Democratic deficit - Barnet Council

 

In the opinion of Mr Mustard councillors have gifted (delegated) far too much power to 'Officers' (the rather grand name for highly paid staff) and there is then far too little oversight of what they are up to. We get quarterly reports of the decisions if you know where on the website to look but that is of little use when the report for October 19 gets published in January 2021.

Decisions taken by councillors are public on the day they take them as the meetings are live streamed. Decisions by 'officers' take place in their home office (most probably) and if we are lucky we get to hear about them a few months later, or in the case of the Deputy Chief Executive 15 months later. That is to thumb your nose at Barnet residents. It is not democratic.

Should an 'officer' have taken a decision which a member of the public wishes to challenge and maybe take up with their local councillor, the horse is out the stable door and way out of sight. Nothing can be done about the decision, even if it was the worst decision in the world.

If a resident wishes to pursue a judicial review ('JR') the Court is going to be unimpressed. The general rule (and there is a lot of case law on this, not to forget Nash v Barnet which was out of time) is that a JR should be brought

(a) promptly; and

(b) in any event not later than 3 months after the grounds to make the claim first arose.

These DPR report should not be produced quarterly, they should be produced monthly and even better, every time a decision is taken by an 'officer' it should be the subject of an individual delegated powers report which is published the minute they sign the decision.

You can find the decisions of all 'officers' here always assuming they have bothered to produce them (cue some frantic work by the million pound PR department to get all officers up to date once they see Mr Mustard's tweet).

Just so you can see how much money is involved here is the final quarter of 2019 for the Deputy CEO alone:

Enjoy your lockdown reading.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard
 

Libraries - workshop on 1 December & please give generously

Here is an opportunity for you to give generously of your time and of your money.

Workshop advertised on Streetlife

A workshop to minimise the potential impact, why does Mr Mustard think that any suggestion of not making the cuts but instead raising council tax would not be acceptable feedback? Would Mr & Mrs Awkward please attend.

Fund raising for a Judicial Review

The CPZ charges campaign recently returned £100 to Mr Mustard as the case was won and fighting fund donations were returned so he has recycled that (as a permanent donation) into this equally worthy case.

Our ruling councillors have completely forgotten that what they are engaged in is public service and one of their mantras has been "deliver better services with less money" which certainly doesn't apply to the Library service (which is less money to deliver a far lesser service, in terms of hours and quality) and it doesn't apply to anything which includes the magic word, no, not 'please' but 'commissioning' which can have all the funds it needs, as Mr Reasonable has amply demonstrated and as this vacant post (anyone miss Craig Cooper?)

which the General Functions Committee will doubtless rubber stamp the extra money for, shows. 

The previous incumbent was Claire Symonds who worked closely with Chris Naylor before he moved to Barking & Dagenham, and guess what, Claire has been fortunate to get a new post there (What a waste of fees to Penna when Chris or Claire could simply have picked up the phone and done the deal for free). 

The salary merry-go-round really needs someone to put the brakes on it. Here is an idea about salaries Mr Mustard doesn't suppose that there is a cat in hell's chance of Andrew Travers showing such leadership. He is happy to be proven wrong.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Will preferential treatment stop at teachers?

The following email has just gone out to everyone on a council email database (probably gleaned from resident permit applications) which will be a separate story about a data breach in due course.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Barnet Council is currently consulting on introducing a schools parking permit scheme to help schools within the borough attract and retain staff. We would like to hear from you on the council’s proposals so please inform tell your school staff, parents and residents that this consultation is underway.

Reasons why the scheme is being proposed:

Barnet schools currently face a number of issues with the recruitment and retention of staff such as:

• we border inner London boroughs that offer higher weighting salaries

• neighbouring boroughs offer more help with housing and travel currently

• some neighbouring boroughs already offer schools parking permits .

Proposed parking permit overview.

The scheme the council is proposing would:

• seek to ensure residents can park as near to their home as possible by offering a maximum number of permits to a school based on the availability of parking spaces

• allow schools to determine which staff receives those parking permits

• Only allow schools that have a school travel plan in place to take part in the scheme.

Summary of proposed scheme

If a schools parking permit scheme was introduced it would allow schools that reside in a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) to offer parking permits to their staff.

The individual permits would only be valid:

• in particular streets and only where suitable capacity is available

• during term time

• Monday to Friday

To take part in the scheme the school would need to have a school travel plan in place.

To take part in the consultation visit:

https://engage.barnet.gov.uk/development-regulatory-services/schools-permit-consultation

The consultation is titled Barnet Council’s Schools Parking Permit Consultation and closes on 30 September 2015.

Barnet Council Schools Permit Consultation

Commissioning Group

Mr Mustard was aware that this consultation was coming as he was at the relevant committee meeting and this is what he said at it on this topic alone:

Thirdly, permits for school staff.

I am all in favour of maximising the usage of on-street car parking spaces. Adjacent to Ravenscroft Park in High Barnet there is 200m of residents parking which sits empty all day as houses are only on one side of the road. It could also offer free parking in the afternoons the same as on Hadley Common.

However, the idea of letting school staff (park) is one that needs to be treated with caution as even private profit making schools appear to be included. So a school employee could have a permit which would cost, I presume, the same amount as a resident's permit (with £40 being typical) but an employee of, say, a school stationery supplier, which might be in an adjacent building, would have to pay £525

I feel a judicial review coming on if you treat one group of employees more favourably the another.

Thank you.

and this is what a local business has to say on the matter:

Giving teachers permits would be absurd and completely to the detriment of the local economy. But then Barnet does not care for the local economy – it is something to be mined and exploited until it collapses.

Teachers are a net drain on the local economy. They tend to live outside the borough (if they did not then why permits?) and thus draw their salaries locally and spend them elsewhere.

Parking is a very scarce resource. Our local economy depends on shoppers to be able to park and to that end we have fought hard to re-align the parking in High Barnet and contain commuters to Fitzjohn Avenue car park. To fill the remaining places with teachers' cars would be an economic disaster. They say that it would only be allowed in designated CPZ areas but by doing that existing parking in those areas will be displaced. Many visitors to the High Street use the side streets as they simply will not embrace the current parking regime.

What makes teachers a special case? It would seem we cannot recruit into many areas of employment. What about doctors and nurses? And, hey, shop workers! In Maslow's hierarchy of needs education is way below food (but probably not sweets). We have to pay £525 for the privilege of parking our van that serves the people of Barnet. I rather think that WE should be given free permits!

All other occupations depend on employees commuting when they cannot employ from the local community. You have to ask why is this ‘perk’ necessary in the case of teachers. If their package is not attractive you have to look at remuneration.  To take a resource from somewhere else and give it away as a cheap (free as far as the council is concerned) solution is not the way to do things. The economic cost is simply being displaced – residents and businesses will bear the cost.

To argue that some other councils have implemented this ill-conceived policy as a reason for doing it in Barnet is simply a ridiculous argument – just because someone does something does not make it right.

This is positive discrimination towards one group (with delusions of grandeur) at the detriment of another group which is actually funding the economy.

If you don't want your road, near to a school, over-run with teachers' cars so that you can't get parked in the day, then you know what to do, complete the survey.

If, like Mr Mustard, you don't want your data going onto SurveyMonkey's US server then email Paul.Millard@Barnet.gov.uk for a paper copy to complete. Although you have until 30 September to get it in, the best day to act is today.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

An action packed Environment Committee on 11 June 15

Mr Mustard had not been to a meeting for a while so he decided to show his face and speak to the committee for 3 minutes. The running order of the meeting was changed so that the items Mr Mustard was speaking on came earlier although once there Mr Mustard usually stays for the whole meeting.

Cllr Dean Cohen is proposing that single yellow lines are not enforced on Bank Holidays. There seemed to be more debate about what is a bank (or public) holiday than about the idea of enforcement but after some faffing about the proposal that will be worked on by officers is to not enforce on a day on which the public don't expect enforcement as the pay and resident bays are not enforced on those days. Mr Mustard proposed this when policy was reviewed last July. He is pleased that it is at least being considered now. Traffic wardens could, in the meantime, be instructed to concentrate on other areas and all challenges against single yellow line enforcement on bank and public holidays could be accepted whilst the necessary legal steps are taken.

Cllr John Hart, on behalf of all 3 Mill Hill ward councillors, then proposed the contraction of the area and times of the Saracens Event Day zone. He posited that it could be removed but it is part of the planning permission and other councillors would have voted him down so he stuck to reducing the area size and the hours. Officers are against reducing the 6 hours as that is their way of ensuring the restricted time covers possibly differing kick off times so essentially we are in a situation where you can be penalised for parking after a match is over which is a nonsense brought about by administrative convenience. A plan will be worked up and brought back to the committee with a smaller number of restricted roads for councillors to vote upon.

Permits for school staff was next. You might want to read the proposals here. It is unsurprising that staff who work in schools were heavily in favour of being allowed to park in a residents CPZ. Mr Mustard thinks that residents will not be so keen and the residents in affected areas are to be consulted.

This is what Mr Mustard had to say to councillors on the subject:

I am all in favour of maximising the usage of on-street car parking spaces.

However, the idea of letting school staff is one that needs to be treated with caution as even private profit making schools appear to be included. So a school employee could have a permit which would cost, I presume, the same amount as a resident's permit (with £40 being typical) but an employee of, say, a school stationery supplier, which might be in an adjacent building would have to pay £525 (this is the annual cost of a permit for a business)

I feel a judicial review coming on if you treat one group of employees more favourably than another.

HB public law have noted Mr Mustard's concerns.

Then we came to the meaty part of the meeting which will bring shedloads of money into the council's coffers mostly from yellow box junctions, is Mr Mustard's view, although the safety of schoolkids was, of course, put forward as the moral reason for having all these cameras.

Mr Mustard had his say, as follows:

I would like to say a few words on three topics, yellow box junctions, banned turns and permits for school staff.

Firstly, box junctions.

The words "Entering and stopping in a box junction when prohibited" have cost drivers in London millions of pounds.

If you are in moving traffic and see a yellow box junction approaching you are meant to stop before the yellow markings, watch the car in front cross the junction and clear it by 5 metres or so and then set off.

That is not how London traffic actually operates in the real world.

In the real world people keep driving if it looks like the exit will be clear by the time they reach it. If that goes wrong, they risk a £130 penalty.

Other London councils, like Hammersmith & Fulham, have created some fantastic money-spinners including the notorious money box junction where Bagleys Lane meets the New King's Rd, £2.7m in a year.

The yellow box exists to try and prevent junctions from becoming blocked which is an entirely reasonable policy. What is not reasonable is for councils to issue a PCN to someone who clears the junction but still has a metre of their car over-hanging the yellow box and causes no traffic disruption.

What I would like to suggest that Barnet should have as its policy is that PCN will only be issued for yellow box contraventions where the failure to leave the box clear hinders the other traffic flow, usually the road at right angles. Also, that yellow boxes should be designed to the minimum possible sizes and I suggest councillors take a look at the one outside Sainsburys in North Finchley as being an example of one that is oversized.

Secondly, banned turns.

Rather than issuing PCN for people turning right or left when they shouldn't, I think that the council should, as policy, engineer the roads such that banned turns become impossible to perform. After all you are trying to control traffic flow, not raise revenue. (thirdly is above)

Time will tell what happens.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Parking Consultation looks flawed, if not illegal

Barnet Council have carried out a parking consultation. Here are the questions &

answers to what methodology should be used to work out permit prices in the future:

which is a little hard to read so Mr Mustard has multiplied the sample groups by the percentages to give you real numbers, which are

so clearly, following the consultation, residents want a flat rate not a rate based upon vehicle emissions (on which they are already being taxed extra by Central Government if they have an inefficient car - road tax and petrol duty).

That though, isn't how consultations work in Barnet. Someone, whether it is a councillor or an officer is impossible to work out from outside the council, is hell bent on foisting an emissions based pricing structure upon us.

Here is what Officers (staff, except they seem to forget their role) are recommending to tonight's Environment Committee (do come along, Hendon Town Hall, 7pm) 

So because about 70% of respondents quite rightly and logically agreed that reducing air pollution was a laudable aim (and was the question put into the survey for the very purpose of bending the permit price structure to someones pre-determined idea?) Officers (staff) are recommending to councillors that they go with an emissions based pricing structure (Mr Mustard feels a Judicial Review coming on) which hopefully councillors will reject.

Where Mr Mustard thinks that the Officer's (staff member's) thinking is flawed is that the question about air pollution was at Q1 and the question about permit pricing was at Q10 so respondents already had air pollution in mind when answering Q10 as they had already been asked to think about it and so their choice was an informed choice.

This is how consultations are run in Barnet. If they don't give the right answer, the answers will be bent to fit the aim. A disgrace and possibly illegal.

The library consultation is now upon us. Expect a "yes" answer to the following actual question:

"A library service that makes knowledge and information easily accessible"

to be interpreted as, "local communities were delighted that with an unstaffed library opened by a pass they could visit the library at 4am if they so wished".

You have been warned. Read Mrs Angry of Broken Barnet on the subject of nonsultation.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

CPZ refunds coming soon

Manyana (beach)

Mr Mustard always thought the 8 weeks and everyone will be paid out promise was going to be hard to meet and since his claim was acknowledged on 5 August (one of the first to claim probably) he has heard diddly squat.

He is grateful to the friend who brought this Delegated Powers Report to his attention (are they not still numbered nowadays?)

Civica - Parking Refunds Contract Award by MisterMustard

Mr Mustard is well known for pulling officers up who break the rules and issue single supplier purchase order arrangements (they often forget the actual contract) but in this case he perfectly understands and agrees with the logic. In addition, the Civica proposed fee seems reasonable and they don't look like they have tried to abuse their monopolistic position.

Mr Mustard notes that of four officers mentioned on the front cover of the DPR, two are interims. He does hope we are soon going to have an absolute minimum of interims and consultants now that most of the "transformation" has been decided upon. Using the paragraph numbers of the report Mr Mustard has the following observations:

3.2 That would be the advertising done by the CPZ campaigners, BAPS, Bloggers and the LidDems in High Barnet (not sure who else). Mr Mustard hasn't seen anything from the council other than on the website which somebody who has moved out of borough is unlikely to look at. Have you had a permit renewal reminder in the last month? Did it have a note saying you might be due a refund? Do please comment below if it did.

3.3 If only the council had said this at the beginning "every effort will be made to contact them" i.e. residents who are due a refund.

5.2 If all 12,000 applications are made that will be a cost of about £7 per refund.

8.7 Mr Mustard doubts that all refunds will be made within 8 weeks of the decision not to contest the judgment, which was made on 2 August. Perhaps this means within 8 weeks of the DPR i.e within 8 weeks of 3 September?

This DPR did set Mr Mustard thinking. Civica will not have entered into a contract which could lose them money and so will doubtless have allowed for the worst case scenario that all 12,000 refund applications will be made. They are therefore confident that they can process a refund for less than £7. 

The council could ensure they get value for money by taking out advertisements in the 3 local papers (include the Ham & High as it has readers from Barnet) one in Barnet First (the odd person must actually read it) put a flyer in with every document from the parking department and NSL, a footnote on every email from the council (instead of that stupid one about saving the environment - Mr Mustard can decide for himself what he wants to print thank you very much) in the advertising hoardings around the borough and on the backs of buses. Traffic wardens could also put helpful leaflets on every car they pass which is sporting a CPZ permit.

The question that we then need to ask is at what cost they could process an application for a permit? There are documents to check so let us allow another £3 for the brief time that should take (a logbook say and a proof of address) and we have a cost to process a permit of £10. We are charged £40 for a permit so aren't they still being used for revenue raising?

I feel a judicial review coming on if the council vote for even an inflationary increase to the cost of a permit.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Not so fast Haringey Council

Haringey Council - re Barnet Parking - Briefing Note by MisterMustard

Mr Mustard hadn't had time to research other London Boroughs' CPZ charges in any great detail although it was in his mind and then he was prompted to do so by an envelope that plopped onto the mat at Mustard Mansions which contained a briefing note prepared by an (presumably legal, use of word impugned is the clue) officer (member of staff) for councillors at Haringey which tells them, in non-legal parlance, that everything is cushty in Haringey.

Mr Mustard begs to differ.

The document is above but the main points are that you can't use CPZ charges to raise revenue (this gets stretched by the officer to PCN income which was a revenue stream that was not tested in court. PCNs are issued under entirely different laws and the overuse of PCNs is a question for another day)

The officer then says that reports to Cabinet from 2010 to 2011 (both entire years? that isn't clear) have been scrutinised and show "supporting evidence" of an intention to stay within the law. That isn't the same as saying that the decisions were 100% within the law.

There is an irrelevant remark that the parking surplus only accounts for 25% of what it could be spent on. This is to follow the same failed argument as Mr Mustard heard in Court that residents in CPZs could be charged the entire spend for transport of the whole borough. Perhaps a lawyer for London Councils should have been in Court?

The council adopted an emissions based charging policy in 2007 and in 2011/12 (probably 1 April 2011 - Mr M has not checked) increased prices by between 25% and 66% (can you hear the klaxon sounding in Mr Mustard's head - it should be the same in the head of every Haringey councillor reading this report) which brought prices into line with other London boroughs (now given that London boroughs are so varied their prices should not be in line, those in Havering should be vastly different to those of Kensington & Chelsea). This was what Barnet inaccurately said about their own charges and they were found to be unlawful so that is rather a silly argument to use.

Mr Mustard will now impugn the charging decisions of Haringey Council using their own document.

A meeting of Cabinet on 16 November 2010 was asked to approve increases in parking charges. The introduction said:

Given the unique range of challenges faced by Local Government it is important to continually review service provision to ensure that service costs and charges are appropriate and will remain so.

The 2010 Parking Services charges' review (the first since important changes were introduced in 2007 and 2008) has been undertaken to assess whether Haringey's range of charges are appropriate and whether they are in line with neighbouring and other London boroughs.

The proposed changes included in this report aim to ensure that Haringey's charges remain in line with the London average.

So "the unique range of challenges" looks like an oblique way of saying Haringey are strapped for cash and need to put up prices. That has been the most challenging factor in the recent past for a local authority.

Making charges appropriate to Haringey and in-line with neighbouring boroughs (Camden and Enfield are somewhat dissimilar) and other (unspecified) London Boroughs is completely impossible. The only thing the Cabinet should have been doing was to make the charges appropriate to Haringey.

There is no valid traffic management reason to match the charges of Haringey to any other borough. Here are the charges for other boroughs. Barnet went up from 24th place to 6th and have now dropped back there.

In 2007 the council also introduced incrementally higher charges for second and subsequent permits. This policy, followed by other councils, also doesn't have a traffic management purpose. In Barnet the judicial review judgment says that 25% of the permits were for second and third vehicles (the maximum allowed in one household) and so the policy of increased charges for second and third vehicles at one address does not look like it has reduced the numbers of vehicles, it has simply led to increased income. Let us suppose that a household contains 3 adults (a couple and their adult offspring) who are all environmental health officers and they are all designated as essential car users for work purposes. They all need a car and so as they all share one address they have to pay extra which discriminates against them. This is because they have a valid business need for the 3 vehicles. If the policy was to charge extra for the second or third vehicle of one person, then the objective might be said to be achieved of managing demand for road space. There are also some roads where there is ample parking space, large detached houses with a park on the opposite side of the road for example and others, streets with small Victorian terraces on both sides with huge demand for space and the current charging policy makes no allowance for the actual demand which is supposedly being managed.

At para 4.6 this cabinet report said "the review has concluded that charges should be increased to a level which stays in line with increases (on average) which have been and will be introduced by neighbouring Boroughs and other Boroughs across London" which looks to Mr Mustard like charges set for reasons other than traffic management.

At para 6.1 regarding Resident Permit Holders. Since 2002 they received a financial subsidy from PCN income and the 2010 review has concluded this is a balance which cannot be maintained because PCN issues are declining and the consequent financial pressure that this decline creates in Haringey's parking accounts needs to be addressed. Oh dear, where to start. CPZs mean more PCNs get issued so the PCN income should be looked at together with permit income for each zone. How costs are allocated is not stated and Mr Mustard finds it hard to believe that a council cannot check a permit application and issue it for less than the current amount charged, being £21 / £53 / £106 or £159 according to vehicle emissions or engine size. Why isn't there a £21 permit for people with old tiny engined cars? (tariff here). PCN issue for parking goes up and down due to various factors. For the years ending 31 March they were as follows, to the nearest thousand:

2008   171,000
2009   170,000
2010   162,000
2011   151,000
2012   169,000

so they were down by 3% on previous years in November 10 when this report was issued but they soon shot back up again and so the justification for a permit price increase has gone.

Then the Chief Financial Officer comments at para 7.1

"The exact level of additional income generated will depend on usage levels but it is expected that the revised charges will address the base issues within the parking account and contribute towards the savings the Council will be required to deliver in future years". The bold emphasis by Mr Mustard could be regarded as the smoking gun in this report although it looks more like an arsenal of them (sorry, can't get a THFC reference in). Why the finance chief is commenting on a report about traffic management is an interesting question to which there is only one answer. It is all about the money. The base issue of the parking account for 2010-11 is that it had a surplus of £3,324,000 - isn't that sufficient?

So what should Haringey councillors be doing? Scrapping all existing charges and starting again. They should revisit the whole charging regime and make it cost neutral. They shouldn't discriminate on grounds of address or engine size or the amount of money they would like to make from the special parking account. A charge based upon length of car would probably be reasonable from a rationing viewpoint as kerb space is limited.

Haringey Council is not as Snow White as the officer's advice would have you believe. Ask probing questions councillors, earn your allowances.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard