Calling all Library Lovers

Dear Library Lover

Please join us to protest the cuts to our library service from 6:30 outside Hendon Town Hall on Tuesday 20th October. The Conservative administration in Barnet have a majority of only one so the result is not a foregone conclusion.

The recently published proposals, If implemented, will mean a terrible hollowing-out of our library service:

- The council is planning to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a system that makes it possible to enter libraries only if you have a card and PIN obtained in advance. Therefore, access will denied to all children under 16 unless accompanied by an adult (so, for example, 15-year-old students would not be allowed in to study after staff leave at, perhaps, 5 p.m..)  ‘Security’ will be provided by unmonitored CCTV. There will be no immediate assistance available for queries or research or for vulnerable or disabled people who might need other help. If you don't have a PIN, you will not be able to decide to spontaneously 'pop into' the library. There will be no provision of toilets or baby-changing facilities in the unstaffed libraries.

- 46% of the Library workforce will be sacked - the equivalent of 52 full time equivalent posts

- redundancy payments are expected to cost £1.5 million

- four libraries, Childs Hill, East Barnet, Mill Hill and South Friern will be run entirely by volunteers

- the cost of implementation, including redundancies, planning, reconfiguration of space and new tech for staff-less libraries is estimated to total around £6.56 million

- this is projected to give savings of just £2.77 million by 2019/20

- for the first time a late fee of 5p per day will be introduced on children’s and young people’s materials - a move likely to impact disproportionately on low income families

Full details of the council’s plan can be found here.

On Tuesday 20th October this proposal will be put to full council at Hendon Town Hall. Protesters will gather outside from 6:30pm, please join us to add your voice opposing these appalling cuts.

Directions:

Hendon Town Hall, The Burroughs, NW4 4AX. The 143, 183 and 326 buses stop at the town hall which is also 10 minutes walk from Hendon Central station on the Northern Line.

I look forward to meeting you there.

Polly Napper

Save Barnet Libraries

Grice's Maxims

Mr Mustard is a believer in lifelong learning - it's how long it will probably take him to learn the Ins and Outs of Barnet Council ( too much management In and not enough Out ? ).

Whilst researching his posting about Mr Grice, Mr Mustard came across Grice's Maxims and wondered if Mr Richard Grice and Mr Paul Grice could be related, but given the nature of the maxims that seems to be unlikely.

You can read them in full here. Gricean maxims

Here is a quick summary.

1 Maxim of Quality - Be truthful

- Do not say what you believe to be false

- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

2 Maxim of Quantity - Quantity of Information

- Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)

- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

3 Maxim of Relation - Relevance

- Be relevant

4 Maxim of Manner - Be clear 

- Avoid obscurity of expression

- Avoid ambiguity

- Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

- Be orderly.

It is clear to Mr Mustard that these maxims have never been heard of at Barnet Council. It would be good if these were incorporated into the rules of the Council.

Now let us turn back to our Mr Grice and his performance in front of the Business Management & Overview Scrutiny Committee on 11 July 2011.

A resident asked "where are the goalposts" when it came to a Big Society alternative library provision. Grice's answer: "At this point in time. Don't know. Need to talk to Councillors and discuss". So how can residents hit the target? they don't know what it is and neither do the Officers.

Mr Grice was then asked by Cllr Marshall ( good speech Councillor ) about the lease on Garden Suburb and about the way in which indirect costs were allocated across the libraries.

Mr Grice had to admit that there was still 5 years to run on the lease at £10,000 p.a. and that they had missed the possible break at September 11 as 6 months notice was required. £375,000 of running costs will supposedly be saved. Direct costs were attributed if possible but that others were on a flat cost basis i.e. each library was allocated the same amount. He will re-do this on a fairer basis ( ergo, the existing method of allocation is unfair ) ( and the resulting figure will almost certainly be less ). 

Cllr Turner then asked Mr Grice about the plans for the building on which the future rent would amount to £50,000. Mr Grice said he "will negotiate with the landlord" ( a bit late Mr Grice, you should have been doing that already & you are in a position of weakness. The landlord is not likely to simply give up a tenant in this financial climate ). Mr Grice then said "Will look at how the building might be used. No plan." Marvellous, no Plan A, no Plan B, nothing, 

Why do the Council pay this man £104,673 p.a. ? Mr Mustard likes value for money. He cannot see any here.

Cllr Rayner then stepped in. He said to Mr Grice that "The costing methodology must be correct. Please email the numbers". Mr Grice refuted that the figures were not robust. What tommyrot - earlier he said that some costs had been allocated on a flat cost basis which with the libraries being vastly different in size and staffing is not a fair way to allocate. Would anyone who has the revised numbers please email then to mrmustard@zoho.com

There was some waffle from Mr Grice about the move to the Arts Depot ( for which no terms have yet been agreed, no idea what the rent might be for example ) and that there would be a "merger over a period of time" Mr Mustard nearly wrote "mists of time" in his notes.

Cllr Rawlings then delivered a well aimed kicking to the waffle. "It is no use for users of Friern Barnet library to move Rhymetime to the ArtsDepot. You are missing the point. Stop pretending there is a utopian future." It had been a long meeting so this was a welcome piece of entertainment and accurate to boot.

Maxims complied with out of 4 by Mr Grice ? I think you know.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

How to save Friern Barnet Library ?

or, Big Society, Small Council ( the two must go together surely ? )

Mr Mustard went to the Business Management Overview & Scrutiny committee meeting on 11 July 2011. It was whilst Cllr. Rams was "unavoidably detained on business elsewhere" ( what is that a euphemism for ? ) and Officers ( i.e. employees ) were answering the impossible questions that Rams should have been failing to answer that an idea came to Mr Mustard about how to save Friern Barnet library and it is so easy.

The Officers who stepped forward to the committee table on 11 July 2011 were Richard Grice, the Assistant Director of Customer Services & Libraries and Tom Pike, Head of Libraries who Mr Mustard is told is a 'good guy'.

Now what sort of state is customer services in? An absolutely hopeless & chaotic state despite Mr Grice's efforts for at least 2 years.

Here is what Mr Grice said in December 2008 as reported in the Barnet Times. Please remember to come back after you have read the linked article.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/3972409.Delivery_of_services_is_still_unclear/

Here are some snippets from that article.

The man who holds in his hands the fate of Barnet’s public services admits he has no idea yet who will deliver them in the future, but has ruled out widespread privatisation.

Richard Grice faces the unenviable task of figuring out how to improve Barnet Council’s services while delivering budget cuts worth millions.

He added: “The report isn’t a mass outsourcing or privatisation of services."

Oh dear Mr Grice. Didn't Mr Mustard recently saw a report entitled "New Support & Customer Services Project: Business Case" which offered a basket of services for privatisation, including Customer Services. of which you are the Head.

So the conclusion that Mr Mustard draws is that we don't need you Mr Grice for 2 reasons:-

1   You have failed since 2008 to lick the department into shape.

2   The department is being out-sourced so you won't be needed to manage it anyway; have you asked non-stick what will happen to you after your department has gone?; there won't be any cushy little numbers left once 70% of the staff have been out-sourced. 70% of the management will surely have been chopped in the Barnet night of the long knives. Mr Mustard will have to put in an FOI request to find out the date to make sure he is home that day.

So your salary of £104,673 ( + pension +national insurance + other overheads of your post, say about £200,000 in total ) can be spent instead on the staff and overheads of Friern Barnet library.

Simples.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

It's the little details that count - & Barnet aren't getting them right

It's always the little things that let you down ( although in Barnet's case it will be the big things as well the route they are taking ). If you can't get the little stuff right what chance is there that you will manage the really important stuff. In the case of local government the things that residents see and notice are clean streets, dustbins being emptied, parks, libraries and the like.

Now the maintenance of gardens at libraries is contracted out. Mr Mustard went past a library recently and what was the sight that met his eye, some nice tulips or alliums coming up, well mown grass, tidy shrubs ? no, none of those. Mr Mustard got his camera out and these 3 photographs show you the library garden in all of its glory.

Mud Glorious Mud

A shrub and a weed

 Council in a Bind ( Weed )

So some contractor isn't doing much of a job and Mr Mustard has seen them at "work". They just hack everything down and then go away for a few months. 

But, much worse than this laziness is that the Contract must specify a certain level of service ( if not the purchasing department needs the sack ) or whoever monitors the work of the contractors isn't doing their job and they need a dig in the ribs to wake up and do what they are paid to do ( and best you get all of the library garden contractors doing some work as Mr Mustard will be out with his camera again in a month's time ).

So of course the thought that comes into the mind of Mr Mustard is if a simple task like tending gardens gets into such a mess what will happen to large and complex services ? An even bigger mess. 

Mr Mustard does not like having to pay for other people's messes. 

Councillors, please stop and think, are you really in charge of the Council and its One Barnet plans ?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard