Helping the mentally or physically ill, the elderly & the poor to fight Council PCNs.
Writing about blunders, democracy and profligacy at Barnet Council.
When you first look at this it is a bit odd. You need to understand how savings proposals are noted. A proposal to save costs would be a positive figure and so an income, being the opposite, is presented as a negative. Then you are probably wondering why there is income for only two years from a commercial property? That is because it is assumed to repeat each year and it is only the change in income from one year to the next that is recorded. Thus we have an anticipated income from some unknown commercial properties purchased over 2 years (not sports stadia Mr Mustard hopes or anything at Brent Cross) which will give the council an income of £1.9m a year.
It isn't clear but Mr Mustard thinks the loan interest may get accounted for elsewhere. He doesn't think much of a 3.9% return. You don't want to be looking at anything less than 10%.
The council can borrow for 30 or 40 years at 3% a year. This £50m invested in property would, if there weren't any costs, see an income of £1.9m p.a. against a cost of £1.5m but nothing is ever that simple. The buildings will need to be insured. They will need to be let which will mean a commission has to be paid. They could be empty for a while so there will be security costs. If they are empty for more than 12 weeks then you are looking at a gross loss for that year and you'll still have costs to pay. The council would have to pick up the commercial rates tab, most of which goes to central government. Someone will also have to manage the loans & they will want a big salary because bankers aren't known for their bonuses for nothing. The building might need repairs and there will be initial survey & legal costs.
What with the £23m that is being borrowed to lend on to Saracens, the £50m being borrowed from Cheyne / Touchpoint at a spiralling rental cost to sell and rent back properties that the council bought in the last 12 months and the £304m in long term loans which were in the balance sheet at March 2018 (which includes some old LOBO loans) Mr Mustard thinks we already have enough borrowing and that the reward will not be adequate for the risk that is being taken. There is a dearth of detail, perhaps more will come out at the meeting of the Assets, Regeneration and Growth committee tomorrow evening.
This is also the exact type of borrowing which is vexing CIPFA at present.
Mr Mustard thinks that a council that can't manage to collect 99.9% of bins on time really should go back to basics and learn how to walk before it tries to run in areas where it doesn't have much expertise. What he expects they will do though is buy some white elephant as is reported by Inside Croydon in their neck of the woods.
Mr Mustard doesn't plan to enter the cheese rolling competition preferring to buy his at Waitrose. The first prize is the cheese weighing 6 or 7lb, the second prize is £10 and the third prize is £5. Lots of info here.
Some large companies have entered for the One Barnet £1bn competition but the course is starting to look a little steep and entrants are starting to worry about damaged reputations and if the prize is worth the candle. On that topic Mr Mustard has a message for you, BT, Capita and EC Harris (no-one else left in the running is there?) that he will be checking your invoices every single month for the entire life of the contract. He will be vetting every single item, doubtless as a double act with Mr Reasonable, and making sure that the client side at Barnet Council do the jobs they are paid for and penalise every single contract breach. You will probably wish you had never bid and won. Stop and think now before you go on. Also remember how incompetent Barnet Council are and how what you supply will be that much more difficult to achieve than what a well run council can manage.
These contracts are complex and Barnet Council haven't even managed to stick to timetable despite being overrun with supposed expert (definitely expensive) consultants to do all the hard work whilst the senior officers struggle on at the same time with business as usual and don't manage to do either properly.
Here is a recent message from Craig Cooper, the unCommercial Director (sorry Craig I have been a bit slow getting this one into print, had other more pressing items to deal with, bloggers have to prioritise as well you know)
From: Barbour, Helen - On Behalf Of Cooper, Craig
Sent: 21 June 2012 - 12:39
To:
Subject: New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) and Development and Regulatory Services (DRS) Project Timescales
Dear Colleague
As you will have read already in the fortnightly messages, the project teams have been working hard to finalise the NSCSO and DRS project timetables to make sure that both of these projects run smoothly in the final stages of transfer and that they don't both go live on the same day.
We have now had approval from Council Directors' Group on the new project timings and I would like to update you on what this means for you.
We have tried to set a realistic timetable with some level of flexibility and contingency built in which means we are confident we can work within these timescales. We have planned both projects to allow enough time for a thorough evaluation and a 12-week mobilisation period, to ensure a smooth handover to the new providers. Although the two mobilisation periods will overlap, we have agreed that NSCSO will go live slightly before DRS.
Here is the timetable for awarding the contract to the new provider, the mobilisation period and the final transfer date:
NSCSO
Week beginning 28 November meeting papers for Cabinet Resources Committee, with a recommendation of the preferred bidder for NSCSO, will be published on the council website. This means you will know who the evaluation team are recommending as the new provider. There will be staff briefings on the preferred bidder recommendation during this week.
Week beginning 6 December 2012 Cabinet Resources Committee will make the final decision on the new provider for NSCSO.
Week beginning 12 December 2012 the Overview and Scrutiny Committee will meet and following this, the letter to bidders informing them of the decision will be issued.
Week beginning 8 January 2013 mobilisation of staff will begin. This will include three-way meetings where the new provider will consult the unions on their proposed measures, staff briefings and one-to-one meetings with the new provider. We will tell you more about what the mobilisation period will entail at staff briefings in the autumn.
Week beginning 1 April 2013 all in-scope staff will transfer to the new provider
DRS
Week beginning 7 January 2013 meeting papers for Cabinet Resources Committee, with a recommendation of the preferred bidder for DRS, will be published on the council website. This means you will know who the evaluation team are recommending as the new provider. There will be staff briefings on the preferred bidder recommendation during this week.
Week beginning 14 January 2013 Cabinet Resources Committee will make the final decision on the new provider for DRS.
Week beginning 21 January 2013 the Overview and Scrutiny Committee will meet and following this the letter to bidders informing them of the decision will be issued.
Week beginning 11 February 2013 mobilisation with staff will begin. This will include three-way meetings where the new provider will consult the unions on their proposed measures, staff briefings and one-to-one meetings with the new provider. We will tell you more about what the mobilisation period will entail at staff briefings in the autumn.
Week beginning 6 May 2013 in-scope staff will transfer to the new provider.
I hope that having some more clarity on the timescales is useful. We will continue to tell you as much as we can as early as we can, but I do appreciate that this is a period of uncertainty which can be extremely difficult for staff. As we get closer to the decision on the new providers, and to transfer, we will remind you of the key dates above and will continue to communicate with you through the email updates, staff group, staff briefings and the intranet.
If you do have any questions about the timescales, or anything else regarding the NSCSO or DRS projects, please send an email to onebarnet@barnet.gov.uk or speak to your manager or staff group representative.
I would also recommend all staff to attend one of the TUPE workshops and the Change and Me Workshop, if you haven't already done so.
Craig Cooper
Director of Commercial Services
London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South,
London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 7082
Mobile: 07979 973042
So the Commercial Director is pressing on with the bonkers idea of outsourcing two major chunks of work at more or less the same time instead of trying one and sitting back for 6 months to see how it goes before outsourcing the other chunk and also signing up for 10 years which will make getting out very hard (without paying a huge sum of money).
What Craig doesn't mention in his email is the horrific slippage that has occurred in the timetable. Let us go back to a chart which was produced in October 2010
This chart is part of a short report which cost £19,000 and you can see that mobilisation should have happened 6 months ago and will be at least a year behind. As Mr Reasonable has just pointed out that just means more fees for consultants.
Perhaps the officers don't know what they are doing.
Perhaps the expert consultants aren't so expert after all.
Perhaps the councillors don't have a grip on officers and what they are doing(no perhaps needed)
Perhaps we need to call a halt and get someone independent in to do a thorough cost-benefit analysis and see if any money is really going to be saved. Take a look at what has just happened in Bournemouth, 35% of the projected saving has been removed. In Barnet the savings are all lovely projections, will they come to pass? Mr Mustard doubts it.
Come on councillors, start poking in all the dark corners and challenging all of the figures. Apply some rigorous scrutiny before it is too late.
