Hold on a minute

Each month or so the Barnet Council parking department thin client side has a meeting with NSL, the enforcement contractor. The Internal Audit department has recently criticised the minutes as being insufficiently detailed, a view with which Mr Mustard concurs. He did wonder if it was because of him that the minutes were left a bit vague as he would pick up all the processing errors from the minutes and use them to get Appeals granted.

Mr Mustard has never thought that having a "thin" client side was a good idea. If you have a contractor you need to monitor them closely as otherwise it is possible they will take the wotsit and not perform in accordance with the contract.

NSL's performance at PATAS, the Parking & Traffic Appeals Services, has been lamentable at best and hilarious at worst and one adjudicator has simply said to Mr Mustard, after he gave one of their Evidence Packs a going over that led to a rapid cancellation of the PCN, "well, that is typical Barnet for you". Mr Mustard also sees Evidence Packs and the processing skills of other boroughs and NSL Barnet are certainly in the relegation play-offs.

In the pack of minutes for 2013 which Mr Mustard asked for in one of his nowadays rare Freedom of Information requests (only one official request this year with some other PCN representations wrongly being turned into FOI) was the following page which supposedly shows an average performance at PATAS (as your first argument in response to a PCN is an informal Challenge, the second in response to the Notice to Owner are your formal Representations and finally your third bite at the cherry is your Appeal to an adjudicator at PATAS).

If these statistics were correct this would be an acceptable level of performance.

DNC means Do not Contest and is when, even though the council might have turned down your informal challenge and your formal representations once they know that an independent adjudicator is going to look at the case that they think they will lose (or they have too many cases to prepare) and throw in the towel. What this tells you is that persistence pays. When the council tell you you were in the wrong, it doesn't mean that you were.The average London-wide DNC rate is 20% with the City topping the table at 40% and Enfield only giving up 7% of the time ( figures from 2012-13).

The won  / lost numbers are usually about the same so well done NSL, but 

Mr Mustard doesn't, based on many years of experience, trust statistics which help the party who produced them so he checked two days at random. Here is 17 December 12:

There were only 10 cases decided that day, not 24. Mr Mustard thought that was odd, so he checked another day, the 10 January 13, and here from the PATAS website, are the real numbers:

Mr Mustard sees nine Allowed Appeals (i.e. nine PCN were cancelled) and none were refused. Where those seven Refused Appeals got to that NSL are claiming is anybody's guess.

Mr Mustard thinks that the newly appointed Parking Manager will be looking much more closely at statistics from NSL from now on, especially as Mr Mustard will be looking over his shoulder at them. Mr Mustard does hope that no KPI payments were based upon false statistics.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

N.B. It is possible that Mr Mustard has got hold of the wrong end of the stick and that the date column when used by NSL is the date that they were notified of an Appeal and what the eventual outcome was (which would all be on differing dates) although those are much harder statistics to track.

Oh dear me Richard (Cornelius)

Blind man's bluff

Let's go back in time.

On 8 November 2012 Mr Mustard was in the audience at the One Barnet Question Time organised by the Barnet Alliance for Public Services

---

Sent: 09 November 2012 18:04

To: Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative

Subject: NSL now working (my ref #1401)

Dear Cllr Cornelius

Last night you said "NSL is generating savings now" (based on my manuscript notes but it will be on film)

You know how I like to armchair audit this sort of thing.

Please send me the figures which justify your claim. Please make sure this includes how much overtime has been paid to get them up to the expected level of PCN and the number of CEO (traffic wardens) now assigned to the contract as opposed to the number at contract start (number of posts not people in post) which I do believe has increased.

By the way, based upon what happens at PATAS (the independent adjudicator ) the contract still isn't going very well.

On Tuesday 6th November the hearings went as follows, and every single parking ticket was cancelled:

1. Allowed by Order of Adjudicator (this usually means no evidence filed by Barnet council)

2. TMO wrong.

3. No copy PCN filed.

4. Council failed to deal properly with correspondence.

5. By Order.

6. By Order.

7. Inadequate evidence from council.

8. By Order.

9. By Order

NSL are still not covering you in glory. Imagine this sort of mess in month 7 on DRS and NCSCO. Don't say later that I didn't warn you.

Thank you

Best regards

Mr Mustard

---

From: Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative

Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:34 PM

To: Mr Mustard

Subject: RE: NSL now working (my ref #1401)

I did say it whether its on film or not. I will get the info to back up .

regards

Richard

---

28 November 12

Dear Mr Cornelius

It is over 2 weeks since your email as below. Do you have the info now please.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

---

23 January 2013

Dear Mr Cornelius

Oh dear it seems that the simplest factual question takes 10 weeks to not be answered.

On what date will I have an answer please?

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

At this point Mr Mustard concluded that Richard didn't have any evidence to support his statement and waited for proof to come out of its own accord.

---

Mr Mustard has now obtained the minutes of meetings between NSL and the council thin client parking team for 2012/13. Here are some of the entries from the 23 November 12 meeting;

* Council raised concerns regarding RR Donnelley, as several issues arose concerning scanning, banking of cheques made out to Barnet and unallocated process.

* Council raised concerns regarding PATAS performance - NSL to provide full commentary and action plan on how performance will improve - NSL to ensure quality of appeal packs moving forward are of a high standard, NSL to arrange more training and visit to PATAS.

* Civil Enforcement Officer notes in relation to cases of where PCN handed to driver needs to be more robust as several cases lost at PATAS.

* Council advised NSL now had contract for 6 months, expect a turnaround in relation to how contract is performing.

---

So what do we see from this. On 8 November Richard Cornelius, the Leader of the council said the contract is making savings which was his way of saying this One Barnet contract is working but the same month it is clear that the contract has never performed as it should have done. Problems have not gone away either. There are more blog posts to follow.

Mr Mustard has been concerned for some time that councillors generally don't get into the nitty gritty of council functions and then vote in seconds on long, complex and important committee reports. This is a classic example of a lack of in-depth understanding.

Either Corny was bluffing, or ignorant or worse, that he was making a carefully worded statement (he only spoke about savings, not about performance and left the audience to equate the two) which could be construed as a lie (I don't think Corny is a liar but he certainly didn't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how well the contract was performing).

One Barnet isn't working.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

KPI target too hard to meet? then get an easier one

Key Performance Indicator 5 (KPI5) in the parking enforcement contract with NSL is the following:

The Service provider will be required to ensure that staff turnover shall not exceed an annual mean of 10% (A mean is an average). This will include all staff employed on the contract ...

Some variance is allowed, as the contract also says:

There is a tolerance level of 5% which is likely to be adjusted during the life of the Contract:

which Mr Mustard reads as up to 10.5% is allowed (not 10+5 = 15% as that would make a mockery of the target. The contract also requires monthly reports of staff in post at the end of each month.

Mr Mustard had asked to see the actual KPI measurements for the year to 31 March 13 as part of the annual audit process which invites the public to visit the council and look at paperwork. Mr Mustard discovered last June that there were no actual KPI measurements for 2012/13.

Mr Mustard doesn't think there is a hope in hell of NSL ever meeting this KPI although it didn't become part of the performance pay structure until month 13 which is May 13. The point of the KPI is to to try and get stability in the workforce which leads to better teamwork and a greater understanding of the client's needs and of Barnet's parking enforcement.

How long did NSL last before, it seems, they decided they wanted out of this KPI? Until 10 September 13. This is the note from the meeting:

Suggested replacing this KPI with one linked to PATAS performance. Redacted to offer proposal for new KPI.

If Mr Mustard was the contract manager the request (and the assumption is that NSL requested this change and not the council, as why would they?) would be rejected outright. NSL are supposedly the number 1 parking enforcement company (how bad the number 2 must be Mr Mustard can't begin to imagine) and are a large company who have sufficient market experience to know what type of contract they have freely entered into. Negotiation of a different KPI should have taken place during the tender process if this one didn't suit them.

The provision of paperwork on time and for all cases to PATAS forms part of KPI9 (Processing Services) or KPI 10 (Response services) which hilariously NSL reported no problems with meeting. Mr Mustard could provide dozens of cases where processing and/or responses have gone wrong.

Thus the only criteria he could see for measuring PATAS performance are the Appeal success rate or the percentage of PCN which are Appealed to PATAS and both measures make him feel uncomfortable.

Why?

Because the Appeal success rate is affected by many other factors such as the state of signs and lines or the fact that the Traffic Management Order is faulty thanks to someone in Highways or even which adjudicator hears a case.

If the percentage appealed to PATAS is used where does one set the bar? It needs to be at the level that used to prevail before NSL took over or at the average for London (excluding the City and TfL as they are special cases).

Best leave KPI5 as it is. Mr Mustard will remain vigilant on KPIs. Doubtless Capita will want to do the same if they have trouble meeting any of the KPI in their much larger contract.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL - out of order again

There is a safety net built into the PCN enforcement process to catch you if you don't receive the Notice to Owner or if the Notice of Rejection of Representations does not arrive.

The way it works is that the Traffic Enforcement Centre (part of Northampton County Court) agree that a batch of PCNs can be registered as debts and enforced as if they are county court judgments (although they don't count towards your credit rating).

Under Civil Procedure Rule & Practice Direction 75 this fact must be communicated to the debtor (i.e. the registered keeper of the vehicle) within 15 days of that batch being agreed (7 days in the contract with NSL, Mr Mustard thinks) i.e it must reach the debtor within 15 days thus allowance must be made for time in the postal system. The TEC keep a note of the deadline for each PCN which is 36 days after the date of their decision.

Barnet Council then send you a form TE3 Order for Recovery which tells you this. The TE3 has a date on the front by which you must file a form TE9 to return your PCN to the Notice to Owner stage (if you didn't receive the Notice to owner the first time) or have a PATAS hearing (if you didn't receive the Notice of Rejection). You get 21 days in which to file your form TE9 (by email is best).

(NSL have cut a big hole in the safety net by being slow to act. Here are the dates of a case which, thanks to the rejection of an in-time TE9 as being out-of-time, Mr Mustard got dragged into (luckily for the motorist concerned).

29 Jan 14: TEC agree debt registration 

13 Feb 14: Official deadline to issue TE3 Order for Recovery

28 Feb 14: TE3 issued

6 Mar 14: 36 days after debt registration = deadline for TE9

10 Mar 14: Witness statement TE9 filed (rejected as late)

21 Mar 14; Deadline for TE9 set by Barnet Council/NSL (incorrectly)

So what you say this is just a one-off? No, Mr Mustard had a case he was dealing with in November 13. Ah, so at least 2 cases then which would be 2% of the cases that Mr Mustard deals with in a year. Therefore, with 165,000 PCN issued annually we could expect there to be 330 such cases in a year. How many were there?

6,193 (let Mr Mustard repeat that)

6,193

yes, 6,193 not issued within 7 days at May 13 (since presumably 1 May 12 when the contract started).

So that is 6,193 PCN not processed in accordance with the contract or within the Civil Procedure Rules and thus illegally pursued.

We don't know how many went to bailiffs and were paid, completely illegally.

We don't know how many people paid up in fear, completely wrongly.

What we do know that the contract with NSL is a One Barnet contract.

We know that it is a disaster.

We know that we paid for a service we didn't get.

We do know that KPI.9 Processing Services has a zero tolerance for failure. Mr Mustard will be checking that this KPI has not been paid for in 2013/14 given that it has obviously been consistently failed (and 2012/13 was still being negotiated last time Mr Mustard looked).

So if the thin client side can't manage such a simple contract what hope is there for the contracts with Capita and Re:  (bloody stupid name for a joint venture)? Absolutely no chance at all that these much larger and more complicated contracts will:

a) perform

b) have contract terms that are properly enforced.

The only way to be 100% sure of what is going on in a department, is to run it in a hands-on style.

The NSL contract isn't working (this is not the only process failure).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

4/4/14
Amended by Mr Mustard to change the 15 days which he changed to 7 back to 15!

Why bother having KPI if you don't enforce them?

KPI review meeting in full swing

Sharp eyed readers will have noticed Barnet getting a mention in the Standard again yesterday in an article about targets for the issue of parking tickets. Barnet doesn't have an explicit target for an absolute number of PCN but the contract does include KPI (Key Performance Indicators) which are likely to drive up the number of PCNs issued, such as (these are extracts from the contract)

KPI.2 : effectiveness will be assessed by ... PCNs issued.

KPI.11 : The service provider will maintain....the industry average for the recovery of a PCN at £45 and work to increase the value of this recovery rate for the duration of this contract.

Mr Mustard raised objections to the Accounts of Barnet Council for both of these somewhat doubtful KPI to the external auditor Paul Hughes of Grant Thornton. His reply, which for Mr Mustard's four objections about parking, ran to 8 pages which actually said very little apart from some little gems hidden away, was that everything was cushty (Mr Mustard may be paraphrasing the champion pen twiddler's reply here, you'll doubtless be familiar with Mrs Angry's descriptions on the Broken Barnet blog of the high esteem in which the external auditor is held by Barnet's Bloggers) and that he wouldn't be doing anything, apart from giving us a hefty extra invoice (actually this last bit Mr Mustard gleaned from the agenda for the Audit Committee meeting of 28 January when Mr Mustard had a snooker team to captain, which won 7-5 since you are asking, and to be fair to Mr Hughes he is at some future date when everyone has forgotten what happened going to have a closer look in the council's records at what Mr Mustard had to say, although he'd probably be well advised to sub-contract it to Mr Mustard and his fellow bloggers to ensure a thorough job does actually get done).

Mr Mustard supposes we should be grateful. When it came to paying MetPro over a million pounds, there wasn't a contract. Was that something that the external auditor picked up during his audit? oh bless me no. Mrs Angry was the lead auditor that day with her army of armchair auditors all offering their assistance, advice and publicity. Well, at least with NSL Ltd there is a Contract. 

So why is Mr Mustard unhappy? Simples, because the Contract terms aren't being enforced.

The KPI are meant to be recorded every month. As part of his armchair audit, under the Audit Commission Act 1998, Mr Mustard asked to see actual KPI in July 13 for the previous year to March 13. The actual measurements were not available even though within the Contract they are clearly specified (despite NSL thinking they had yet to be agreed - the numpties) and accordingly each month has to be considered as not met. Therefore the "Bits" - bonus payments or deductions - had to be heading downwards to the floor and Mr Mustard calculated, & he is quite good at maths, that a refund of £137,343 was due to the council (on behalf of Mr Mustard and every other resident). Somehow he feels that if a bonus of that amount was due to NSL they wouldn't have wasted any time in submitting their invoice. This refund has not been made.

Let us now look quickly at the average recovery value of a PCN.

Year to 31 March 12, when Barnet Council ran the whole show:

Income / number of PCN issued
£7,227,652 / 134,801 = £53.61 average PCN income.
 

Year to 31 March 13, NSL were appointed on 1 May 12 (so 11 months of this year is theirs and their figures will have been boosted by the council handling the first month)

£5,834,877 / 165,569 = £35.24 average PCN income.

From this we can see that the income achievement of NSL (and Mr Mustard doesn't want PCN used as revenue raisers) is only 65.7% as good as the council's. Quite simply, their performance is mediocre (Mr Mustard is being polite here, Private Eye would say they are piss poor)

Now the bloggers have got sadly inured to council procurement being awful. Which cretin, or cretins, agrees a KPI for £45 when the current council performance is £53.61. So some complacement idiot is content with a KPI performance level that is 84% of the current performance. If the person who agreed this hasn't yet left the council please would they now do so now and don't put your hand out for a pay-off. The first rule of negotiation is that you don't give anything away for nothing.

What is also clear though is that at £35.24 NSL are performing at 78% of a woefully reduced expectation.

Clearly KPI.11 has not been met, ever.

If a KPI that measures incoming revenue isn't a revenue raising measure then Mr Mustard doesn't know what is (no matter how satisfied our apparently easily satisfied external auditor is).

The parts of the Paul Hughes letter that Mr Mustard did find interesting are these, thanks Paul: 

In appointing NSL Ltd, the Council had an expectation that recovery rates would improve so these figures do represent underperformance to date in recovery of PCNs.

There is a clear acknowledgement from the Council that management of the NSL contract has not been acceptable.

We are aware that remedial actions are being put in place by the Council, including a recent performance meeting with NSL, resulting in a high level performance plan.

the overpayment to NSL ... remains the subject of performance discussions with the contractor.

What Mr Mustard notes from the above remarks.

Once a contract is signed even if your performance is only 65% of what it ought to be, not much will happen.

The council is unable to properly manage outsourced Contracts, as the Famous Five Barnet Bloggers have been saying for ages.

Every blunder simply results in a "lessons will be learned" improvement plan. We had one after MetPro; it evidently hasn't worked; they are just a sop.

Some 10 months after the year end, and 22 months after the contract started, the contract terms have not been implemented. 

What is the point of having contract terms that the Council don't implement.

The wider picture

The NSL contract is a simple procurement of one service, parking enforcement.

Scale it up 40 times to the level of NSCSO (customer services) or DRS (development and regulatory services) which bundle together a myriad of services with many more KPI and it is clear that the council doesn't have the skill or the will, or both, to properly enforce the contracts that they sign.

The commissioning council is going to be an unmitigated disaster, no matter how much hot air is spouted by councillors in Hendon Town Hall. 

You councillors don't have the grasp of details that the bloggers have. 

You did pick this contractual failure up before Mr Mustard, didn't you? 

Silence.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

One Barnet isn't working

Fine words butter no parsnips

Before he gives you the bad news about One Barnet, Mr Mustard wants you to know that he isn't against the idea of outsourcing as he himself is a debt collector who provides an outsourced service. The difference between him and One Barnet is that he delivers what he promises and his income is directly related to his success rate. Mr Mustard was against One Barnet from the start as he didn't think the council had the capacity to procure what was needed ( the hapless Craig Cooper has left us but his legacy lingers) as he didn't think it provided the flexibility that was needed, a contract cannot provide for the unexpected, and as he didn't think the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) would be properly implemented or monitored and as the right to terminate at certain points in the contract were unlikely to be utilised as the capacity to provide the same service would not exist. You can disregard all of the Leader's fine words about how wonderful the world would be as mere blandishments designed to pour oil on troubled waters.

Sadly, in one of the first decent sized One Barnet projects to go live, Mr Mustard has been proved completely right in his doubts about the ability of the slim client side (Mr Mustard has no criticism of the individuals who are doing their best and are under the constant eye of Mr Mustard or his many moles, some of whom even Mr Mustard doesn't know the identity of) to properly scrutinise an outsourced provider at distance simply because they are under-resourced.

Now parking, as compared to the multifarious services taken over by Capita, is a walk in the park. All you have to do is wander about the borough and dish out parking tickets and then collect them. It is a discrete service i.e. it stands alone. What could be simpler? You can equate it to a sausage factory; meat, fat and rusk go in (Mr Mustard is vegetarian so not strong on sausage details) and sausages come out of the other end. This is what should happen to parking tickets. PCN go into the machine and money comes out of the other side.

NSL took over on 1 May 12 so we can broadly compare the years to 31 March 12 as being pre NSL and the year to 31 March 13 as being post NSL. How did they do?

Well, on the issue of PCN they couldn't have done better than a drunken sailor home on shore leave (Mr Mustard doesn't know where traffic wardens are recruited but if it is on the docks at Plymouth when a ship comes in he wouldn't be at all surprised)

Number of PCN	#	#
Year	11-12	12-13
Parking PCN	121,484	150,211
Bus Lane	13,317	15,358
Total	134,801	165,569
Increase		30,768
Percentage increase	23%

So since NSL took over there has been a whopping increase of 23% in the volume of PCN issued. Have you become 23% worse at parking since 1 May 12? No, Mr Mustard didn't think you had. So, put quite simply, NSL are out there from 7 in the morning until 11 at night issuing PCN like drunken sailors for marginal contraventions.

Have NSL managed to collect all of these extra PCN, or at least the same proportion of them as Barnet Council themselves did? Apparently not:

Income	£	£
Year	11-12	12-13
Parking PCN	6,492,115	5,003,385
Bus Lane	735,537	831,492
Total	7,227,652	5,834,877
Decrease		1,392,775
Percentage drop	19%

Now let us remind ourselves how much outsourcing to NSL was meant to save. The answer is to be found in the papers of the Cabinet Resources Committee meeting of 14 December 2011 which show that the 5 year contract was meant to save £2.95m over 5 years or £599,000 each year. So here we are after one year and we are losing twice as much as we are meant to be saving. 

Why haven't NSL been sacked when they fail to deliver so spectacularly? Well Richard Cornelius, what do you say to that?

Who should we blame for this mess? Well the councillors who were at CRC that night is a good place to start. The minutes show the councillors present to have been:

Cllr Daniel Thomas

Cllr Sachin Rajput

Cllr Richard Cornelius

Cllr Robert Rams

Cllr Andrew Harper

Cllr Brian Coleman

Shouldn't all of these councillors be playing merry hell that they have voted for something which hasn't been delivered? Yes. 

Are they doing so? No.

Are they up to the job of being councillors? Probably not, so vote them out at the next elections in May 14.

How does this translate into One Barnet generally? Well, if NSL can't manage a simple process like parking tickets there is no hope for Capita and complex compound procurements like NSCSO and DRS.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

From Vexatious to merely vexing - a journey - stage 1.

Vexatious: seeking only to annoy (that is from the dictionary; vexatious isn't actually defined in Freedom of Information legislation and Mr Mustard has unfortunately helped to formulate what it means. Doh!)

Vexed: Irritated, angered,(of a problem) difficult and much discussed, problematic.

It was Mrs Angry of Broken Barnet fame (currently to be found paddling in the sea off Brighton due to some meeting or other, Mr Mustard wouldn't know the details because it involves Politics with a big P which Mr Mustard simply doesn't have time for. Ooh, and La Bloggeuse was on the telly) who told Mr Mustard that he was only vexing not vexatious. (Yes, she did also tell him he had overdone the number of questions, as did two other people, but by then it was too late and Mr Mustard had the ICO's decision to deal with.)

Rather than spend hours preparing for a long, tedious and difficult hearing in front of the First Tier Tribunal at which Barnet Council would have instructed the best specialist barrister available (an uneven contest against a lay person) at which every rotten word he had ever written would have been dragged out of the blog and given an out-of-context airing, which the tribunal would probably have frowned upon, Mr Mustard negotiated a settlement with the Chief Operating Officer but more of that later. Before then, you need the scene to be set. 

What were those vexatious questions that Mr Mustard asked a year ago and caused such angst. These:

and these (two others were answered recently as they weren't vexatious after all, but by then Mr Mustard didn't really need the answers anyway)

So Mr Mustard thinks you will agree that these were not particularly taxing in terms of time and weren't likely to lead to Mr Mustard writing about an individual except in one case where the post was quite senior and that is allowed and the intention was to blog about the rapid turnover in personnel within the post and improper procurement that he wanted to write about, in any case.

So why did Mr Mustard ask these question? Answers follow the question numbers.

1.  In order to compare the numbers of tickets issued since NSL took over to when it was in-house. We now know from other reports that following NSL's appointment parking tickets have increased by 25%. Coincidence? Mr Mustard doesn't think so.

2.  The invoices supplied in response to a question didn't match the ones on the over £500 spending list.

3.  Asked for NSL's invoices each month so that the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) payments could be tracked.

4.  To confirm what Mr Mustard already knew that the answer was nil. A gross dereliction of duty and the cause of much trouble now that they are being sent off to bailiffs a year after the event.

5.  The council had just voted to start enforcing these moving traffic violations. There is a consultation ongoing about the location of new cctv cameras but some will be placed at these locations whatever the public says.

6.  So that costs of PayByPhone could be compared to the cost of cash collection from meters.

7.  To see what template wordings were in use.

8.  To get a feel for the likely success of an informal appeal and whether 100% of them were rejected.

9.  The minutes cannot have been sufficiently clear.

10.  Just to see what the plan was and whether it included longer hours, targeting particular offences etc.

11.  The parking department should produce an annual report and send it to the mayor. If they had done so this question would not have been necessary. The question was so that the trend of income could be looked at accurately.

12.  The circumstances around the appointment of the AD were murky to say the least.

13.  It was not produced in breach of legislation.

14.  This question was about the manner of serving to get a handle on the numbers affixed to vehicle or handed to driver or sent in the post.

15.  This was to see if proper procedures had been followed for a friend who had a PCN. It was won on review at PATAS.

16.  To see if NSL were doing that aspect of their job or just issuing PCN regardless.

17.  The TMO were given to NSL on a memory stick so it was a few minutes work for the council to provide these and then not have to deal with individual requests.

18.  In Woodside Grove there are CPZ bays across people's drives which is rather odd and an explanation would have been useful and appreciated.

19.  This question was asked on someone else's behalf. Next time they can ask their own.

20.  as for 3.

Do these questions strike you as particularly long, complicated, unreasonable, obsessive, difficult, excessive or anything else if all asked in one month or vexatious? Put your view in the comment box below.

The second part of the story will follow soon although Mr Mustard does have to spend some time looking at the 2,000+ page Capita contract for Customer services (NSCSO) which Mr Reasonable asked for and Mr Mustard didn't as he hasn't asked a question of Barnet Council (hello to Governance in TfL, Haringey, Harrow and Islington where he has) since 12 July (which was a request for the locations & numbers of PayByPhone bays which must be in a spreadsheet somewhere: Answer - vexatious!) and he is now free to ask on Parking, Parking Tickets and CPZ's but hasn't. 

Ironically if he had asked for the NSCSO contract, a multi-million pound decade long and controversial outsourcing deal, that would not have been rejected out of hand as being vexatious (it would have been declined on the grounds of future publication which has now happened). Funny old world!

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Second objection to Accounts - One Barnet implications

It seems that the External Audit of local authorities relies so much on trust these days (not like the old days where everything was checked and reconciled within an inch of its life) that a mere 6 figure overcharge by a supplier doesn't appear on the radar of external auditors, nor the internal ones come to that.

Fortunately armchair auditors don't sleep much and they spot stuff that is wrong and raise it with the external auditor who will probably find a convenient carpet to sweep it under, although Mr Mustard would be delighted to see Mr Paul Hughes prove him wrong. Here is Mr Mustard attempting to save council tax payers a collective £137,343


23 July 2013

Mr P Hughes
Grant Thornton
Melton St
London
NW1 2EP




Dear Mr Hughes

The London Borough of Barnet
Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2013
Second Notice of Objection

I refer to the parking enforcement contract with NSL. It contains KPI that lead to a number of "bit" payments each and every month. There is a chart which explains the way in which the bits work included in the contract. Put simply the KPI payment, or deduction, is, after the first two months, never static. The bits start at +2 in months 1 & 2 to allow time for the contract to settle down and then month 2 performance provides the basis of payment in month 3. If targets are achieved then payment goes up one bit, if not, it comes down one bit. It never stays the same unless it is at +6 or -6 bits.

If bits fall below zero, then 2 bits are deducted each month going down to -6 at the worst.

I asked to see the actual KPI measurements for the entire period. I have been informed in an email from Mark Taylor that NSL have not met its KPI targets, and bits must therefore reduce. There was a deduction of one bit for one month which proves what I say but after that the matter has not been pursued. This is wilful misconduct and the council have overpaid the contract value by £137,343 (in round pounds) according to my attached calculations which should be the object of consideration by you under section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998.

A copy of this Notice of Objection has been sent to Mr C Naylor and to Cllr Monroe Palmer, Baron Palmer of Child's Hill, OBE, FCA.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

Now there are implications for One Barnet contracts with Crapita. This NSL contract is tiny compared to NSCSO & DRS and relatively simple to manage. Scale up this lack of management and the failure to hold the contractor to account when 25 times as much money is involved and you would be looking at a loss to council tax payers of more like £3million, which would wipe out lots of those juicy aspirational savings and be a real loss to boot. 

This is why Mr Mustard is opposed to the big One Barnet contracts (and the parking one due to loss of control). It is because the council management simply don't have the ability in procurement or commissioning, the vision, the flexibility, the manpower, the organisational skills, the desire or the tenacity (unlike those pesky bloggers) to properly manage and enforce the contracts that they have signed.

NSL is our very own Serco / G4S mess.

Mr Mustard fully expects a mention in the 2013 Armchair Auditor Awards (oh no, they don't exist as we work for free and don't have council tax payers money to pour down the drain on self aggrandising vanity awards nights out in Park Lane; a pint in the Black Horse it is then, much more fun).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Surely not?

Mr Mustard is still trying to get answers from Barnet Council under the Audit Commission Act which allows as follows:

If you wish to inspect the council's accounts, which are to be audited and any books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them, arrangements will be made for you to view them within the council's premises.

We are of course dealing with the year to 31 March 13.

Mr Mustard is struggling to get answers.

He has asked to see the contracts for bailiffs for parking tickets. He is told "legal say no" but no further explanation is yet forthcoming. The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has been informed.

He has asked to see the actual KPI for NSL's parking enforcement contract. The holy grail will turn up before those are issued. Do they exist?

He has been told there was no bailiff income at Barnet Council, in respect of PCN, between 1 April 12 and 31 March 2013.

If this is true then it is an utter disgrace that Barnet Council failed to properly collect parking ticket revenue that was properly owing. However, Mr Mustard does not think it is true.

Please settle the question by sending Mr Mustard proof that you paid a bailiff for a parking ticket from Barnet Council between 1 April 12 and 31 March 13. Send proof of payment to mrmustard@zoho.com Thank you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Target fixation

KPI2

Now Mr Mustard has heard several times an assurance that there isn't a target for the number of parking tickets issued by NSL, most recently by Pam Wharfe, the interim Director with responsibility for parking, to the Budget & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

He was surprised therefore, when a local authority parking expert pointed out KPI2 to him. This says that the effectiveness of the contract will include the activity level of "PCNs issued". Now we know that the number of PCN fell when NSL took over and the reaction of the council hasn't been to accept that as a fact but rather to put together a "parking recovery plan" to get them back up to the target level. This shows that what matters to the council is the number of parking tickets issued because they rely on the income as an integral part of the budget.

They don't really want motorists to park properly at all times as that doesn't make any money.

Once Mr Mustard sees the parking recovery plan, you will see it.

Now this parking enforcement contract is a One Barnet contract. We are meant to believe that if the NSCSO contract has any failure in it, that Capita will be held to account.

What did the council do when NSL failed to deliver, did they look for compensation for some of the £1,200,000 that the Special Parking Account was short? No, Mr Mustard hears they paid for extra traffic wardens and they wrote the recovery plan. Of course what we don't know is in what ways the officers failed in the contract specification handover and that information they want to keep quiet. If compensation for failure cannot be obtained in a simple contract like parking, it certainly isn't going to be in an extremely complicated one like NSCSO.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NCSCO weekly message from Kari - 10 February

This message is a little dull but it contains some points worth commenting upon (in red)

 
From: Schroder, Johnathan On Behalf Of onebarnet ( isn't it One Barnet ? )
Sent: 10 February 2012
To: onebarnet
Subject: NSCSO Weekly Message


Dear colleague

Evaluation Outcomes

As you all know, we are now entering into a very important period for the NSCSO project. Last Monday (30 January) saw the project team meeting with the Leader and lead councillors to discuss the evaluation process, the evaluation scores, and the recommendations for the shortlisted bidders. Following this the report went to CDG (One Barnet Programme Board) on Monday and was approved. The next step is the report for Cabinet Resources Committee (CRC) on 28 February which is being prepared now. This sort of vital decision really should not be hidden away at a committee that even all councillors are not invited to.

Secondary school headteachers

Following my presentation to primary school headteachers, I presented at the Directors Briefing for secondary school headteachers last week.

There were lots of questions, and some were concerned that secondary schools had not participated in the meetings with bidders or the project team to date. The positive result of this was that at least one headteacher volunteered to attend the next schools stakeholder meeting on 13 March and others seemed interested in doing so too. This is good for the project because it means that the bidders will be able to better understand what schools need and expect in terms of the support services they purchase.

Business Case Briefings

The CRC paper will be published on the internet in the week of 20 February, which will also see a series of service by service briefings for staff confirming the names of the shortlisted bidders and explaining the business case for the project. These will be held on the below dates and times. You will be invited to the briefing by your AD or Head of Service, who will be presenting to you alongside Craig Cooper, Director of Commercial Services, and the Project Sponsor.

Monday 20 February, 9.30-10.30am – Schools ICT Team
Monday 20 February, 10.45-11.45am – Revenues and Benefits
Monday 20 February, 12noon-1pm – HR
Tuesday 21 February, 1.45-2.45pm – Customer Services
Tuesday 21 February, 3-4pm – Revs and Bens
Tuesday 21 February, 4.15-5.15pm – IS
Wednesday 22 February, 10-11am – Customer Services
Wednesday 22 February, 11.15am-12.15pm – Estates
Wednesday 22 February, 12.30-1.15pm – Procurement
Wednesday 22 February, 2-3pm – Finance
Wednesday 22 February, 3.45-4.45pm – Corporate Programmes

All staff are expected to attend, so if you cannot make your service event, please speak to your service lead.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the contract

Separate from that, staff from across the in-scope services have been meeting with myself and colleagues in the corporate performance team, to talk about what their KPIs should be when the strategic partner takes on the contract in 2013. KPIs are performance indicators that have payments attached to them, so that if the provider ever failed to hit a target, they would have to forfeit part of their payment. It's therefore really important that we choose the right set of targets. Now this is where Barnet Council have gone completely wrong. So they have entered into an expensive dialogue process to outsource a vital service and they should have set the KPIs at the very start and told the bidders that they were non-negotiable. I have seen one of the KPIs for customer services and it is pathetically easy to hit ( although Barnet Council can't hit it ). The providers are not going to put an appreciable portion of their fees at risk; it will just be a question of the size of the profit they make, not whether they make one at all. Look at the street lighting contract; the provider said the penalties that were being imposed were unsustainable and so the aspirations were reduced.

Your chance to meet the bidders during Competitive Dialogue 2 

Many of you will have heard from your colleagues who are part of the NSCSO staff group that there will be an opportunity to meet the bidders who are chosen to take part in the second stage of competitive dialogue with the council. The successful bidders, as mentioned above, will be confirmed at the CRC meeting on 28 February and we have set time aside in the last week or so of March for you to meet them.

During the first stage of dialogue, the companies involved were very keen to start meeting staff and introducing their companies to you.

Through the staff group, I am aware that staff are equally interested in meeting the bidders. I will keep you updated when more information becomes available about these days. Ask the bidder. Will you move my job to Croydon or Bangalore?

As ever, if any questions arise, especially out of the briefings taking place later this month, direct them to onebarnet@barnet.gov.uk and look out for updated content on the NSCSO section of the intranet over the next few weeks.

Kind regards

Kari

Kari Manovitch

Service Lead, New Support and Customer Service Organisation project, Commercial Services