Barnet Council - the soap opera

If you want to leave now you will be forgiven. This will be a long and confusing posting. HR are so on top of their game that incorrect FOI answers get sent to Mr Mustard and it's only because he can see through the fog that eventually he gets the right answer (possibly). It all started with this DPR

1645 - Interim HR Management Structure

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Mr Mustard has the notion that DPR should make things clearer not more muddled but they often don't seem to. Here, without the truly boring bits, but leaving in the fairly boring bits, are the two versions of the FOI answer that he received:

 

I write further to my email of 12th July 2012 acknowledging your request for an internal review into the handling of your request for information.

You have requested an internal review of the Council’s response in relation to your request for:

I understand that Jacquie McGeachie is no longer the interim Assistant Director of HR and is working on some sort of special project for Nick Walkley.

Please tell me the nature of the special project and provide the job description for it.
Please tell me when and where it was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed. Is Ms McGeachie now on the payroll and if not through which company is she being paid?
Please tell me what salary scale applies or the daily rate paid to the agency.

I note that Sarah Murphy-Brookman is now the Assistant Director of HR (the report to the Remuneration Committee does not say if this is an interim post or not).
Is this a permanent posting or an interim one?
Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months, and if so in what way?
Please tell me when and where the post was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed.

Ms Murphy-Brookman previously filled the role of Head of Business Partnering and Change.
Please provide a copy of the job description for that post including the pay scale. Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months and if so in what way?
Please tell me who is now filling the post.
Please tell me if that person is now on the payroll under PAYE or are provided by an agency and which one.
If paid through an agency please tell me the daily rate.
If an employee paid under PAYE is the posting an interim or permanent one?
Please tell me when and where the post was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed.

This request was replied to on 24th May 2012, the response is copied in below, and you were provided with a copy of the Role Profile for the Head of Business Partnering and Reward. You found this response unsatisfactory and requested an Internal Review which we received on 30th June 2012.
The response you received was:
Please tell me the nature of the special project and provide the job description for it. An HR consultant role has been created, there is no Job Description.  Please refer to DPR no. 1645 for the detail. http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=123

Please tell me when and where it was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed. Is Ms McGeachie now on the payroll and if not through which company is she being paid?

The HR Consultant role was not advertised.
Ms McGeachie is not an employee of the London Borough of Barnet
The AD Consultant role has been filled on a temporary basis through Hays
Please tell me what salary scale applies or the daily rate paid to the agency.The DPR sets out the salary scale. The day rate paid to Hays is £575
I note that Sarah Murphy-Brookman is now the Assistant Director of HR (the report to the
Remuneration Committee does not say if this is an interim post or not).Is this a permanent posting or an interim one?This detail is set out in the DPR
Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months, and if so in what way?
This detail is set out in the DPR

Please tell me when and where the post was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed.

The post was not advertised
Ms Murphy-Brookman previously filled the role of Head of Business Partnering and Change.

Please provide a copy of the job description for that post including the pay scale. Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months and if so in what way?

A copy of the Job description is attached
The pay scale for this post is set out in the DPR
Please tell me who is now filling the post.The post has been filled on a temporary basis through Hays
Please tell me if that person is now on the payroll under PAYE or are provided by an agency and which one.

The post has been filled on a temporary basis through Hays

If paid through an agency please tell me the daily rate.The daily rate paid the to Hays is £532
If an employee paid under PAYE is the posting an interim or permanent one?Not applicable
Please tell me when and where the post was advertised and how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed.

The post was filled through HaysInternal Review

I have undertaken the Internal Review and the outcome of my review is set out below. I have processed this review request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I have looked at your original request and the answers provided. Whilst some of the information provided and answers given were correct, I do agree that some of the information provided to you did not directly answer some of the questions you had asked. Additionally, I am afraid that some of the answers to the questions were slightly incorrect, in that the answers given referred to a different post (the Head of Business Partnering and Reward) rather than that specifically asked about (the Head of Business Partnering and Change). This appears to have been caused by a genuine misunderstanding of the detail of your question. The Role Profile sent to you was similarly incorrect in that instead of it being for the Head of Business Partnering and Change it was for the Head of Business Partnering and Reward. I apologise for any inconvenience these errors may have caused.

The corrected answers and information to answer your FOIA request, with clarified numbering, are:
I understand that Jacquie McGeachie is no longer the interim Assistant Director of HR and is working on some sort of special project for Nick Walkley.

1. a) Please tell me the nature of the special project and b) provide the job description for it.

1 a) Ms McGeachie is assisting the Chief Executive with HR and associated issues arising in the current restructure of the council’s senior mangers (sic). If there was a recruitment drive we might get a better officer for less money?

1 b) There is no Job Description available, therefore the Council does not hold this information.

The post is a HR consultant role, which was has been created, under DPR no. 1645. This may be obtained at the following link:http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=123

2 a) Please tell me when and b) where it was advertised and c) how many candidates applied and how many were short-listed.

2 a), b), c) and d) The post was not advertised therefore the Council does not hold this information.

3 a) Is Ms McGeachie now on the payroll and b) if not through which company is she being paid?
3 a) Ms McGeachie is not a London Borough of Barnet employee and so is not on the Council’s payroll

3 b) Ms McGeachie is paid through Hays on a temporary basis. Where temporary means forever, 3+ years so far, since January 2009, and not a single penny of PAYE paid?
4 Please tell me a) what salary scale applies or b) the daily rate paid to the agency.
4 a) The salary scale is as set out in the DPR, in section 5 under HR Change Consultant

4 b) The day rate paid to Hays is £575

I note that Sarah Murphy-Brookman is now the Assistant Director of HR (the report to the Remuneration Committee does not say if this is an interim post or not).

5 Is this a permanent posting or an interim one?

5 This is an interim post, please see section 8.2 of the DPR which refers to an interim structure which will be reversed at outsourcing. At which point doubtless she will slip seamlessly into another role. She doesn't put interim in front of her title like others do. She also doesn't tax dodge as far as Mr Mustard is aware.

6 a) Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months, and b) if so in what way?
6 a) Yes.
6 b) It has been reduced from spinal column point (scp) range 247-250 to scp 243.

7 Please tell me a) when and b) where the post was advertised and c) how many candidates applied and d) how many were short-listed.

7 a), b), c) and d) The post was not advertised therefore the Council does not hold this information Aren't all posts meant to be advertised?

Ms Murphy-Brookman previously filled the role of Head of Business Partnering and Change.
 

8 Please provide a copy of the job description for that post including the pay scale.

8. The Role Profile for the Head of Business Partnering and Change can be found at this link. Please note that this post was previously called Head of Business Partnering and Employee Engagement, and when the role was changed to Head of Business Partnering and Change the title on the role profile was not similarly amended. Now you know it is wrong why not correct it? You have had a month and not done it. No-one cares about detail.

9 a)Has the pay scale of the post been changed in the last 12 months and b) if so in what way?
9 a) the pay scale for this post has not been changed as such, but as can been seen in the DPR (link provided above in 1 b)) this post has been temporarily suspended.

9 b) please see 9 a) above

10 Please tell me who is now filling the post.

10 As can be seen in the DPR the post has been temporarily suspended, so there is no person in post.

11 Please tell me if a) that person is now on the payroll under PAYE or b) are provided by an agency and c) which one.

11 a)b) and c) As can be seen in the DPR the post has been temporarily suspended, so there is no person in post, therefore the Council holds no information on this.

12 If paid through an agency please tell me the daily rate.

12 There is no person in post, therefore the Council holds no information on this.

13 If an employee paid under PAYE is the posting an interim or permanent one?

13 There is no person in post, therefore the Council holds no information on this.

14 Please tell me a) when and b) where the post was advertised and c) how many candidates applied and d) how many were short-listed.

14 a) b) c) and d) the post has not been advertised, therefore the council holds no information on this.

Is that all clear for you? There are 3 senior temporary posts which are in the DPR apart from the McGeachie one and for which Mr Mustard has sent for details which he will bring you in a few months time.

 

Just to show you what a soap opera these jobs are, with even the council getting confused by their own changes, in which they seem only to change the tile of the post and nothing substantive, you need to see this blog post so that you can see that HR have been tiddling about since at least 2009.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

HR Policy - Phone a friend

Who wants to be a millionaire? consultants to Barnet Council.

looks like a blogger reading an FOI answer

Mr Mustard enquired under FOI about Chas Dowden Solutions Ltd. They have already provided, via Huxley Associates, Mr Charles Dowden to work on HR policy and then all of a sudden more HR Policy advice is needed as is evidenced in the following email exchange:

Emails Sarah Murphy-Brookman / Chas Dowden Solutions Ltd - Barnet Council

Now what this email shows you is that "consultants" regard themselves to be so much a part of the staff that they write emails that are to the benefit of their Limited company using the Barnet Council email system.

This email also shows a remarkably casual way of procuring temporary help. Mr Mustard has seen many documents which talk about the Hays contract which acts as an umbrella for 100 or so employment agencies. It looks like Hays have been done out of some fees and that a new supplier has simply jumped onto the procurement system. There is a rule that more than 25% of a supplier's business should not come from Barnet Council. Chas Dowden Solutions Ltd certainly fail that test.

Item 2 shows that whilst Chas is busy billing £350 a day to Barnet Council he is at the same time going to supervise another consultant whom he has introduced and this supervision is included in the price. Hang on; doesn't that mean that Chas gets paid twice for the time he spends supervising Amanda?

We might as well look at what she was doing. 

Phase	Policies	Ready for LBB sign-off	Sent to Trade Unions
1	Capability Discipline Grievance	22rd October 2010	29th October 2010
2	Absence Management	5th November 2010	12th November 2010
3	Family Friendly Policies	19th November 2010	26th November 2010
4	Time-off	3' December 2010	10th December 2010
5	Equal Opportunities	17th December 2010	24th December 2010
Phase	Consultation		Implemented
1	1st November 2010	30th January 2011	7th February 2011
2	15th November 2010	13th February 2011	21st February 2011
3	29th November 2010	27th February 2011	7th March 2011
4	13th December 2010	20th March 2011	28th March 2011
5	29th December 2010	27th March 2011	1st April 2011
Phase 1	Capability Procedure
	III Health Capability Procedure
	Teaching Staff Ill Health Capability Procedure
	Headteachers Employed in Schools with Delegated Budgets (voluntary aided).
	Teachers Employed in Schools with Delegated Budgets
	Centrally Employed Staff Under Teachers Pay and Conditions
	Teachers Employed Centrally by the LEA
	Misconduct
	Headteachers Employed by the LBB in Schools with Delegated Budgets
	Teachers Employed in Schools with Delegated Budgets
	School Based APT&C and Manual Staff Employed in Schools with Delegated Budgets
	Teachers Employed by the LBB in a Central or Peripatetic Capacity
	Grievance
	Bullying and Harassment
	Grievance Procedure For School Based Staff
	Harassment/ Dignity at Work for Schools
Phase 2	Attendance management processes inc. Fit Notes
	Problem Drinking
	Sick leave and sick pay schemes
Phase 3	Maternity provisions
	Paternity Provisions
	Child Care
	Dependant
	Parental Leave
	Flexible Working
	Job Share
	Adoption
	Adoption and Long Term Fostering Provisions - Teachers
Phase 4	Time off arrangements
	Health and Safety Representatives
	Special Leave
	Trade Union Purposes
	Agreement on Facilities for Representatives of Recognised Teacher Organisations
Phase 5	Equal Opportunities
	Policy Statement
	Management and Staff Responsibilities
	The Employment of People with Disabilities
	Making Reasonable Adjustments for Employees
	Recommended additional work
	Phase 6
	4-28 Jan 2011
	- Identify "missing" policies
	- List all standard letters that need producing to support Phases 1-5.
	- Identify guidance / Desk Aids that are needed to support Phases 1-5.
	- Identify all existing policies that need re-branding.
	- Produce report which provides this information
	Resource needed:- 9 days
	Phase 7
	31 Jan— 25 Feb
	- Produce policies identified and agreed as "missing"
	- Submit for consultation with Trade Union as required.
	Resource needed:- 12 days
	Phase 8
	28 Feb - 1 April
	- Produce Employee handbook to an agreed format, subject to consultation.
	- All policies consistently formatted and branded
	Resource needed:- 12 days
	Phase 9
	4 April —3 June
	- Produce standard letters and Desk Aids for all policies as necessary
	- Support implementation of Phase 1-5 policies from 4 April.
	- Support the review of contracts and offer letters to align to Handbook and revised policies.
	Resource needed:­24 days

The documents arrived as pdfs when they were obviously once word documents (and really should have been excel documents) and this is part of the plan to make information harder to use as one witness to the Justice Committee on FOI remarked. Mr Mustard simply puts the pdfs through a conversion programme.

Phase 9 was not accepted.

Now Mr Mustard looked for the payments for this work. Phases 6-8 cost £7,425 and yet no payments were listed to Chas Dowden Solutions Ltd. Mr Mustard's theory is that the payments have been made directly to Amanda Mays and have been redacted as she is being treated as a self employed person.

There are two problems if that was the approach. 

The first is that the details of self employed business people should not be redacted and they frequently are at Barnet Council.

The second problem is that Amanda has been working under supervision and so she sounds like an employee. It will be a question for HM Revenue and Customs, when they get around to the PAYE compliance check at Barnet Council, as to whether Amanda should have been on the council payroll or if Chas Dowden Solutions Ltd should have deducted PAYE or if she was genuinely self-employed. Let us hope the income has been declared somewhere.

Mr Mustard asked to see the contract for the provision of these services. Here is the terrible answer:

For your information I have attached a copy of the previous contract which is set out across the 3 attached documents and relates to the provision of the services of Amanda Mays for 8 phases of work in relation to assistance on work on HR policies.

The 3 documents were the emails and the spreadsheets ( slightly changed in presentation but accurately copies ) which are repeated above.

So where is there a proper contact which ought to exist in order to comply with Rule 4.1.13 of the Contract Procedure Rules?

- to keep a register of contracts over £5,000, which (1) may be inspected by a member of the Council at at any time during office hours, and (2) will support the annual budget review.

Procurement in HR is not setting not a good example to other departments, now is it?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Jacquie McGeachie - post #3

Performance, or rather the lack of it. 

Every quarter each directorate scores itself (not likely to be too critical then are they?) on various measures, a number of which specifically relate to Human Resources ("HR").

Here is the report for the Deputy Chief Executive's Service, within which the HR function resides, for the quarter to 30 September 2011.

Barnet Council - Deputy Chief Executive's Sevice - performance overview q2 11-12

So HR is poor, at -3, despite Mrs McGeachie having been covering this post for 2 years. If she can't even get the managers in her own directorate to perform (only 39 out of 67 completed an absence report - why aren't these automated anyway?) then what chance for the other directorates. You can look at all 7 directorates' performance overviews here and Mr Mustard has helpfully compiled a league table of the Directorates' HR performances.

Barnet Council Q2. 2011-12 Human Resources Performance
Directorate	Staff #	HR rating
Commercial Services	148	-1
Children's Service	774	-2.5
Corporate Governance	74	-2.5
Deputy Chief Executive	326	-3
Environment, Planning & Regeneration	839	-4.5
Chief Executive	213	-4.5
Adult Social Care & Health	417	-5

Every single Directorate has HR problems (completely unrelated to One Barnet of course). Not one of them came up with a positive green score. 

Is £575 a day good value? it doesn't look like it.

All Barnet Council have to do is to find a local and suitably able HR expert & give 1 months notice under the Consultancy Agreement. The usual huge payoff that senior departees get doesn't apply to interims as they have no contractual entitlement to a payoff.

Mr Mustard thinks that 3 years of this particular interim is enough, given all the red ink.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

HR horrors

Mr Mustard has looked at the performance overviews for all seven directorates. 

What Mr Mustard has now noticed is that problems in HR are a recurring theme.

Mr Mustard has produced a table of the Human Resources Ratings, the number of active Employee Relations cases ( i.e. those where the council and the employee are not seeing eye to eye ) and the number of temporary staff provided by Hays. Here is the table.

	HR	ER	Hays
Adult Social Care	-5.5	5	38
Children's	-6.0	30	96
Environment, Planning & Regen	-5.5	46	117
Commercial Services	-4.0	5	15
Deputy Chief Executive	-5.5	5	71
Chief Executive	-5.5	6	19
Corporate Governance	-2.0	6	6
Totals	-34.0	103	362

This is absolutely shocking. Every single directorate has Human Resources problems.

There are 103 employees in some sort of wrangle with the council. The full head count of the council is 3178 and so 3% or 1 in 30 have a problem. That simply cannot be acceptable.

So 362 temps out of a headcount of 3,178 is 11.4% of the workforce or 1 in every 9 employees. They can't possibly learn enough about the council in a short-term stay to be as effective as a permanent employee.

Mr Mustard can't help but feel that having 362 temps from Hays is not the best way to have a cohesive, efficient and dedicated workforce. There are, of course, also other temps from other agencies or interims or contractors or people on fixed term contracts which all dilutes the effectiveness of the council. All of these temps have to be supported by permanent employees who have their own jobs to perform without wet-nursing a temp who might be gone next week. 

So what is the cause of the HR problem? Have a think about it during lunch or over the weekend.

Mr Mustard thinks that the following might be reasons, but you may have other, better ideas:-

Is it the decision to "maintain a flexible workforce"?

Is the corporate management team, from the Chief Executive down, simply not up to the job?

Is the head of HR, not herself a permanent employee on PAYE but paid through a Limited company ( Jacquie McGeachie HR Consulting Ltd ), despite being at Barnet since 2009, simply not up to the job? See the Mr Reasonable blog to see what she was paid last year alone.

Is the idea of outsourcing 2,700 jobs ( or however many it is, a big number anyway ) causing the staff to be unhappy and affecting their behaviour?

Is One Barnet distracting the management team from their day to day management role?

Whatever the cause, some radical changes to effect improvements are due. Barnet Council simply cannot go on as it is.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard