Consultations by government

Electronic Collar Manufacturers v SS for Environment 24 Oct 2019 by MisterMustard on Scribd

The consultation process has a chequered history in Barnet and Mr Mustard thought you might find the above judgment of interest if you are looking at any consultation that Barnet Council decide upon in the future. It is a long read, there being 222 paragraphs, but Mr Mustard thinks you can skip some of it and he suggests you focus on paragraphs 3, 18, 27 and then read from 139 to the end but by all means read it all if you like this sort of thing.

The summary at para 27 is a good outline to have in your mind from the off.

Enjoy this bedtime reading. If you think Barnet Council have failed in any future consultation please consult a solicitor who is an expert in local government law.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet's Parks - time for you to Swing into action

Mr Mustard apologises for the delay in bringing you this document but he was in Spain last week sorting out a property transaction. He almost never completes surveymonkey forms online as he doesn't like giving his data to them (who knows what they will do with except try and profit from his data) and thus, if he is interested in a particular consultation, he asks for a paper copy and is always given one.

You can now see all of the questions before you answer the first one and you can print the form out (feel free to distribute copies) and post it in to the council by 13 March (Mr Mustard feels sure that a few days late won't matter).

Parks and Open Spaces Strategy Paper Questionnaire March 16

Send your form to

Ruth Miller
Colindale Project Manager
Environment, Planning and Regeneration

Barnet House,1255 High Road, Whetstone, N20 0EJ

an expert critique of the Barnet Libraries consultation

Topline Findings From Research Into Barnet Council's Library Reforms by MisterMustard

Local autocracy

Mr Mustard wasn't going to go to last night's Residents Forum but as he had been doing a little in the background to help the residents of Sellwood Drive with their hokey cokey pavement parking problem he thought he had better show willing for once. The reason he doesn't go is that he thinks the forums are simply hot air (the room in Barnet House was sweltering before the chair Lisa Rutter got speaking) and have no powers so what is the point.

He planned to sit at the back quietly and read his copy of Reclaiming Local Democracy, but not the 2 pages in which the famous four Barnet Bloggers get a mention (ignore the incorrect statement in the book that Mr Mustard is a lawyer, he isn't, he just knows a tedious amount about parking law) but the meeting was such a shambles and such annoying plans were being made that Mr Mustard found himself on his feet three times giving out an ear-bashing. Mr Reasonable had steam coming out of his ears and Mr Mustard had to ask him if he had brought his blood pressure pills along.

The meeting started badly. The format was not fully explained to people and that caused frustration. The visitors from Pollard Road, a notorious rat run (Mr Mustard has only used in once in 20 years but will now have to drive down it to see what the problem is) were frustrated about the time they had been told to come along at (6.30pm) when they really need to be at the next meeting, the area sub-committee, although only one of them could speak at it which annoyed them even more, which starts at either 7pm or when the forum finishes.

The printed meeting notice doesn't help.

What time is it?

If the forum finishes between 6.30 and 7pm, the area sub-committee starts at 7pm but if the forum finishes between 7 and 8.30pm that is the time that the area sub-committee starts. Clear? The notice says that it starts at the earlier of 7 or, in the event as the forum was a busy one, 8.30 so the official answer is 7pm which is impossible as some councillors are in both meetings. Governance don't seem to be able to get the simplest of things right. The word "earlier" should of course be "later".

The forum would have been a whole lot shorter if the attempt by Governance to refuse three lots of questions hadn't caused all three residents to complain separately and force their questions onto the agenda. There isn't of course enough time set aside for this forum when there are emotive issues like parking and rat runs to discuss. Everyone leaves unhappy.

There was a presentation by a very good governance officer, who understands what it means to be a public servant, on the £100,000 allocated to the Chipping Barnet constituency for local works of some sort. It isn't her fault that this scheme is a sop, you can buy sod all with £100,000 across an area that contains 100,000 residents which you can only spend on capital works with zero future maintenance requirement. Residents should be properly consulted on the whole billion £ spend of Barnet Council, not just an ickle bit of it.

The next presentation about the constituency and various statistics included a slide which contained the bullet point of Timebank. The presenter didn't know what it was! Please, don't make a presentation to an audience and then ask the audience, as you did, what Timebank is. Mr Mustard could have told you but Green Party Poppy gave a much clearer report. The employee should have looked this up on the council website before she left her desk.

After a lot of huffing and puffing Cllr Brian Salinger took all the Pollard Rd people away into another room to consult with them about what they wanted. This at least, was a good idea, although they didn't get to hear everything else in the forum. He, or one of the other ward councillors, should have done this before the situation reached fever pitch.

Cllr Rutter batted half of the points away that people should have seen their ward councillors first. If they are all opposition councillors they have no real power and haven't all been getting answers back from officers and the email for some of them is only just now working so contacting them was impossible. No-one seemed happy with her suggestion. There need to be clear rules about what sort of problems are handled where.

Cllr Rutter made a huge mistake in telling the no-nonsense Barbara Jacobson (of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services but asking in her capacity as a resident) that her question was not a question but a comment. It started with "Why" and finished with a "?". It looked like a question to everyone else in the room, or maybe it was an elephant as it was such a good question.

Mr Mustard comments

"Why did anyone vote for Lisa Rutter?"

The former St James the Great Church in Friern Barnet Lane has some parking problems caused by the congregation sometimes. The proposed solution of letting the church put their own cones out in the short stretch of road didn't find favour with officers who wanted to charge some unknown fee to provide cones (Mr Mustard may well have offered in the meeting to steal a few cones from elsewhere in the borough but wouldn't actually do such a thing) and wanted to slap down the heaviest possible restriction (copyright Bugle Dan) of yellow lines and no loading kerb marks in order to stop blue badge holders from parking there. Mr Mustard told the traffic officer that if he saw a Traffic Management Order (TMO) attempting to misuse loading restrictions in this way (there is no need for a loading restriction near the church as they aren't a shop having lots of deliveries) he would object to the TMO. It shows how power crazy some officers can get if they think they can bend legitimate rules in this way which would be an abuse of power. Blue badge holders should not be denied the opportunity to park near their chosen place of worship. Don't take problems to the council if you can sort them out locally would be Mr Mustard's advice.

Then we got to Sellwood Drive. Residents have long memories. one who had lived there for 37 years said there wasn't a parking problem until Barnet Council sold off some allotment land at the end of the road for a social housing scheme so it was the council that caused the problem as that increased parking demand. We discovered that a solution had already been identified by officers and was being implemented. hang on, said Mr Mustard, on his feet once again, whatever happened to consultation (remember what Judge Underhill said) and in the Hendon Forum issues list there is mention of a statutory consultation about changed proposals in Tenterden Grove, Garrick Way and Brinsdale Rd. If it is good enough for Hendon it's good enough for Chipping Barnet said Mr Mustard. So residents have been campaigning for weeks, local councillors and Teresa Villiers MP are involved and the solution is for officers to impose a scheme and start work without showing the plans to the residents. Idiotic and treating residents like children. A resident then mentioned that the workmen doing the work were themselves parked on the pavement. Uproar resulted.

By some stroke of terrible bad luck the council can't find the letter that they wrote to residents three years ago saying that PCN would not be issued for pavement parking. Filing must be in a right state at the council. A resident will probably give Mr Mustard a copy of the letter.

Barbara spoke up again. When the pavements were recently relaid in her road a line of brick paving was put at the edge. The workman told her that was so that all residents could put 2 wheels up on the pavement to make more room in the narrow road. Oh dear, this road had better be on the list of the ones that the council don't enforce in, at least until they lose the letter. Do not park on the pavement in your road unless you have a letter from the council saying you can. Please send any such letters to mrmustard@zoho.com

To sum up, the meeting was a shambolic, almost pointless, mess. If you want to see a Punch & Judy show the next meeting dates are 

22 October 14, 

15 January 15 and 

25 March 15 

so that will be 4 meetings in a year of 2 hours maximum duration each. The council so value your opinion that they allow 8 whole hours a year for 100,000 people to state it. That is what passes for democracy in Barnet. 

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking charges consultations

what parking in Barnet is all about - follow the money

Before you read this blog post, you should read Dr Julia Hines's blog on the question of consultation in Barnet as it was reading her post on Barnet's somewhat dilatory approach to consultation (Mr Mustard's description, not Julia's) that prompted Mr Mustard to get on with his response, which is as follows:

Update friday: Mr Mustard lost his marbles for a short while and forgot to tell you that the below letter is in response to the following council consultation

Council website consultation

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Dear Mr Sunderland

Streetscene fees & charges 2014/15

Consultation response

Events - private functions

Scrap the idea and all charges. Parks are communal and should remain so.

Parking permits

Call back to process card payment for services. £21.

The charge is excessive. It is 5 minutes work at most to accept a card payment. No business that charged this sum would survive for long. This charge discriminates against the poor, the elderly and the disabled who may not have access to computers. The charge is a penalty. It cannot possibly achieve its stated aim to encourage the use of other methods by those people who do not have access to other methods.

One Hour Parking Voucher - £2 per voucher

This is another excessive level of charge which discriminates against the same members of society as above. Car parking in Chipping Barnet costs a different amount per hour depending upon where you are.

If you wanted to park for the maximum 4 hours in the Moxon St car park it would cost you £8 in vouchers but only £2.50 using PayByPhone.

If you wanted to park all day in the Fitzjohn Avenue car park it would cost you £21 in vouchers but only £3.95 using PayByPhone.

If you wanted to park for 4 hours in the Stapylton Rd car park it would cost you £8 in vouchers but only £2.50 using PayByPhone.

If you wanted to park for an hour in the High St it would cost you a £2 voucher but only £1.30 using PayByPhone.

The same goes for 1/2 hour vouchers.

Residents permits

Pricing has returned to the pre judicial review level as the council was held to be revenue raising. What the council should do is calculate the cost of providing residents permits which were sold to us on the basis of them only covering their costs when the C zone CPZ was introduced in about 1988. The initial annual cost was £5. The council should establish the cost of the permit team, and the stationery cost, and then divide by the number of permits issued per annum and that should be the permit price. The answer will be much less than £40.

There is no basis for charging more for a second or third car as that would be to raise extra revenue which is not allowed. I also see no proper basis for limiting the number of vehicles per property. A family house containing 2 adults and 2 grown up children, all of whom need a car for their work, should not be discriminated against when they are making such economic use of housing stock.

Amendments to permits £21 and permit refunds £21

These charges are far higher than the cost of the action being taken. They should be drastically reduced, if not removed altogether

Three month temporary permit £252

This outrageous amount is absurd being 6 times the cost of a permit that lasts 4 times as long. Surely no-one actually pays it?

Housing permits £nil, £42, £73

I see no basis for housing permits being a different price to residents permits as they are essentially the same providing a permit to park in a certain zone.

Doctors permit £200

This provides a permit to park in a designated space adjacent to a surgery. These will almost certainly be inside a CPZ. It might be better and fairer, and make better use of road space, if Doctors were instead included as if they were residents and given the permit of the zone that they work within at the same cost as a resident as most of their house calls are also likely to be within that zone and this would allow more flexible use of available space.

Community permits

There is no mention of these on the council website.

Business permits £256/£73.50/£525/£840

I can see no justification for these excessive amount as the benefit obtained is one car space for each permit the same as for a residents permit and there are far fewer business bays than there are residents bay within  the same CPZ. These charges are simply profiteering from businesses.

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Feel free to cut and paste any of the above response and send it to cory.sunderland@barnet.gov.uk Be gentle with him, he works very hard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Keep it to yourself

Residents Forum Questionnaire - Barnet Council

 

Barnet Council usually carry out their consultations using surveymonkey which Mr Mustard refuses to use (giving his data to some corporation in the USA which might get hacked or abused or sold on is not something that Mr Mustard will sign up to) and he always asks for a paper copy of the consultation, a not at all radical idea that the council struggle to deal with (his copy of the Saracens CPZ survey has not arrived yet; in the time it took to send him an email saying it would be sent it could have been sent; why do people do 2 tasks when 1 would be much better?) and means that their consultations don't reach the hard to reach groups who don't use computers and who should still have a voice.

The above consultation was going to be carried out merely at the now sparsely attended forums (compared to before they were neutered) and so the people who do not attend, as satisfactory answers rarely arrive and they have largely given up, had no chance to have their say as the consultation was not on the council's website last week as reported on twitter by Mr Reasonable (@ReasonableNB if you want to follow him on twitter) but now it is and whereas before it was going to be fully considered at the Constitution Committee on 8 July, now it can't be, as the consultation runs until 15 July - a whole 2 weeks. That will give time for 350,000 residents to be properly consulted, will it not? No, it won't, nothing like it. Some officer must seriously have thought that asking a couple of dozen people at 3 forums would bring in sufficient responses on which to base a logical decision. Even putting it on the consultation hub of the website won't do much good. The advertising of it on blogs will reach more readers. Who gets up on a Monday morning and thinks, "I know, I'll go and have a look at the consultation hub on the council website" (apart from very interested parties like bloggers)? Answer, nobody does.

The questionnaire needs widely distributing. It should be in libraries, every child should get a copy from school to take home for a parent or guardian to answer and perhaps discuss local democracy with them, a pdf could be added to every email the council issues (each survey for a particular week) copies should be handed out outside supermarkets and railway stations etc etc until the response rate climbs into the thousands i.e at least 1% of residents.

What is Mr Mustard going to put on his form? Being the new boy (still only 2 years old) Mr Mustard doesn't know about how forums used to be but they were well attended apparently and that is a good place to start; return them to how they used to be and then change them slowly by trial and error.

Changes Mr Mustard might otherwise make would be to have morning, afternoon and evening sessions of one forum, in a venue like a cinema or theatre (with access for the disabled), have the whole borough together rather than an artificial split across the parliamentary constituencies and have a main theme for each month (yes, monthly forums) and then in addition allow any questions whatsoever and sufficient councillors and officers there such that proper answers can be given on the day. Broadcast the whole thing on the web.

You can download your form from above and then post it in to the council or scan it and send it by email.

It is, in theory, your council. Please tell them what you want.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Judicial Review - NSCSO

The Royal Courts of Justice

Apologies for the lack of recent blog posts but Mr Mustard has been sat in Court for 2 days and a final day (for now, as we have the Brian Coleman alleged assault hearing to come on 3 May and the Parking Judicial Review on 2 July and then possibly the Susan Sullivan JR) beckons.

You can follow the proceedings on twitter by searching for the hashtag #barnetjr. Kick off is at 10.30 and it will be all over at 16.30 and hopefully earlier.

Judge Underhill is both excellent and difficult to read, he teases his audience with occasional insights into his thinking but of course the view he posits may be changed by robust argument and 2 fine QCs are battling it. Judgment will be reserved i.e. made later, and doubtless this is because it is going to be a long and carefully thought out document (the last judgment read by Mr Mustard, #daftarrest, ran to 87 pages). It is going to contain guidance about what sort of consultations should be done by local authorities in future. Barnet Council did not consult residents about whether they wanted their services to be delivered by an external conglomerate like Capita or BT and that may have been because it was an answer they didn't want to hear.

Anyway Mr Mustard must go now and look in the wardrobe to see what eye catching shirt will cause La Bloggeuse to wear her sunglasses in Court (we won't compare you to Councillor Colonel Gaddafi La B as that would be truly unkind) because of the glare.

A quick by-the-by. If you live in a CPZ zone (apart from zone C, the home of Mr Mustard) and there are any timeplates which say on them "Resident Permit Holders only" or "Permit Holders only" and there are no times displayed please can you email a photograph to mrmustard@zoho.com and tell him the road name. This is only likely to be the case in the zones which have been established for many years. The reason will become clear next week. If you get a parking ticket under such a sign do let Mr Mustard know as he will be able to assist.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard