Can you keep a secret? Mr Mustard can (if he wants to)

So here we go again. The second secret meeting of a wholly owned subsidiary of the "Open & Transparent" Barnet Council.

Mr Mustard asked to see the papers for the meeting of 18/12/13 because he thought they must be interesting. Barnet Homes refused. Mr Mustard involved the ICO. Barnet Homes had its mind changed. In an email from Barnet Homes, a tacit admission of intending to be secretive.

There was no notice given to the public.

Eventually Mr Mustard got a copy of the email which invited directors to attend. The redactions have been done by Mr Mustard as he didn't think that even board directors should have their email addresses posted to the internet for public consumption.

"Tezza"? - ffs

Who is Gerard Naughton?; not a board member. (Ah thank you LinkedIn, the interim head of business support. There were other invited & attending interim staff: Karen Patten - interim Director of Care & Support: Helen Astle - interim Director of Corporate Services)

A very odd meeting. Not taking the minutes of the previous meeting for approval and not going to take any minutes at this one.

Next, the agenda:

If you know what the item of business is why list it as "Any Other Business" and not under its own item?

Then finally Mr Mustard was provided with the minutes, the ones that were not taken.

Robert Heath used to supply the gas service for Paragon so perhaps that is why an interest was declared?

What was so controversial in these minutes that the meeting was decided upon as being completely secret? One would expect that a HSE investigation would be discussed at board level. Maybe it was this one?

http://press.hse.gov.uk/2014/barnets-housing-firm-fined-for-safety-failings/

Mr Mustard can't see anything controversial about a relationship with the BEBP.

If you know what the Directors of Barnet Homes were so petrified of becoming public knowledge, and any other items could have been discussed and not minuted, do feel free to create an email address in a false name and send an email to mrmustard@zoho.com

Having had to look at the directorships of the various

Barnet Homes Ltd (BH)

Your Choice (Barnet) Ltd (YC) &

TheBarnetGroup Ltd (TBG)

companies Mr Mustard thought you might like a table as the websites of the three companies muddle all the Directors up together as one Board.

Name - per website	BH	YC	TBG
Terry Rodgers	Y	Y	Y
Tracey Lees	Y	Y	Y
John Marshall			Y
Ross Houston			Y
Nigel Turner		Y	Y
Rebecca Toloui		Y
David Atta	Y
Angela Purcell	Y
Washington Ainabe	Y
Bob Colquhoun
Troy Henshall	Y	Y	Y
Jeffrey Baker	Y

Tracey Lees has just left so she will probably be replaced as a Director shortly by the incoming Chief Exec.

John Marshall & Ross Houston are councillors.

Bob Colquhoun is listed on the website as a member of the board (of Directors for that is what the board is) but isn't listed as a Director at Companies House (having resigned from Barnet Homes on 1/2/2012) and LinkedIn locates him in Aberdeen which isn't exactly local. No wonder he didn't attend.

Troy Hensall is listed under "Officers" (staff) but he is a Director at Companies House; all very odd.

A Krishnaswamy Murali was appointed as director on 3/11/14 subject to references and then resigned on 19/1/15 so perhaps they weren't up to snuff. If anyone knows any other reason do email mrmustard@zoho.com

Mr Mustard somehow thinks that no further confidential Board Meetings will he held.

A blogger to concentrate on Barnet Homes & Your Choice is still needed as the existing ones can only be spread so thinly.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Meeting, what meeting?

As per usual for Barnet, the council, in this case in the form of the Chief Executive, Andrew "Black Hole" Travers, are quick to trumpet what they see as good news but don't seem prepared to engage on twitter when challenged and thus do themselves more harm than good. Ignoring bad news doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Mr Mustard looked at the link from the cabinet office, here, and couldn't find what the requirements were to be crowned as an open data champion, so he has concluded that there weren't any, except possibly a council telling Francis Maude how fabulously open they were. It rather sticks in the craw when it is discovered that Your Choice (Barnet) Ltd, the ultimate ownership of which is with Barnet Council, held a secret board meeting, on 16 January 2014.

On 1 July 14, Mr Mustard made the following request:

Dear Sirs

Please provide the following details for the Board Meetings of 18 December 13 (Barnet Homes)^ and 16 January 14 (Your Choice)

- the email or other notice in which notice invited persons were notified of the meetings
- names of persons invited
- any notice given to the public
- the agendas
- the minutes

Yours faithfully

(^ this will be blogged about at a later date)

and the response he received on 24 July 2014 was as follows:

The meetings held on 18 December 2013 and 16 January 2014 were both confidential meetings and therefore only the Board Members and appropriate officers were invited. In view of the fact that they were confidential meetings we did not issue any notices and there are no agendas or minutes available for public release.

The items discussed are exempt from publication under categories 2 and 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. This is because the report refers to information that is likely to reveal the identity of an individual and/or Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

In addition, the information about this meeting is withheld because it is considered that the absolute exemption under Section 40 (2) of the FOI Act applies to it.

In doing so, Barnet Homes is relying on the absolute exemption set out in section 40 (2) of the Act in regards to information that constitute personal data. We have applied the exemption because of the condition set out in Section 40 (3) (a) (i) of the Act concerning data protection principles as stated  in the Data Protection Act 1998.

I hope you find the information above useful.

How on earth being told nothing at all could be considered to be useful, Mr Mustard has no idea.

Mr Mustard asked Barnet Group for a review on 14 August, viz:

Please carry out a review as I do not accept that wholly council owned companies can have meetings that are so secret.

The result of the review, received on 3 September 14 was as follows:

Mr Mustard duly filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner on 1 October.

It took until 6 March 15 to get a decision and here is the relevant section:

Mr Mustard thought that with the passage of time these negotiations would be over. The ICO didn't know as they only consider the matter as at the date of the original request which was, by then 9 months old. He enquired of the Barnet Group if the information could now be released as presumably the negotiations, with Unison, had concluded some 15 months after the board meeting.

This is what they said, as of yesterday.

I would like to advise that the issue is still ongoing and therefore we are unable to release the information.

 

Bluntly, Mr Mustard does not believe that Unison representatives are dilly-dallying or shilly-shallying in negotiations with Your Choice and/or the Barnet Group as his experience has been they strive to be heard at every opportunity and often seem to meet a wall of silence.

What Mr Mustard does know is that their members have recently been on strike because of a 9.5% pay cut imposed on Your Choice workers. No delicate negotiations ongoing there, just a brutal pay cut.

If Barnet Council are to wear an Open Data crown, it should be this one.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard