Costs and consequences of a One Barnet Commissioning Council

Mr Mustard has permission to reproduce this report.

Barnet Commissioning Council FINAL

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If you don't have the time to read it all councillors just take a peek at page 7 "the consequences for Councillors" - you are going to be impotent once all these big One Barnet contracts are awarded and it is you who will have to take the flak for stuff that goes wrong and it will be a nightmare and expensive to fix. Have you checked how the parking contract with NSL is going? Accordingly to my lady friend Miss Feezance it is going badly, take a look here, NSL are not providing paperwork to PATAS. Perhaps you could have a look and let Mr Mustard know as that might be quicker than him waiting for an answer to his FOI request of 7 June 2012 (#1296 about NSL invoices & Key Performance Indicators for May 2012) which is now overdue.

Also take a look at page 18. Mr Mustard wrote to Cllr Dean Cohen today suggesting some simplification of the charges for parking permits and advocating the KISS principle (Keep it Simple Stupid). Didn't I hear you talking about that recently as well Cllr Hugh Rayner, but you were too coy to use the word stupid. Well, tell Mr Mustard, does that table look simple? No. It is bonkers for a council that can't manage to even issue purchase orders properly.

Look at the Leadership Matrix on page 19. Would you follow Nick Walkley into battle? Does he inspire you? Is he a great leader?

Don't you think councillors that it is time you stopped all this One Barnet nonsense, chucked out Agilisys and started to look at the nuts and bolts yourself?; there is about £9m worth of senior management who you could put to work. The devil is always in the detail. There is so much superfluous detail at Barnet Council it is impossible to see the wood for the trees.

Are you really in charge councillors? Don't answer that last question. It is too embarrassing for you.

In APSE isn't to your liking councillors might listen to what Conservative MP Liddell Grainger has to say about outsourcing in his neck of the woods

Somerset West and Sedgemoor talking about IBM and the Strategic partnership known as Southwest One. 

“The company has recorded chronic losses in every year of trading and has failed to do what its creators promised - namely save any significant public money. Instead it squandered cash on a computer system that still isn't working properly and continues to overcharge Somerset County Council and other "partners" for so-called services.

Somerset Council has now caved in to FoI requests and published the bids:

Supplier / Bid	Total cost over 10 years
BT Standard bid	£220.552M
BT Variant Bid	£248.055M
Capita Standard Bid	£256.671M
Capita Variant Bid	£267.687M
IBM Standard Bid	£253.820M
IBM Variant Bid	£253.820M

“BT came in almost £34 million cheaper than IBM on the standard bid - and very nearly £6 million cheaper on the "variant" bid - the projected cost of the grandiose extras the customer (Alan Jones) fancied. Capita's approach was to pitch ridiculously high, like a builder who doesn't really want the work at all. But the fascinating thing about this table of statistics is the IBM tactic. There is no difference whatsoever between their standard and variant bids. In other words IBM seemed to be prepared to keep the price the same whatever nutty bolt-on extras the customer wanted. Jones had asked for an "iconic" HQ for South West One, for example, to be built in Taunton. Needless to say IBM never provided it. They were promising the moon for the same price as an ordinary product.”

You can read his full article here

If it went wrong there, why would it go right in Barnet? and what is the backup plan? Every sensible company has a disaster recovery plan. 

In Barnet we are walking the high wire without a safety net.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Diary date - 7 July 2012

I'm not for sale

 Barnet Council Not for Sale Conference  

Saturday 7 July 2012.

Barnet UNISON in partnership with Barnet Alliance for Public Services are hosting a conference on the mass privatisation of Barnet council services this Saturday 7 July 12- 3 pm at the Greek Cypriot Centre, Britannia Road, North Finchley, London N12 9RU

The Council is attempting to become a Commissioning Council whereby it no longer delivers council services. In the last few months Barnet Council has already transferred the following staff and services out of the council to new employers

· Social Care services for adults with disabilities

· Housing Needs & Resources

· Parking services

· All of the Legal Department * (talks on the transfer of staff to Harrow Council are still ongoing)

By the end of May 2013 up to 70% of the council workforce will no longer be working for the Council.

The aim of the conference is to provide information about the scale of risk to the council tax payers of Barnet. The conference will be in two parts.

Part One speakers include:

Professor Dexter Whitfield European Services Strategy Unit (ESSU) recently published a report on the cost and consequences of the Commissioning Council.

Andy Mudd from the well-respected local government research body the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) published a report warning that over the past few years those at the north London Council involved in the awarding and managing of contracts to private contractors, have often ignored both council guidelines and UK competition law.

John Dix resident, one of the infamous Barnet Bloggers recently reported the Council has agreed another £10million be allocated to consultants to deliver the outsourcing One Barnet Programme

The second part of the meeting will include speakers from Aberdeen UNISON, and Edinburgh UNISON. Both of these councils recently decided not to go ahead with outsourcing after taking part in lengthy procurement discussions with a number of private sector contractors. A speaker from Sefton UNISON will talk about why Sefton Council decided to terminate their contract early with Capita Symonds. Capita Symonds is one of the Bidders for one the One Barnet projects.

John Burgess, Branch Secretary UNISON said “We are continuing to seek a meeting with councillors in particular the members of the Cabinet Committee regarding our concerns about the One Barnet Programme. We know from experience that once residents are made aware of One Barnet they are very concerned about the implications. This conference is just one part of a widespread community campaign to bring public scrutiny to the One Barnet experiment.”