Bin there, not done that

 

For the last week Mr Mustard has been trying to get Barnet Council's twitter account to tell him how many bin lorries there are. The unwritten but self evident ethos of the twitter account is that Barnet Council only ever tweet good news. Consequently, it is to be inferred that the council have an inadequate number of bin lorries. That is a question which may get answered later but Mr Mustard wants to get on and blog about bins, although bingate may go on for some time, despite what the vlogger Richard Cornelius had to say on youtube.

Mr Mustard does like to get his facts right but if Barnet Council want to treat a simple statistic such as the number of bin lorries as a matter of state secrecy he will just have to estimate as best he can. A bin man (not ruling this out as a career choice for ladies but don't believe there are any currently acting as loaders or drivers) will possibly confirm the facts in the comments box below.

The correspondence with the Mayor of London included the statistic that 12 loaders could be saved who dealt with the food waste bins, one for each bin round, so we have 12 lorries for black bin collection (some bins have become grey with old age). The latest reorganisation, or shambles as it is known in homes across Barnet, elicited the additional fact that blue bin recycling rounds and black bin rounds are the same, so there must be 12 lorries for blue bin collection. It isn't so much the number of lorries as spare ones will be needed to cover for breakdowns, servicing and accidents etc. as the number of collection rounds which is important. 

Now to Mr Mustard's reckoning as to why the new system isn't working and will never work 100%.

If the above numbers are correct each crew is expected to collect:

359,000 bins a week, as per Richard above, which divided by 5 days

= 72,000 bins a day, which divided by 24 lorries

= 3,000 bins a day per team (lorry) with 2 loading

= 1,500 bins per person, who usually does 2 bins at a time (if the street layout permits)
= 750 repetitions in 7.5 hours

= 100 reps an hour or a pair of bins being rounded up, moved, tipped and returned to the property/pavement

A pair of bins being tipped every 36 seconds.

That does not look possible. The team I saw this week had a driver + 2 and more staff doesn't make much sense as only 2 bins can be tipped at the same time so you have two on the lorry with 2 more being picked up / returned at the same time.

Of course not all bins are put out every week but still, to expect that many collections day in and day out will lead to binman burnout.

Please rubbish my figures if they are wrong.

The article from Barnet First claism the changes are to make the service more efficient (not happened) effective (not happened) and economical (not happened either due to up to £20,000 a week of extra costs being incurred for 98% of a service).

Mr Mustard thinks, and the budget cuts dictate, that the changes were motivated entirely by the need to save money but the budget has been cut at the same time as the number of proeprties in barnet has increased. You can only ever stretch an elastic band so far before it breaks and that is the point we have reached with bins.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Festive refunds - thank you Mr Reasonable

Barnet Council once again excelled themselves in December when the awfully mean 2 hour free parking that was offered during the weekend of 22/23 December (and the 23rd was a Sunday when parking charges are rarely due) was not sufficiently advertised and motorists stumped up £9,000 in error.

This problem was picked up by the ever vigilante Mr Reasonable who cleverly asked a Freedom of Information question ( the same question would have been deemed vexatious if Mr Mustard had asked it ) to find out the extent of the fiasco which you can read about here.

In the local Barnet Times newspaper today, on page 2, you can read an article headed "Refunds over festive parking confusion" where confusion means "complete and utter shambles" and we are asked to believe that the council spotted this problem on the day and ordered immediate refunds. What they didn't order was Verrus, who run the hated pay-by-phone system, to stop taking money in and so now we have the council making 5,200 refunds when they could have stopped the payments coming in at all.

If you paid for parking on 22 or 23 December and have not been automatically refunded for the first 2 hours which were free, send an email to parking.clientteam@barnet.gov.uk and get your money back. 

If you received a parking ticket and had parked for less than 2 hours (which the council can't prove one way or the other as they only observe for a minute or two) then you are equally due a refund if you have paid. Apply for one, or for unpaid parking tickets send in an appeal, at barnet@nslservices.co.uk and send a copy to parking.clientteam@barnet.gov.uk to make sure the message gets through. Give them the parking ticket number (usually starts with AG) your vehicle registration and your name and address and the amount you would like to be refunded.

Have fun.

Please let Mr Mustard know (mrmustard@zoho.com ) if you hadn't been automatically refunded or if you encounter any problems with the council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard 

Appeal success figures crash

Readers may recall that Mr Mustard wrote about the fact that many appeals being taken to the third and final stage, an appeal to PATAS, were not being properly followed through. See this post from July.

Now we are only a week away from being 6 months into the contract with NSL and the teething troubles excuse is well and truly worn out. There is now no excuse for a parking firm not to be fully up to speed.

London Councils who run PATAS have put out the statistics for the year ended 31 March 2012, which you can find here. Ignore the spin about tickets being looked at more closely; the independent adjudicators make findings of fact.

Picking up the general figures first: 30,865 parking tickets cancelled out of 64,903 requests equals 48% cancelled.

Barnet's share of those were 841 parking tickets cancelled out of 1,322 requests which equals 64% cancelled. Barnet fared rather badly in the league table of London Boroughs. Only Tower Hamlets and Redbridge had marginally worse results. This suggests that Barnet have been following too mean a policy which we have certainly seen evidenced.

Since NSL took over the results have been in free fall. Here they are in a handy weekly digest.

Week	Motorist	Council
Starting	won	won
2 May	34	3
7 May	102	1
14 May	34	2
21 May	55	1
28 May	70	0
4 June	2	0
11 June	43	7
18 June	24	8
25 June	17	6
2 July	12	7
9 July	13	1
16 Jul	14	9
23 Jul	11	4
30 Jul	1	5
06 Aug	8	8
13 Aug	22	6
20 Aug	8	4
27 Aug	15	1
03 Sep	9	3
10 Sep	15	3
17 Sep	22	6
24 Sep	21	7
01 Oct	17	6
08 Oct	23	6
15 Oct	51	13
since NSL	406	36
Percentages	92%	8%

So the 64% has slipped to 92%. It makes Mr Mustard wonder if NSL management have simply decided not to bother about cases going to PATAS as they take up a lot of time and need someone who really understands parking to handle them and having got rid of the entire back office they are at somewhat of a loss?

What has this cost Barnet Council? The average parking ticket is worth £98. The cost of a PATAS appeal for Barnet Council is £46.73 so every PATAS loss costs £144.73

28% more of the cases than before the contract started are now being lost which so far in almost 6 months is 442 times 0.28 = 124 extra lost cases. At £144.73 a time that is £64,000 (to the nearest thousand) or £128,000 in a full year.

Wasn't this One Barnet contract going to save us £600,000 a year. It doesn't seem very likely to happen, now does it?

Mr Mustard does hope that these losses are being clawed back from NSL. When the next annual audit comes around Mr Mustard will be at the North London Business Park asking the difficult questions on behalf of all residents.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Agilisys contract - over £500,000

Here is the DPR which set Barnet Council down the path of using Agilisys and Impower (directors now include Max Wide) as the One Barnet overlords - Mr Mustard can't actually work out who is in charge of One Barnet - anyone want to tell him if it is the leader (the small L is deliberate), non-stick Nick Walkley the Chief Executive - too pre-occupied with the car park surely to have time for One Barnet? - or the consultants who stand to make a bundle (collective noun for a set of services to be outsourced?) 

DPR 1134 One Barnet Implementation

and the cost of this contract?

5.3 The cost of the Implementation Partner contract is assessed to be in excess of £500,000

This DPR has the name of Councillor Thomas on it as well as being the product of Craig Cooper. What do you suppose "in excess of £500,000 means?" £600k, £700k but certainly less than a million?

Here is what has been bunged at Agilisys and Impower ( all Impower payments go to Agilisys ) from 5 August 2010 to 31 October 2011 i.e. in 15 months.

Service Area	Type	Date	Ref.	£
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300520	8,244.50
Children's Service	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300525	3,980.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300530	10,800.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300531	43,152.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300536	14,550.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300539	33,050.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300541	34,057.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300544	17,891.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300545	5,149.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300546	7,350.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300549	10,450.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	05/04/2011	5000300550	6,750.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304891	837.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304890	1,144.50
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304893	1,225.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304902	1,350.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304892	5,282.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304908	7,250.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304900	10,599.00
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304909	11,836.50
Commercial Directorate	One Barnet	20/05/2011	5000304894	21,303.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	30/06/2011	5000309458	35,114.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/06/2011	5000309170	22,918.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/06/2011	5000309171	5,500.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/06/2011	5000309166	3,537.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/06/2011	5000309167	2,362.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	04/07/2011	5000309635	18,078.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	04/07/2011	5000309636	14,193.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/07/2011	5000312468	5,400.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	04/07/2011	5000309638	4,151.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314087	29,812.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314088	25,970.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	10/08/2011	5000314003	23,537.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314068	19,080.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314094	10,326.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	10/08/2011	5000314006	4,380.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314090	3,249.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/08/2011	5000314097	712.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	16/09/2011	5000317667	8,579.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	16/09/2011	5000317668	20,762.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	16/09/2011	5000317669	27,821.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	16/09/2011	5000317670	3,298.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	23/09/2011	5000318408	17,632.00
Corporate Governance	Consult Fees	19/09/2011	5000317785	6,200.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	31/10/2011	5000322323	47,543.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	17/10/2011	5000320850	28,500.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	21/10/2011	5000321596	26,750.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	13/10/2011	5000320638	24,957.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	31/10/2011	5000322315	19,413.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	18/10/2011	5000321041	14,137.20
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/10/2011	5000320433	13,661.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	18/10/2011	5000321038	12,347.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	31/10/2011	5000322316	11,998.50
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	17/10/2011	5000320854	9,727.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	11/10/2011	5000320436	2,375.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	31/10/2011	5000322318	1,700.00
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	13/10/2011	5000320636	962.50
Planning, Housing & Regeneration	Consult Fees	14/09/2010	5000272478	57,068
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289778	15,384
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289778	15,384
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289779	23,548
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289783	6,147
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289786	4,025
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289788	2,240
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/02/2011	5000289788	2,240
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294012	-6,500
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294013	-102,860
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294231	19,900
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294232	6,500
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294236	102,860
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294238	93,250
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294240	15,050
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294245	11,940
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294246	11,975
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294248	14,940
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294272	30,425
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294275	187,150
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294276	27,600
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294279	53,125
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	01/03/2011	5000294301	91,050
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294465	-93,250
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294467	-15,050
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294468	-30,425
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294469	-187,150
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294471	-27,600
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294472	-53,125
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294473	-91,050
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294474	-19,900
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294475	-11,940
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294476	-11,975
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294479	-14,940
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294495	5,775
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294498	700
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294517	15,395
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294520	1,700
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294521	10,602
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294528	14,581
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294529	2,375
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294531	32,970
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294534	4,280
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294538	11,975
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294539	11,940
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294541	18,008
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294542	11,979
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294569	12,882
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294571	14,364
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294577	10,314
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294580	6,475
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294584	8,425
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294594	13,890
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/03/2011	5000294609	4,480
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	03/03/2011	5000294758	2,187
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	18/03/2011	5000297080	32,970
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	18/03/2011	5000297080	10,602
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	18/03/2011	5000297083	2,187
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	22/03/2011	5000297453	-2,187
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/03/2011	5000298863	-10,602
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	28/03/2011	5000298863	-32,970
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282907	19,900
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282909	10,292
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282910	77,175
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282913	24,523
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282914	43,450
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	02/12/2010	5000282919	16,448
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	23/12/2010	5000285770	32,146
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	23/12/2010	5000285771	30,109
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	23/12/2010	5000285774	21,916
Commercial Directorate	Consult Fees	23/12/2010	5000285778	24,760
	Total			1,424,988.84

So only 15 months in, still another 21 to suffer, and the pig nuts are rattling into the trough at the rate of £95,000 worth a month. The cost has blasted past a mere £500,000

Given that Craig Cooper the £132,480 a year Director of non-Commercial Services also wrote this:

3.3 Procurement and contracting skills: Poor procurement and contracting skills as well as leadership capacity constraints in the Council could limit the ability to obtain the desired efficiencies and service improvements. Key future shape activities would include focused work to develop the Council’s contracting and procurement expertise as well as the development and implementation of a public sector leadership development programme directly to address and mitigate these risks.

The bloggers have been banging on about poor procurement skills all year. MetPro for one back in March, some 8 months after poor procurement was identified as a problem by you and a key future shape activity. So then 12+ months and over 2 million quid later along comes RM Countryside who have been engaged in questionable circumstances during the last 6 years. So much for Cllr Thomas holding you to account Captain Cooper.

Mr Mustard thinks that Cllr Thomas works for a building society. If you were self building a house and told him you needed to borrow £500,000 and then got half built and had already spent £1.4m do you suppose he would find it acceptable? Perfectly acceptable for this sort of spend though inside Barnet Council.

How long will it be before procurement is properly managed?

See you in 2012 for yet another tale of woe about procurement.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard