Are we over-managed in Barnet?

Mr Mustard can't find the tweet now but @publicnaylor (Chris Naylor, the Chief Operating Officer) brought to his attention by re-tweeting, something about local government management and Mr Mustard tweeted back about the excessive number of levels of management. At this point the Guardian invited him to submit his view but he didn't have time as his world had gone mad following the Broadcast of Parking Mad. The final episode will be out on Thursday at 9pm on BBC1.

Unless he was dreaming (and they have been problematic recently, his new motorbike's brakes failed at 100mph approaching a T junction in France and a lady taxi driver in England took him down some country lanes that were even more pot-holed than the typical Barnet road and then she nudged a cyclist off his bike and when she got out to pick him up Mr Mustard saw her knickers were on the dashboard along with other clothes and yet she was fully clothed?)  he tweeted @publicnaylor that he could do with the latest organogram but it didn't arrive. Mr Mustard then went onto the council website and found that, for a change, it was up to date. Here is the latest staff organisational chart - Mr Mustard expected 2 or 3 pages but boy was he in for a shock.

Corporate Structure 2014, Barnet Council by MisterMustard

That rather brought Mr Mustard to a halt. Instead of a 2 or 3 page chart he found himself looking at 134 pages of corporate structure. They say that less is more but in Barnet Council management, more is more. The size of this management tree, actually more of a small forest, is ridiculous. There will be managers in this chart who don't come out of meetings from one month to the next and who add nothing to the borough apart from overhead.

We are over-managed beyond belief, we are providing a whole field of troughs for snouts to dip into. Don't talk to Mr Mustard about miserable miserly mean £45,000 cuts to Mapledown School and expect him to believe that every single person in the above structure chart is necessary and that none of them are overpaid. Someone with some management and organisational skills needs to take an axe to the chart and get chopping, hard and fast. Don't think for one moment that the above represent all of the management either as the Parking Manager and the Parking Process Manager are not listed and their equivalents in every other department (the people who actually do all of the work and get their hands dirty) are not listed.

Feel free to tweet this blog to the heavens.

Yours frugally (unlike the council who are spending our money like drunken sailors)

Mr Mustard

Spot the difference - executive version

Regular readers will remember we played this game with the MetPro brochures. Evidently non-stick Nick Walkley enjoyed the game as he has brought out his own version today. Here it is.

Version One given out in the morning.

click to enlarge: back to return

and then Version Two in the afternoon.

Eagle eyed readers will have spotted that the first letter contains the threat of an injunction being taken out in the High Court. 

Mr Mustard wonders if that will cost more than the 1/2 day strike itself? This is something he will look at once the dust settles.

Mr Mustard also wonders if it is an example of one of those super-injunctions that are kept secret but no-one told the Chief Executive that this was the case?

As well as the wasted costs of these letters being produced, and the fine job they will have done in turning undecided staff against One Barnet there are all the demented posters ( thank you Vicki for the description - see Vicki's blog here ) that have sprouted overnight all over the North London Business Park ( isn't it a breach of the lease to put posters on the walls? ) and at other council buildings. 

What vast sum has this ridiculous idea cost? and who is going to measure the effect on staff morale? Will it go up or down after a round robin message from the Chief Executive?  

Cllr. Coleman doesn't take note of round robin emails so why should the staff? 

Are posters a recognised management technique? Mr Mustard hears that the staff are spitting nails. Would you dear reader like to see these types of poster everywhere at your workplace? Would they stop you from striking?

click twice to enlarge; back to return

Mr Mustard usually confines himself to finance and democracy and so you will find further information on the blogs of the other famous five Barnet bloggers whose sites are listed on the right hand side of the page. Enjoy.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard