud last year, and pervasive problems with the pensions and payroll administration.

“You don’t have a particularly strong control environment”, the auditor reported, and then stated that Capita were “not minded” to provide assurance over systems running processes on Barnet Council’s behalf.

This is an astonishing response from Capita.

Responsibility for assurance of these systems, run from Capita’s offices around the United Kingdom, falls to Barnet Council’s Internal Audit Team.

As the External Auditor made clear, the Internal Audit team is doing good work “but it doesn’t give you that level of assurance that you would expect with so much of the service outsourced”.

Given that Capita provide so many of Barnet’s back office systems this is a very serious situation, especially as the external auditor raised this problem two years ago, before the £2 million fraud was discovered.

As bloggers who have closely followed and reported the story of Barnet’s partnership with Capita, we are deeply concerned about this situation and alarmed that neither the auditor nor committee members were aware that assurance of Capita’s systems is a contractual requirement, and not something that could be provided at their discretion.

We ask the following questions of the Council:

·             Why were the audit committee not made aware of the auditor’s concerns when they were raised two years ago?

·             Why are Capita “not minded” to provide assurance over their systems when the contract appears to indicate that they must provide that assurance?

·             Why did Grant Thornton not pick this matter up when they were the Council’s External Auditors or as part of their contract review following the fraud?

·             Why have the Council’s contract monitoring officers not identified this problem before now?

·             If BDO are saying the Council does not have a strong control environment, what are the risks of another fraud or systems failure happening?

And finally,

·             How can Capita continue to retain the confidence of the Council without such assurances?

We ask that the Council arranges for a forensic review/audit of both Capita contracts to address the contractual failures raised by the External Auditor as a matter of the utmost urgency, to be paid for by Capita, before any further decisions are made on what services Capita will continue to provide. Failure to do so can only have the most serious consequences for the financial security of this borough, and the well being of all residents.

Signed:

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

There may be trouble ahead

Mr Mustard receives a pension from the London Stock Exchange. It is only a modest sum, not even enough to keep him in red wine, but he still likes to receive it in the correct sum and on time. Today in his post he received a long letter which offered him no comfort whatsoever. Here are some snippets:

Oh dear. Mercer never put a foot wrong so why change them to a notorious supplier?

Mr Mustard doubts that there will be faster response times from a company who had to negotiate a KPI of 20 seconds to answer the phone up to 60 seconds which they still couldn't manage on behalf of Barnet Council. 

So why did you choose Capita? Were they cheaper and did they promise the earth?

 Someone will regret writing this puff piece later on.

We have immediately taken a retrograde service step. Why wasn't this in the contract to be in place from day 1 if Capita are so wonderful?

Translation: We are easily impressed and don't read newspapers or Private Eye.

Mr Mustard confidently expects the change of tax office to be less than smooth.

He will be checking his payslips very carefully.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Capita are bluffing & have a bloody nerve

Just delete anything you don't have to agree to by law, as here.

It is really boring to have to keep telling a council a fact which hasn't changed when you are duty bound by law to tell them if your circumstances change. Of course there will be some people who try to get away with claiming a discount that isn't due but we need a targeted approach to find those rather than the blunderbuss approach which is being taken.

Having asked on twitter Mr Mustard discovered that many of the ladies in the Older Women's Co-Housing had also received these letters. It is pretty dense of the council and Capita, who gave the scheme planning permission, and know that this is a collection of homes for single ladies of a certain age (or uncertain as Mr Mustard's elderly French professor used to say)

(sorry ladies, your apostrophe has gone missing in the heading)

If officialdom can't trust these pioneering ladies, there is no hope for society.

Mr Mustard doesn't stand for being pushed around so he has penned a letter to Crapita, which will go off to them tomorrow:

Mr Mustard's property isn't the one in which a fraudster was found to be residing who made 62 fraudulent payments to himself for non-existent properties. That of course, was Capita.

So before questioning Mr Mustard about his property it would be a good idea if Capita were to get their own house in order and leave honest council tax payers alone.

You too can make a Subject Access Request to Capita on the same lines as Mr Mustard has. You are entitled to all the date they hold on you, free of charge and within a month. If this procedure becomes too expensive for them to process, they will change their behaviour. If you only declared you were the sole occupier a few weeks ago, complain about them writing to you again so soon, whilst you are about it.

Mr Mustard nearly forgot to mention one important fact. The reason that Capita are so keen to get you off the discount list isn't the obvious one, it is that they get a share of the saving for every person who stops claiming, even if out of fear when they have done nothing wrong.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard