Do Fixed Penalty Notices work?

Hundreds and thousands of Fixed Penalty Notices are being issued in the name of Barnet Council for littering, fly-tipping, dog fouling and fly posting. A 6 month trial started in July 2016 and has continued each month without a proper tendering of the contract in accordance with EU procurement law (imho).

The sums involved are large.

These are the values of paid and unpaid Fixed Penalty Notices for the first 4 months of 2018

 

The percentage paid column for April 18 will doubtless be up at the 50%+ level given more time for payments to be made.

The Environment Committee is meeting on Tuesday 5 June & Mr Reasonable has asked the council to tell him what income the council themselves have derived from the non-contract. Mr Mustard thinks the answer is nothing at all, as during the initial 6 month trial period NSL Ltd were allowed to keep all of the income & no-one at the council thought to renegotiate as time passed . That was a council employee playing a game of contract negotiation during which NSL had all aces and the employee had nothing as NSL have the data from other boroughs and so know how many FPNs they can issue per shift & what they cost, so naturally they wouldn't have agreed to the deal if they were going to lose money on it.

Since then the non-contract has been allowed to run on and eventually we might have a proper procurement exercised concluded.

In the meantime, did Barnet Council obtain best value? It doesn't look like it.

The EU procurement threshold, at which a contract should be tendered, is £181,302 p.a. Let's call it £15k a month. The first month in which £15k was paid was September 16 and it hasn't dropped below that since. The director in charge of street scene should have noticed this a year ago and acted. However, if all the money was going into NSL's pocket then it might not have been flagged up, although there are meant to have been monthly meetings about the progress of enforcement (Mr Mustard will do an FOI for the records).

Here are the monthly figures for the 22 months that the trial has been followed by out of contract enforcement action.

Mr Mustard thinks that the blunt instrument of a Fixed Penalty Notice does not deter, except the person who wouldn't dream of littering in the first place. This is because he thinks that over the last 2 years the amount of littering and fly-tipping in Barnet has increased and this may well be a consequence of reduced street cleaning and bin-emptying activity by the council. If the public realm looks less tidy, thanks to the council's reduced activity in that area, the public conclude that the council don't care and so why should they and down goes the litter and the dumped mattresses onto the pavement.

Amazingly the council only issued 4 FPNs for dog fouling (as in fouling by dogs that wasn't removed) and 8 for fly-posting. It looks like the target has been soft enforcement.

Mr Mustard has been contacted by two businesses who have proper arrangements with licensed waste carriers (one of them the council & the other Veolia) with one paying out £8,000 a year to ensure the proper disposal of their rubbish, who have been given FPNs for fly-tipping. The trouble with the FPNs is that unlike parking PCNs, which have a strict timetable and no additional costs for Appealing, if you want to dispute a FPN there is no formal mechanism or rules to do so (the system rather assumes guilt) and you have to wait until a summons to the Magistrates' Court arrives and then you need your solicitor together with the attendant time & expense and then somewhat summary justice is dispensed.

The committee meeting is on Tuesday, so if you want to ask any questions you need to email them in by 10am tomorrow. Mr Mustard is off to do that now.

Before he goes he will caution you against dropping a sweet wrapper or a cigarette butt or in fact anything at all and if you are a business don't let anyone you know re-use anything of yours without you first of all having removed anything which identifies the business as it will be assumed that a dumped box bearing your business name will have been dumped by you.

Mr Mustard suspects that this example is just the tip of the iceberg which was put into reasonable order after the MetPro scandal and is now back in turmoil.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Do you suppose the council is doing anything to find out why people dump, like asking the ones they have caught, and then doing anything to change behaviour? No, Mr Mustard doesn't think so either.

Echoes of MetPro - Procurement failings not cured

Mr Mustard does not like litter louts, injustice or incompetent councils. Sadly he lives in the London Borough of Barnet and thus he is exposed to three things he doesn't like, all of the time.

This will be a long blog so best put the kettle on & then settle down for a read.

Let's go back in time to 2011 when procurement at Barnet Council was a dog's dinner (nothing has changed).

Mrs Angry blogged extensively on the subject of MetPro, here is just one of her delights for the reader

Mr Mustard blogged in a less amusing manner on the procurement action plan, a plan which the wheels have fallen off, probably due to the numerous potholes in Barnet these days.

Let's move on 5 years.

On 8 March 16 the Environment Committee of Barnet Council approved the trial of streetscene enforcement:

On 25 July the 'Contract for services relating to a streetscene enforcement project' commenced:

 The Contract also contained the following clause:

 

and the following one:

a clause which does not appear to have been used. If it had been exercised, that would give NSL Ltd a valid contract up until 24 October 2017. If not, and no contract extension has been provided to Mr Mustard in response to his Freedom of Information request, then the contract to enforce expired on 24 January 2017.

On 8 November 2016 the Environment Committee received an update on the Streetscene Enforcement activity.

The Environment Committee noted the update. They also agreed to increase fly tipping penalties to £400. Littering penalties remained at £80 although the difference between littering & fly tipping is borderline. By September 16, 570 Fixed Penalty Notices had been issued, 15 in July, 138 in August and 419 in September 16, as staffing numbers increased. 564 of the FPNs were for littering. At that time, 52% of the FPNs had been paid, 85% of them at the discounted rate. 16 cases were going to the Magistrates' Court on 10 November.

On 15 March 2017 a further report went to the Environment Committee.

 which led to the following decision

The committee approved the procurement of a street scene enforcement contract with the view of an income shared model, without setting any parameters limiting the respective shares. That was not their best ever decision.

From the March 17 committee meeting

note the potential extension for evaluation purposes

So, Barnet Council paid all of the costs of setting up the trial. They then let NSL keep all of the penalty income. Genius.

This was profitable for NSL but cost the council four times as much as the profit which NSL made.

 

The trial is not contracted, at least not legally, until 31 March 17.

On 19 February 18, Mr Mustard asked, under Freedom of information legislation, for the current enforcement contract. He was sent the contract which started on 25 July 16, no contract extension, and was told that the 'full contract is currently out to tender'.

Mr Mustard has checked the Barnet Council procurement portal and did not find an opportunity on offer and the OJEU (The EU procurement portal) and he did not find an opportunity to bid there either. He questions the use of the word 'currently' as meaning, 'we might get round to this soon, especially now that you have shown an interest'.

In Mr Mustard's opinion, and he will defer to specialist local authority & procurement lawyers, in fact to any lawyer at all, no penalty charge issued since 24 January 2017 has been legal.

He questions how NSL Ltd, could legally issue a Fixed Penalty Notice for fly tipping to the business which he is assisting, in February 2018 as they don't have a contract to issue Fixed Penalty Notices?

In addition, the council knew that in September 16 the value of the Fixed Penalty Notices exceeded the value at which the contract should have been advertised under EU rules.

It appears to Mr Mustard that Barnet council have been playing fast & loose with procurement law & internal procedures since September 16 and that every Fixed Penalty Notice for littering, fly tipping & dog fouling etc. issued since 24 January 2017 in the name of Barnet Council, is invalid.

Over to the lawyers.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A joint statement from the Barnet Bloggers - Children at Risk: Time to take responsibility

Cllr Reuben Thompstone

"There are widespread and serious failures in the services provided to children and their families in Barnet. Inspectors identified a legacy of widespread poor practice and ongoing systemic failures and services that neither adequately ensure the safety, nor promote the welfare of children and young people”. 

Ofsted Inspection Report on Barnet Children’s Service July 2017 

Over nearly a decade of scrutiny by Barnet bloggers, we have investigated and reported the seemingly endless sequence of scandals, blunders, and political folly created by Barnet’s Conservative councillors. The incomprehensible tale of the MetPro fiasco, the disgraceful confiscation of travel passes for disabled residents, the cutting of vital respite care for children at Mapledown School, which cares for children with profound disabilities, the illegal CPZ parking charges, are only some of the many examples of administrative incompetence – and worse – that we have exposed and pursued.

In all this time, in response to all of these disastrous situations, not one Conservative member has taken responsibility for the failure in services to what are very often the most vulnerable members of our community.

No one could be more vulnerable than a child: especially a child in care, whose well being has become the responsibility of the local authority, standing as a corporate parent.

Yet now we see the emergence of a most damning report from OFSTED, one that slates the provision of care services in Barnet for such children: a report that should shame any local authority, and would – anywhere else but in Barnet. 

“The vast majority of care planning is ineffective. There is a lack of focus on measuring progress for children or their outcomes. When there is no progress, this is not re-evaluated or escalated effectively. This leads to drift and delay. This is particularly stark for a significant number of children who are victims of chronic long-term neglect and emotional abuse, who do not have the impact of this risk recognised, responded to or reduced, despite spending long periods subject to child protection planning … ”.

“Young people who go missing from care receive a poor service, because social workers do not find out enough about the risks to them. This means that young people who go missing are not always kept safe enough from dangers, such as gangs or adults sexually exploiting them”. 

In any circumstances where there has been proven wrongdoing, or a failure in standards, it is usually the case, in Barnet, that officers are held responsible, and those elected members tasked with the responsibility – and paid generous allowances for those duties – of overseeing the enforcement of their own policies remain distanced from the consequences of their actions. We believe that this is wrong, and that councillors should be held accountable.

In this case, we believe, the fault lies in a serious failure in leadership, oversight and scrutiny by the Children, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee, chaired by Conservative councillor Reuben Thompstone.

The same committee was responsible for the Mapledown cuts – later reversed, after protests from parents, and a public outcry; and was also the instrument of approval for the devastating programme of cuts to our library service, presented to residents as mere ‘refurbishment’, but which has seen the closure of children’s libraries, and the removal of access for under sixteen year olds from any library operating the newly unstaffed hours.

It seems to us that under this Conservative administration, children are seen not as our most precious asset, but an easy target for cuts, and the lowering of standards meant to ensure their protection, and wellbeing.

In 2014 Tory members approved a cost cutting restructuring of Family Services which has resulted in the use of agency social workers soaring from none in 2013, to £3.05 million per annum in 2016/17.

With the average agency social worker staying just 202 days, there has been a constant turnover of staff, and throughout this period, Children’s Services have been under constant pressure to meet the budget savings forecast.

We believe that pressure on budgets for local social workers responsible for ensuring the safety of young people has lead to the near destruction of the service, and a situation where there are simply not the resources to ensure vulnerable young people are given the life chances they deserve.

This cannot possibly be in the best interests of the children of this borough.

We therefore make the following suggestions:

1. That there must be a full open, transparent, and independent public inquiry into what went wrong.

2. This inquiry must include a forensic audit of all correspondence between the Conservative administration and officers, regarding Children’s Services, to ensure that political interference has not, and cannot in future, prejudice the standard of care.

3. This inquiry should be concluded prior to May 2018, to allow the people of Barnet to pass their own judgement on the administration.

4. We call for the resignation of the Councillor in charge of Children’s Services, Cllr Reuben Thompstone. 

Signed:

Derek Dishman (http://lbbspending.blogspot.co.uk/)

John Dix (http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/)

Theresa Musgrove (http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/)

Roger Tichborne (http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/)

---------------------------

Note:

This blog has been jointly written by the four Barnet bloggers in response to the recently released OFSTED report into Barnet Council childrens services.

If you receive a special responsibility allowance for chairing a committee then you need to take responsibility if it goes wrong. Mr Mustard

One Barnet: 'a brand that has served its purpose' - let's take back control of our democracy, say Barnet's bloggers

We have covered every faltering step of the course followed by the Tory councillors, from their first act, on being re-elected, and lecturing residents and staff on the stark economies necessitated by the demands of austerity, but voting themselves a big fat rise in their own allowances, closely followed by the MetPro scandal, a theme which set the tone for the next four years.

The MetPro affair involved the use by the Tory council of an illegally operating private security company, which barred residents from a council meeting, secretly filmed local bloggers and activists, had close contact with vulnerable children, and was being rewarded by casual but substantial payments, in the total absence of any contractual agreement.

Barnet’s bloggers subsequently revealed that far from being a single case of failure in proper regulation of procurement and contractual management, the council had thousands of legally non-compliant arrangements.

Local tax payers’ hard earned cash had been given away in these agreements, unquestioned: a real scandal, and on an unimaginably wide scale.

The next outrage we reported was perhaps one we should have foreseen: the silencing of dissent at all residents’ meetings, with enforced censorship rules, backed by a deliberate amendment to the local constitution, meaning no member of the public was allowed to criticise, or even refer to anything deemed to be ‘council policy’.

The reason for this soon became clear.

Barnet was to be privatised, with a massive outsourcing programme, from which an in-house solution was excluded because, we were told, we needed a large amount of capital investment from a commercial partner.

There had been no mention of these plans in the 2010 Conservative manifesto.

Despite the lack of mandate, the Tory administration pushed these plans through, at the behest of senior management and private consultants.

Needless to say, as well as failing to present these plans to residents at the time of election, there was no consultation over the privatisation: a serious breach of regulations, and one criticised in the High Court by Judge Underhill last year.

Another policy imposed by Barnet Tories that was brought to account in the High Court was the catastrophic parking policy, which overnight sent the borough’s high streets into fatal decline, and alienated vast sections of the Conservatives’ own natural electoral base.

The Barnet Conservative manifesto for the 2014 elections is even more enigmatic than the version they offered voters four years previously.

When asked by the Barnet Press why there was no mention of One Barnet leader Richard Cornelius declared that it is a brand that ‘has served its purpose’.

Indeed it has, but whose purpose, and for whose benefit?

Certainly not the residents and taxpayers of Barnet.

Already we have seen the real motives of Capita exposed by their attempts to begin the commercial exploitation of this borough in the form of the development of ‘memorialisation’ of the dead in Hendon Crematorium, and the grossly insensitive removal of benches commemorating loved ones in the grounds, taken away and dumped in a corner of the grounds.

It seems an apt metaphor for the exploitation of our borough, by private enterprise, at our expense, sanctioned by our Conservative councillors.

 

And we must ask - if the privatisation of our borough, and the sell off to Capita of our local services has been so successful, why are Barnet Tories not rejoicing in this fact, and sharing their sense of satisfaction with voters? Why are they being so evasive about the real plans that they intend to impose, should they be returned to office this coming week?

Is it because the One Barnet brand is now so toxic, it must be dropped, and forgotten, and voters duped into approving another Tory council whose agenda is unstated, but is clearly going to endorse the privatisation of council service and expand this policy wherever possible?

We have read this week of plans to privatise child protection services. There can be little doubt that if they are returned to office, without consulting residents, Barnet Tories will be likely to extend the process of privatisation to any other council function they care to delegate. And increased pressure to make massive savings will inevitably lead to cuts in services on a scale as yet unprecedented.

There will, of course, be no proposal to deprive themselves of the same level of allowance they still enjoy, despite the limited function they will retain, in a borough where our vital services will be run not for our benefit, with direct control by them, but by a private company, for profit, at our expense.

In the accompanying footage here, John Dix, blogger Mr Reasonable explains why the takeover by Capita of our council services presents such a threat to the wellbeing of our borough, and what the future will hold for all of us in Barnet, should the Conservative administration be re-elected this week.

 

The choice for voters on May 22nd is clear – vote Conservative, approve the delegation of control of your borough to private enterprise, and the shareholders of Capita – or take a stand, and begin to reclaim your democratic right to control your own destiny.

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Published, promoted and printed by Derek Dishman, 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet, EN5 on behalf of the famous four Barnet bloggers

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

....we are willing to pay any price....

http://hiddlesquotes.tumblr.com/

Executive summary:

It is impossible to get some people to follow the rules at Barnet Council, it is the law of the jungle when it comes to procurement. Senior management have failed.

Some background:

The council paid over £1m to an unlicensed security guard company (MetPro - ooh not typed that name for a while - a stink takes a long time to disperse) without a contract being in existence.

This led to the production of a Procurement Action Plan (Mr Mustard christened it PAP and pap it certainly is) which Nick Walkley presented to the Audit Committee on 16 June 2012.

Before he did so Mr Reasonable was able to speak for 5 minutes and one thing he said was "the management culture is flawed".

The soon to be ex CEO Nick Walkley said he was concerned that departments knew and did nothing (has anything changed since?).

The now mayor, Brian Schama, said that the council cannot rely on systems that compliance is done.

Andrew Travers said that he accepted that core processes are fundamental. He is the line manager of all contracts. He takes full responsibility for sorting it out. The action plan is to be implemented by September 11.

Mr Mustard sees from his 12 pages of longhand notes that later on in the meeting Nick Walkley said "have to change the culture" (you didn't manage it Nick and now you are on your bike) and he also spoke about "finishing what we started" (oops, One Barnet not finished).

Cllr Geoff Cooke said "we have to make the officers buy in".

Cllr (Lord) Monroe Palmer said "people too busy not doing their job".

The 6 September Audit Committee saw the arrival of Mick Stokes (he's already history) to present an update on the PAP and the traffic lights were all blue (closed) or green (on target). No blogger, who was present, thought the plan was satisfactory (whitewashed in blue & green is an unusual combo). The plan included the embedding of Contract Procedure Rules in information systems and monitoring routines. Instructions were issued to all relevant staff by email on 20 July 11 regarding new procedures and controls which will also be included within staff training.

At this meeting Mick Stokes told the committee that potential cavalier spend is restricted and constrained (did he leave because he found it wasn't?).

Monroe Palmer (he is so good, he really should be listened to more) said he "doesn't want to be bitten again" (by poor procurement controls).

On 26 October 2011 Mr Mustard put the cat amongst the pigeons by sending the following email to Pam Wharfe, the interim director of parking and other stuff.

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

Part 4 of the council's procedure rules says that for a contract with a value of £75,000 to £156,442

Request three(3) or more written competitive quotations but must have minimum 2 returned. Less than 2 bids returned then repeat competition.

Please can you tell me why you have signed DPR 1419 in breach of that very clear rule.

The Procurement Code of Practice says that a supplier should not get more than 25% of its business from the Council. What percentage of the turnover of R M Countryside Services Ltd emanates from Barnet Council?

---

On 9 November he wrote again

I note that the council has a 10 day target for replying to correspondence. I hoped that having raised such an important point, especially after the Procurement Action Plan was presented to the Audit Committee, that a reply would already have been received to my below email. I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

---

On 28 November, failing a response, he turned his enquiry into a complaint. 

This caused a reaction and he got a reply the next day, part of which was

I have reviewed the issues you have raised about this contract. I have thought carefully about the withdrawn tenders and I am content that officers still achieved value for money by using the term contractor who did competively (sic) bid for the work. My overriding duty is to secure value for money and the best available option for the council (5-1) and I think that officers had reasonably sought a good price for the work using a competitive process.

On 5 December Mr Mustard wrote again (why do the council think they can fob Mr Mustard off, he just keeps on going?)

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

You have repeated the supposed value for money for your actions which I have already discredited. You are in breach of the Constitution. This is what the council website says about the Constitution ( which includes the Contract Procedure Rules ).

"This Constitution sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people"

You are bound by the Constitution as otherwise there would be little point in its existence. On what grounds are you ignoring the rules and continuing with a contract that has not been lawfully made?

---

and the highly unsatisfactory response was:

I have nothing more to add.

Pam Wharfe

Interim Director Environment, Planning & Regeneration

You might be adding something later!

The final piece of background is the report of the Task & Finish Group on contract monitoring. It was presented to the Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 29 February 2012. Mr Mustard was in the public gallery.

Monroe (Mr Mustard is a big fan of Lord Palmer) agreed that more robust monitoring was needed. He also said that "people who place the orders disregard the rules" (proof to follow Monroe) and "officers simply do what they think is right" (even when it is wrong). He asked if the service areas were buying in? Monroe was worried about "people doing what they want" (bang on again).

The smoking gun

Mr Mustard asked on 27 April 2012 to see emails about the use of RM Countryside. He got his answer on 10 October 2012 (the longest 20 days ever). There were over 30 pages of emails. Mr Mustard showed you one yesterday and there are 3 more today. The other pages, not released by Mr Mustard, simply show in general the topsy turvy way in which goods are purchased in Pam Wharfe's directorate.

emails about paying any price for parking meter removal

Well look at that.

"Haven't heard back but we are willing to pay any price to have one or both of them start removing ASAP!"

Any price! Any at all, just choose a number and the council will pay it. That is Mr Mustard's money you are spending Barnet Council. If it is going to be wasted Mr Mustard can do it himself.

You can see some people trying to follow the rules. The Highways Manager knows that Pam Wharfe has asked Audit for advice. He also knew that Declan (his boss, the Assistant Director of Highways & Transport (a no. 2 to Pam Wharfe) was reviewing the RM FOI question. Now that was Mr Mustard's question and he should simply receive factual answers and not have his questions subjected to review meetings where risk is minimised.

The interim Parking Maintenance Manager knew that RM were up to their limit. They did not have a contract and had been given a purchase order for £30,000 both of which were rule breaches but at least he knew he had already gone far enough.

Other quotes were being sought but they were for more money. The net should have been cast wider.

The problem is that Cllr Brian Coleman, at that time the Cabinet Member with irresponsibility for parking, simply wanted meters gone and was asking for RM Countryside to be used. Mr Mustard does not have any proof that Brian was told that they were over the spend level for RM (you can form your own conclusion on that point).

How could Pam Wharfe have written to Mr Mustard that she was content that her officers obtained value for money when they were prepared to pay any price? any price!

Yours frugally (unlike the council)

Mr Mustard

The Longstaff Letters

Just before the BAPS conference on 7 July I invited Cllr Longstaff and my other two ward councillors (why do we have three when two don't say much?) to attend as it is vital that public debate takes place about One Barnet if it is to be considered an open and transparent council (which it patently isn't currently).

Cllr Longstaff had a prior engagement and so couldn't attend and he went to the trouble of sending me his thoughts on the matter of One Barnet and it is good to see this one councillor, the Cabinet Member for Safety & Resident Engagement starting to engage in open debate ( his email to me of July 11 ago was much less engaging ) . I say open debate as he sanctioned the appearance of his response on the Robert Rams blog.

I have now had time to compose a response and all three emails are below. Perhaps this is the start of a proper debate on the £1bn One Barnet outsourcing plan. I have left my real name on the emails for once as One Barnet is a very real question.

---

From: Derek Dishman

Sent: 03 July 2012 10:39

To: Longstaff, Cllr David Conservative;

Prentice, Cllr Wendy Conservative;

Perry, Cllr Bridget Conservative

Subject: Conference on Saturday 7 July 12noon to 3pm

 

Dear Councillors

 

You represent me.

 

I am planning to attend the conference whose details follow and I am hoping that at least one of you will do the same, even if only for some of the time.

 

There is huge and growing opposition to the concept and execution of One Barnet (£10m put aside in next year's budget for transformation costs, Ten Million Pounds - what is going on; is value for money being obtained?) and as 3 of the backers of the scheme you need to know what it is that residents don't like rather than take decisions in a vacuum. I do hope to see at least one of you there.

 

Barnet Council Not For Sale

Barnet Unison & Barnet Alliance for Public Services Special Conference

Saturday 7 July 12-3, The Greek Cypriot Centre, 2 Britannia Road N12

 

I won't make the start but hopefully will see you later in the afternoon and you can perhaps explain to me, amongst other questions, why exporting jobs out of Barnet is such a good idea (the parking back office is now in Worthing) and why in-house bids have, so far, not been allowed.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Mr D R Dishman

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From: Longstaff, Cllr David Conservative

Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 8:37 AM

To: Derek Dishman; Prentice, Cllr Wendy  Conservative; Perry, Cllr Bridget Conservative

Subject: RE: Conference on Saturday 7 July 12noon to 3pm

Dear Mr Dishman,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

You're quite right in pointing out that I represent you, but I should point out that I also represent 15,000 other residents in High Barnet.

 

On Saturday I won't be attending the conference as I'll be at a 60th Wedding Anniversary Party, which has been in my diary for quite some time.

 

On the points you raise:

The number of jobs 'exported' isn't clear cut. A substantial number of Barnet Council NLBP staff do not reside in the Borough. One might argue that they should, but that would be flouting several laws and limiting our choice of candidates.

 

When you say 'in-house' bids, do you mean a management buyout or do you mean re-organisation of the internal structure to compete with the outside companies? Would the in-house bid be for the whole of an entity (like DRS) or part of an entity? Would an in-house bid, of whatever kind, have the necessary financial back-up?

 

As for good ideas: Balancing the budget is a good idea. As a debt collector you must know the perils and heartache that come from unsustainable debt. Ask the Labour representatives, especially former Labour MP, Andrew Dismore, why Labour didn't keep public expenditure inline with tax revenue. Ask Unison why they didn't lobby the government as spending spiralled out of control. Surely someone in the Labour Party or Unison must have realised there are terrible consequences associated with debts accrued to maintain Revenue expenditure? The nation now spends about as much on interest payments as it does on the NHS!

 

Getting the best possible value for all Council Tax payers is a good idea.

 

A relentless drive for efficiency is a good idea.

 

Keeping the Council Tax increases to zero or less than inflation is a good idea. Approximately 80% of Barnet Council expenditure is met through Government funding. The financial consequences of not meeting Government targets are substantial. Several hundred pounds would have had to be added to each Council Tax bill in 2010, followed by inflationary + increases in 2011 and 2012 to maintain services at 2010 levels. The demand for statutory services (1300 extra primary school places in the last three years) is increasing and would have outstripped those inflationary increases in Council Tax bills, see 'Graph of Doom'. Do you think pensioners and struggling families would welcome that? Would anyone welcome it (see K2 tax avoidance scheme)?

 

I would recommend reading http://tiny.cc/bewvgw and then reflect on possible options for Barnet. The Barnet Alliance for Public Services stated aim is no cuts to any Council services, Education, Welfare Services or staffing arrangements.

 

At the conference, with the Barnet Alliance for Public Services aims in mind, consider the 'Graph of Doom' scenario, work out the Council budget and future projections for the next fifteen years, produce a detailed alternative and present it.

 

On the 18th June you sent out an email championing Sir Terry Leahy on what he had to say about local government management. What you didn't mention is that in his new book, 'Management in 10 Words', he also advocates relentless change in the form of technological and methodological improvement.

 

He also goes on to say that organisations are terrible at confronting the truth. The Conservative administration at Barnet Council is confronting the truth regarding future demand on statutory services and the amount of money available to pay for it. We have produced a strategy to deal with the issues.

 

Regards,

Cllr. David Longstaff

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Since sending it I have tidied up a couple of minor grammatical errors in the next email.

Friday 20 July 2012 at 22:19

email sent to Longstaff, Perry & Prentice

Dear Councillor Longstaff

Thank you for your email of 5 July. It has taken me a little while to reply because I also had a party or two to go to and other pressing matters.

Export of jobs

The number of jobs exported on the NSL contract is clear. The parking back office is 25 people. Those jobs are no longer in Barnet but in Worthing as is clear from the address printed on parking tickets, the council website and from the answer to Cllr Jack Cohen's question at full council a little while ago. I do know that EU law prevents the council from specifying where the work is to be carried out and that is one of the disadvantages of the way in which you have chosen to carry out the tendering exercise. If an in-house bid had been allowed then it would almost certainly have been the case that the business would have remained within the borough. There would be more Barnet people in work and spending their money at local businesses which helps the borough in general.

Current employee residential locations

I have noticed that the more senior management travel huge distances to work at Barnet Council. I don't know the situation for junior staff except for the ones I happen to know personally who are local. There are disadvantages for the council of employing people from further away. During bad weather and transport strikes those people are less able to make it into the office. Always assuming that you have two equal candidates it makes sense to employ the one who lives nearer. It is the policy that I followed from the early eighties when I was a credit manager at a business in N11 and for 20 years in my own office in High Barnet. Staff who have to travel in from places like Peterborough and Southampton are not going to be as perky as those who have caught a local bus to work. The council has had a parking space problem at NLBP; that also would have been alleviated by having more local employees who could walk, cycle or use the bus.

In-house bids

I have no fixed view on the form that an in-house bid could have taken. What I do know is that for parking enforcement, Customer Services (NSCSO) and Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) the only option that has been presented has been to out-source. Staff were never allowed a chance to compete. This limitation was foolish. One usually finds that the staff actually doing the job know more about the way in which the department runs than the management do. If they had been allowed to bid they could have presented an alternative costing against which to measure the bids of BT, Capita or EC Harris. The way in which services have been bundled together in the cases of NSCSO and DRS are by their very structure impossible for the staff to bid against as they bundle together a large number of disparate services across directorates which make absolutely no sense from a business standpoint. They are also going to lead to double handling of enquiries. Is your enquiry about council tax a level 1 or a level 4 enquiry? The customer does not know. They will get in touch with either Revs & Bens or Customer Services and may well want the other one.

As an example of senior management knowing less than their staff I cite Bill Murphy the town hall tax dodging Assistant Director of Customer Services and Libraries. He told Lord Palmer, at the last Audit Committee that people could telephone Customer Services to contest a parking ticket. Absolute codswallop. Any appeal has to be in writing to a Worthing address or completed on-line on the council website.

Currently the staff are very unhappy. One has said to me that he objects to being treated like a commodity. If you had allowed an in-house bid on a level playing field and the in-house bid came in 5% higher and so did not win at least the staff would feel happy that they had received a fair hearing and accept the loss with good grace "The better man won on the day". Instead they feel betrayed. Is it any wonder that staff are leaving in droves to join other councils with less crackpot ideas than One Barnet.

As to financial backup, if the services had been split up into smaller bundles then each one would need less funding and this would be available to small companies with a guaranteed income stream as they would have. Thanks to quantitative easing there is a glut of money available for small businesses to borrow.

Balancing the budget

I agree that everyone must live within their means. I am not a member of the Labour party. I do not propose to ask Mr Dismore anything at all unless it relates to his role as my assembly member. I voted for him because he wasn't Brian Coleman (I am sure that does not need any further explanation).

Unison

I am not a member of a union. I cannot speak for Unison. I do know that John Burgess wants to have a dialogue with the leader about One Barnet, but somehow Richard Cornelius cannot seem to set a diary date.

Value for money and efficiency

I agree that obtaining the best value for money for council tax payers is a good idea. MetPro's services were procured without proper procedures being followed. When finally the council was forced to stop using them because of our scrutiny and the fact they also went bust, and the council managed to trade with a phoenix company, the contract was let and Blue 9 were better value. The history of procurement at Barnet Council is not a happy one. The pricing problem with MetPro (leaving aside the CRB & SIA problems) was that their price was not tested against the competition. In the case of One Barnet projects the prices are only coming from large private sector companies. The value for money should be established by working out the true costs of the department or section concerned and then testing it against an in-house bid, a joint venture with one or more other local authorities, a public-private partnership and an ALMO and then you would have a true cost-benefit analysis. Two multi-nationals competing are not likely to enter a fight to the death for the business. I expect that the same bidders keep meeting at many local authorities and may be quite friendly with one another and not inclined to cut-throat competition (without suggesting that any illegal collusion is occurring you understand). The staff move around a finite number of large companies such as Capita, BT and iMpower and the council employs senior management who have previously worked for these companies or have moved on to work for them. It isn't open and transparent. The declarations of interest by senior officers on the NSCSO and DRS contracts are feebly worded, issued rather late on in the project and not sufficiently numerous.

Efficiency: Have you enquired how NSL are doing on the parking contract? I have been following the success and failure rate at PATAS ( Parking and Traffic Appeals Service ) and despite it now being more than 11 weeks since they took over the paperwork that is necessary to argue the council's case is still not arriving at PATAS in the vast majority of cases. I have written a blog post about that here.

Imagine you had a clean sheet and were creating an organisation to provide services like bin collection, parking control, recycling, social care, schools, parks, street lighting, libraries etc to local residents. Would you create an organisation that had:

63 policy makers, people who put themselves forward and who don't have to have any qualifications to do the job and who get £1.2m between them. Some of them are powerless as the 63 are organised in tribes and the tribe with less numbers gets left in the cold.

95 senior management to carry out the policies who are collectively paid £9.5m (see GFC item 6 on 23 April 2012)

A firm of consultants ( Agilisys/iMpower ) paid £2.1m (in the year ended March 12 per the over £500 spending lists)

A number of Boards: so far I have found Barnet Partnership Board which meets twice a year and 6 other Boards which meet 6 times a year. There may be others.

Now I would think that you could all happily talk amongst yourselves for the whole year, be very busy in meetings and not achieve much, don't you agree?

No-one with any sense would organise municipal functions that way. I think you were at the meeting of Cabinet on 17 July when the Leader himself complained about the chart at Appendix 1 of the report on safeguarding children. He wanted simpler charts and presumably simpler structures. There is bags of room for a ruthless drive for efficiency as it would be hard to imagine a less efficient structure than the current one.  Your fellow councillor Hugh Rayner has also suggested the KISS principle; Keep It Simple Stupid and it is one of the most sensible things he has ever said.

Council Tax increases in the range of zero to inflation

I half agree with you, not the freeze but the 2.5% increase. I know that central government were adding extra grants to councils who froze council tax for the last 2 years but not all councils were convinced it was a good idea. I was not. Holding prices down artificially will end up with a sudden large increase which people will find harder to budget for. It doesn't hurt the poorest in society as they receive benefits which will take account of the increase. I would much rather pay a 2.5% increase each year (per the BBC website inflation is 2.4 to 2.8% at the moment depending on whether you refer to RPI or CPI ) than three lots of 0% and one of 10% (and it was the extreme increase in car parking permit prices of 150% which set me off down the road to blogging - blame Brian Coleman and his colleagues of the time who failed to rain in his policy excesses). I do of course expect my money to be wisely spent and I don't think it is. I see from the Finance & Business Planning Process for 2013 to 2016 report presented to cabinet on 17 July that increases of 2.5% are planned for the entire period. Now all that remains is to spend it in the right way.

The awfully named "Graph of Doom"

The head of Age UK in Barnet asked the Leader not to use that phrase as it denigrates the elderly who still have a lot to contribute but I do know which graph you mean (she said the phrase was deeply inappropriate and offensive).

Here is the content of an email I sent to another blogger at the time.

It is the most stupid graph I have even seen.

Even the journalist says

The graph should not be taken too literally: by making no provision for Barnet's anticipated rise in income through regeneration schemes, for instance, it overstates the bleakness of the outlook.

and here is my comment from the Guardian website

The horribly named graph of doom ignores many parameters. Use your commonsense; income stagnant for the next 20 years, how unrealistic is that?

There is an important debate to be had and the increasing cost of care is going to escalate due to demographics but this chart should have come with a health warning. The council themselves say it was to stimulate debate; a pity that a health warning was not applied to the slide at the time (please do that to future non-factual slides Barnet Council)

Now that the council has decided to increase council tax by 2.5% for 3 consecutive years the graph will look markedly different.

The graph was used unaltered in the Finance & Business Planning Process for 2013 to 2016 report on 17 July and income is shown as static. The graph was out of date. I note the following at para 9.3.1

Modelling has been undertaken to understand the impact of growing demand on the council’s budget resulting from demographic change, taking into account a range of factors including population increase, inflation and likely legislative changes.

Well, the effect of inflation on income has not been taken into account. The effect of a future increase in the number of buildings in the borough has not been taken into account which will bring with it an increase in the population of council tax papers and hence more income.

As modelling goes this was pretty poor. I don't deny that there are increasing elderly and young and the demographic change is something that needs to be addressed. I am not in favour of steadily concreting over the borough and building rabbit hutch flats. I think the Leader said the same about flats during the Boris Talks event at the Peel Centre.

Alternative budget

I would love to have the time to plough through every item of spending of Barnet Council but that is the first problem. I am already fairly fully occupied. Blogging occupies the spare time that I don't have, I have a very full social life and work 80% of a full week on the first business and also have a second business which sometimes occupies 40%. I wish it wasn't necessary to blog but until Barnet become the "boring Council" i.e. everything they do is tickety boo and sensible I will continue. The other problem is that the council hate giving me information. For proof, take a look at this blog post. Barnet Council wouldn't let me see the content of an invoice from London Councils that London Councils themselves supplied within 3 working hours of being asked.

Terry Leahy

I agree with relentless technological change and methodological improvement.

Pay-by-phone parking seems an obvious technological change to mention. I agree with it. Don't get too excited yet. I agree with it as a choice of payment. Its use will slowly increase with time as the number of mobile phone users increases. As a choice, along with credit card on the spot and cash and vouchers, it would have worked. Brian Coleman unfortunately went for the big bang approach, ripped out all parking meters and left almost no other possibility of paying for people who do not have a mobile phone or a bank card. This discriminated against the poor, the elderly, those with basic bank accounts, and those people who don't like their credit card details held by faceless corporations possibly in India and other countries far far away. My own credit card was recently cloned by someone abroad and it is a nuisance to sort out.

Barnet Council has some ridiculously out-of-date practices. How do they compile their statistics about customer correspondence standards. Well, the guide given to all staff recently, entitled "Think Customer", says on page 7, the page about email "make sure you log every email you receive using CRM / your department's email spreadsheet which has been created for this purpose".  Does a departmental spreadsheet and a Customer Relationship Management package together sound like the best methodological system to you because it certainly doesn't to me. If the council answered everything as fast as London Councils do it wouldn't need to measure the speed of response at all which would free up hundreds of hours of staff time. How many other administrative tasks does the council undertake that it could usefully scrap?

Confronting the truth!

Oh you do make me laugh. Truth is that three quarters of respondents were against parks being hired out for private parties. Result. They will be. The truth counts for nothing at Barnet Council.

Yours sincerely

Derek Dishman

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For contrast we need to take a look at the BetterBarnet website (you can use this website to email your 3 ward councillors directly and easily) where we will find the recent spartan responses of Cllr Maureen Braun to one of her constituents Adam Langleben who happens to be a keen member of the Labour party. If you are a member of the ruling conservative group of councillors who are trying to foist the £1bn One Barnet programme onto residents for the next 10 years then your defence of the programme needs to be more robust, especially to a Labour party member.

If it is the best thing for Barnet shouldn't every conservative councillor be out there at every opportunity telling residents how absolutely wonderful it is?

What does the fact that they don't and they haven't these last three years tell you about One Barnet. The silence speaks volumes.

If Mike Freer MP is reading this then could I just remind him that he promised me his explanation of One Barnet a few weeks ago and now that the parliamentary recess is upon us hopefully he will have time to write it.

Yours frugally

Derek Dishman aka Mr Mustard