Stationary stationery

1662 - Transfer of Parking Permits Activity Associated Staffing Resource and Apportioned Budget to Customer...

Another report in which perfectly happy staff ultimately get pushed, whether they like it or not, into a call centre (called a Customer Contact Centre) which will not be such a happy place. A member of staff (one that no-one has seen with Mr Mustard) told Mr Mustard last week that they disliked being treated "as a commodity".

This is another sloppily produced report that has not been checked before it has been published. To find an error in a council document should be a rare occurrence. It is very common.

Look at the summary, it starts "This the transfer..." which is nonsense.

Down in the penultimate line the word transferring is already on the previous line which would have led to a press of the buzzer in "Just a minute"

Section 3.1 - "and deliver a fiscal saving". This change of lead service does not deliver any savings at all.

Look at the very last page now. The Customer Service Officer has to be "able to demonstrate a high standard of literacy". Evidently, if you now go back to section 5.2.1, this did not apply to the appointment of Bill Murphy who is the Assistant Director of Customer Services and whose name is on this report (did he read it?) and you will see that there is a howler in the last line of the table "stationary" which means to be still. Are you sure you are up to this AD job Bill if you can't spell? A hint for you to avoid this gaff in the future, simply remember E for Envelope.

Mr Mustard does not comb through these reports looking for errors, he is far too busy, they just jump off the page at him. A pity they don't for senior management at Barnet Council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard's wise counsel

Mr Mustard doesn't only criticise from the sidelines after the event although there is nothing wrong with that and one can't stop the council making their own mistakes in secret which is where all the big decisions get taken. After Brian Coleman lost his GLA seat Mr Mustard had a think. Brian is a great loss to the blogging community simple in the light of the sheer amount of material he produces (has anyone else had a blog which listed 101 reasons not to vote for them?) but it would be better if he showed the sort of behaviour becoming of the pillar of a community that councillors are supposed to be (and we do have some in Barnet) and so Mr Mustard decided to write to Brian suggesting a change of image, and this is what he sent from his mrmustard@zoho.com email address which Brian is not very keen on as Mr Mustard isn't real (although there was a real name and address included):

4 May 2012

Dear Mr Coleman

Today has been a bad day for you. You have managed to turn a majority of, in round numbers, 20000 into a deficit of the same quantum.

This is, in my view, because you have taken so many unpopular decisions and not listened to anyone, least of all the residents and because you are too direct with people (some would say rude). You might recall that you threatened me with the police which rather guaranteed a vote for your opponent. I wouldn't have voted for you if you had been the only candidate on the paper.

I am looking ahead to 2014 and you might think that Totteridge is a safe Conservative seat on Barnet Council but if you carry on the same as you have done recently there is the possibility that you could also lose that. Mr Cornelius is also pursuing some unpopular policies but he is scrupulously polite and affable and that will save him.

If you want to be more certain of getting re-elected in 2014 in Totteridge (assuming you decide to stand and not start a new career of some sort) then I think you need a new approach.

It would involve:-

listening to others
treating them with respect
carefully considering their opinions
not forcing your own opinions on them
accepting that bloggers are part of the political landscape in 2012
reversing most of the decisions you have taken recently ( i.e. reduce CPZ charges and install parking meters, keeping public parks public and so on).

You need a complete change of mentality and image. You need to become Brian "Cuddly" Coleman or some other more people friendly image.

Please don't reply straightaway. Please think about this for a few days and then respond, or simply delete this message unanswered.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard didn't put a read receipt on this email and so doesn't know if it was ever opened (too many councillors - labour and conservative but not lib-dems - delete unread messages that Mr Mustard and/or his alter ego send - you are going to be outed soon) and an email reply was not received.

Mr Mustard has noted however from this recent local newspaper report that if the message did get read by Brian it did not get through. Oh well, at least Mr Mustard tried.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Council create extra FOI requests

Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee 24 April 2012

and they also don't seem to be able to quickly respond to a simple enquiry about One Barnet.

---

-----Original Message-----

From: Mr Mustard

Sent: 21 June 2012 11:24

To: Gowan, Ed

cc: Travers, Andrew

Subject: One Barnet Programme Highlight Report presented to B&P O&S Committee on 24 April 2012. ( my ref #1308)

Dear Mr Gowan

I refer to the final page of your report headed "Programme Savings"

Can you please tell me why the figures for 2010/11 are still provisional at this stage some 15 months after that council year finished.

Please can you give me a breakdown by council tax year of the total Base Budget Savings to date of £5.82m

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

---

Dear Mr Mustard

Thank you for your email. We will now respond with the information you request in line with the Freedom of Information Act.

To this end, I am passing your enquiry to our Freedom of Information link officer, Mohsin Abbasi, who will lead on the collection of the data you request.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Gowan
Assistant Director, Commercial Services
London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 4346

---

What Mr Mustard guesses is the case is that the heading on page 35 was wrong, it had been brought forward from the previous year's report and no-one involved in the production of the report noticed. Let's see if the officer can bear to use the word mistake, as in "I made a mistake". 

The next action illustrates all that is wrong with the council.

The AD for commercial transformation should know off by heart all of the main One Barnet numbers as if not he simply isn't worth employing at that level. The answer to Mr Mustard's question is almost certainly in the top secret Appendix 1 and if that had not been classified as it has when it contains figures that every resident has a right to see Mr Mustard would not have needed to make his enquiry. Mr Gowan could simply have looked up the answer to Mr Mustard's question in 5 or 10 minutes and with a quick bit of cut and paste sent a reply. Oh no, far too easy to spend 5 minutes doing some work, instead, he delegates the task to a fairly junior staff member whose replies Mr Mustard has not found entirely satisfactory in the past. 

Even more ridiculous is that what should be a simple piece of correspondence that could have been handled in 10 minutes although 10 days is allowed for correspondence has not been turned into an FOI request by the council (don't count this as one of Mr Mustard's requests) which gives them up to 20 days to answer and has to go through the FOI management software and take up the case of the 3 main FOI officers who have enough to do as it is. 

Not only is the council bureaucratic, it creates bureaucracy at the drop of a simple question.

Cllr Rayner wouldn't utter the word Stupid the other evening. It isn't a problem Hugh ( you did introduce yourself to Mr Mustard as Hugh I believe, Mr Mustard does not like to be overly familiar ) as you were referring to the well known KISS principle where stupid doesn't really mean stupid.

KISS = keep it simple stupid

a management philosophy that isn't coming to Barnet Council anytime soon.

Whilst we are on the subject of simple (no Mr Mustard isn't going to talk about councillors, you are so naughty Mrs Angry) there is another outstanding request of Mr Mustard's which has not been actioned since this email of 29 July 2011

Dear Mr Mustard

Apologies for the lack of a response, not least as I am broadly supportive of your suggestion.

I have discussed this matter with the Leader of the Council and intend to bring forward proposals as to how the Council will work to meet Plain English standards.

I note there is a cost of becoming a corporate member of the Plain English campaign and the Council will therefore need to consider the most cost effective way of achieving the standard.

Kind regards

Nick Walkley
Chief Executive

£9.2m can be found for the One Barnet programme, the Plain English campaign would more than pay for itself in time and paper savings yet has not been introduced, although of course OneBarnetspeak and Plain English are mutually exclusive which may have been the real problem.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Happy First Birthday to FOI request #1031A

Dear Councillors

An open letter

It appears to Mr Mustard that insufficient resource and importance is being allocated to responding to Freedom of Information requests. Mr Mustard knows that he is not the only person waiting a long time for them. It is no good the council complaining that residents ask too many questions as the law is there to promote openness and transparency and you are supposedly all in favour of that. When you truly are open with the public then the number of requests could fall but generally the trend is upwards.

Where is the proof that Mr Mustard's questions are not being answered on time? Here:

---

Dear Mr. Mustard,

Our records indicate that the information requests below which were allocated to the Corporate Governance Directorate are still outstanding,

#1031A - Corporate Governance (Deleted Posts)

#1169 - Council Directors Group

#1223 - Procurement consultants

#1170 PWC Report Names (Internal Review)

We are aware that there may also be a few requests outstanding with other services within the council.

While we do aim to respond to requests within 20 working days we may on this occasion have missed the deadline. The council is committed to improving its ability to comply with its statutory duties under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and, to this end, has implemented a new Freedom of Information case management system along with a continuing programme of raising awareness of officers’ duties under the FOIA.

In order to ensure that we respond to all outstanding requests and close off cases on the old system, we are writing to you to ask that you confirm that you are still interested in receiving a response or in the alternative to confirm your willingness to withdraw the request.

I would be grateful if you could respond to this email before June 29 2012; if we do not receive your response; we will assume that you have withdrawn your request and we will close the case on our system.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Redacted
Governance Officer

Corporate Governance Directorate
London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
Tel: 020 8359 7757

---

Mr Mustard has redacted the officer's name as it is not relevant to the matter. 

The 3 officers whose duties are first and foremost dealing with FOI requests must be run off their feet and Mr Mustard has no complaints with the individuals who always write in a perfectly proper manner.

It is true that the 4 requests are outstanding.

#1031A was submitted on 21 June 2011

#1169 was submitted on 3 December 2011

#1223 was submitted on 17 February 2012 (only 3 months overdue, a cute little baby FOI!)

#1170 was submitted on 6 December 2011 and the review was requested on 3 February 2012.

Note that these 4 requests are only for the Governance Directorate and there will be dozens more in other Directorates especially EPR. 

Here is a priceless comment. The Governance Officer knows when the requests were submitted and so to say "may on this occasion have missed the deadline" is masterful understatement, amusing and annoying all at the same time (and it should have said "on these occasions").

Mr Mustard knows about the new software and probably needs to buy some himself to keep track of his requests and so that he can prompt the council more quickly when they are late.

These words are telling "a continuing programme of raising awareness of officers' duties under the FOIA" means, in Mr Mustard's estimation "we do our best but other departments don't give a toss about FOI and don't give us much help no matter how many times we tell them"  and it might also mean "no-one ever gets in trouble from top level management for answering FOI questions late so why bother".

Mr Mustard is then invited to withdraw his requests. He has not done so. He wanted the information months ago and is not easily put off by delay.

Is this not astonishing nerve?; that if someone has waited 365 days for an answer, some 300+ days longer than the time allowed for a response, that you can therefore assume that the enquirer is no longer interested if they don't reply within 8 days. Well Mr Mustard didn't need long to think about it, he restrained himself from sending a robust answer to the Governance Officer and merely said that yes he still did want answers. This took him 9 minutes.

It is completely unacceptable to strike requests out of the book just because the council is miles behind on answering them. The Freedom of Information Act does not allow for this sort of behaviour. 

Councillors, what do I want you to do?

Well I suppose we had better leave it the leader Richard Cornelius to decide who is going to tackle the officers and get some performance and sort out the resource required.

Any councillor who trumpets that the council is open and transparent really ought to think about keeping quiet until the number of questions answered on time has passed the 90% mark.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Are these trees dead or just resting?

Mr Mustard took a walk down the lower end of Chipping Barnet High St this afternoon, the part south of the church and next to the college. It is opposite the police station. Enough geography he thinks.

Outside QE girls school the new trees are doing fine as can be seen by the growth of new foliage (the tree in the back of the picture is older, just concentrate on the two inside the tree guards)

and then cross the road and go north a bit and you are outside the Barnet College art building

Now Mr Mustard has already said that trees in the middle of the pavement is less than helpful for the blind but look at the tree which has absolutely no foliage. He is not sure if the tree is dead or just resting and waiting to burst into life. The funny thing is there are 6 trees in a row like this, all without foliage and all on the shaded western side of the street. Up at the Hadley end of Chipping Barnet trees on the western side of the street are fine. These ones might make a late claim to life but they are looking a little precarious at the moment and they cost over £1,000 each. Have they simply been planted in an environment which is too shaded for them or is there something in the soil below this pavement which they don't like?

Would the residents of Chipping/High Barnet who walk past these trees regularly, maybe on your way to/from work, please keep an eye on these six trees and let Mr Mustard know when you spot a new leaf by emailing him on mrmustard@zoho.com Do you suppose they came with any sort of guarantee?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard welcomes the decision by Theresa Villiers to make changes to her views on parking.

A U-turn is recommended here

Mr Mustard is most interested by the latest information to appear on the website of his MP, Theresa Villiers, who is, it would appear, now on the side of parking charge campaigners. From her office in the top end of Chipping Barnet's high street she cannot have failed to notice how the shops are going downhill or simply going. To save your time Mr Mustard repeats the text below:-

Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet, has welcomed the decision by Barnet Council to make changes to its parking policy.

Credit card machines will now be introduced in eight of the council’s town centre car parks that already charge for parking. Also, car parks in Theresa’s constituency in Church Hill Road in East Barnet and Osidge Lane and Brunswick Park Road in Brunswick Park Ward will remain free.

Parking scratch cards will be more widely available and local businesses will be able to buy vouchers at a discounted rate to sell on to shoppers. Alongside this, the Council is also exploring the possibility of introducing a 50p charge for fifteen minutes parking and considering the option of giving shoppers a few minutes free to enable them to nip into a shop for a newspaper or pint of milk. Half day visitor vouchers will also be introduced, priced at £2.20. (£2.20 is still a rip-off)

Theresa said, “It is welcome news that Barnet Council have listened to the concerns of residents, shoppers and business owners and are taking action to make Barnet’s parking system more user friendly and convenient.”

“It’s also good news that the Council are reviewing parking prices. In car parks and town centres, this will hopefully ensure that the right balance is found between attracting shoppers to our high streets and a steady turnover of customers for shopkeepers. I will be watching closely to see what they come up with.”

Here is the text of a letter that Ms Villiers sent to a constituent of Mr Mustard's acquaintance in January (he has cropped only the "Dear ...")

That letter looks to Mr Mustard to be a defence of what Barnet Council were doing and not "watching closely". Only a cynic would suggest that her fellow party members losing in the East Finchley by-election, Brian Coleman losing his GLA seat and Shaheen Mahmood failing to win in the Brunswick Park ward by-election have caused Theresa to feel uncomfortable for her prospects in May 2015.

"Theresa feels uncomfortable about her prospects in May 2015"
Mr Mustard (cynic).

Putting aside the fact that Theresa is a proper politician and so can change course without of course performing a u-turn. Let us look again at what advice Mr Mustard sent to Richard Cornelius on Friday, 2 December 2011

Dear Councillor Cornelius

Hero or Zero

Are you fed up with hearing about parking payment problems? Almost everyone is.

You are the Leader. You can fix this mess. Look at New York Look at that lovely parking meter that takes cash and cards. Parkeon are one of the suppliers to Barnet Council.

Has anyone asked Parkeon if the current machines, which appear to be modular in design, can be adapted. I'll bet they can. Sure it will cost a few quid but £80,000 is being spent on removing and scrapping some perfectly good working machinery.

You will still need to employ some cash collection officers but, as more and more people use cards because it is convenient when the slot is there next to them ( like in Westminster as well as New York ) the need to empty the meters so often will diminish.

Have you looked at Big Society ways of dealing with the machines? How about having a team of shop-keepers in each location to empty them each day? A small commission to the traders for providing that service or placed in a special fund to improve their town centre?

There must be a better way than the current one which has been poorly thought out and is being badly implemented.

So, what is it to be? Hero or Zero?

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

---

Sunday, 4 December 2011

Dear Mr Mustard,

Thank you for your email.  I do not think that there is any future in the machines and now that we are developing the scratchcard option I feel that a lot of the objections to the pay by phone system will disappear.

Richard Cornelius

---

So there we have it. Richard should have listened to helpful Mr Mustard back in December and many of his troubles would have faded away, Brian might still be in the GLA, and the 2 by-elections might have been won by his side.

All but 3 of the old parking machines were to be sent to the scrapheap. An answer about the total scrap income is still awaited. The cost to buy and install a new machine is about £5,000 and 5 will be needed so that is £25,000 wasted by letting Brian have his head and then not listening to the barrage of criticism from residents who have to pay for the council's mistakes. If councillors had to make good any losses they caused they might make decisions with a little more thought.

Mr Mustard's suggestion to let traders buy in bulk at a discount is also being taken up.

It is good to see that Richard has finally listened but if it is going to take this long to reverse obviously stupid unworkable policies we are all going to have to shout louder and longer.

Mr Mustard will have to send Richard more emails containing his advice and hopefully Richard will take them more seriously from now on.

Your next big disaster Richard is the One Barnet programme. Up to 2,000 staff will be passed to external providers and they could make every single one redundant if they wish and move the jobs out of borough (except when they physically can't.) in order to pay less wages and pension contributions. There is going to be an awful lot of blood on your hands. The first 25 One Barnet back office parking jobs have already been moved to Worthing.

You are always welcome to pop in for a chat and a cup of tea Richard whenever you are in Chipping Barnet.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Can the excuse of issuing the annual bills run for a year?

http://chill-info.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/worst-excuses-to-avoid-having-sex.html

Mr Mustard has blogged previously about the message that you get when you email the Council tax section (Revs & Bens as it is known)

The auto-acknowledgement is still the same as it was 2 months ago..

Thank you for your email enquiry to the London Borough of Barnet Council Tax Team. Clear and polite.

Following the issue of council tax bills for the new financial year, which were issued at the end of March and in early April we are currently experiencing a high volume of enquiries what, still, in June? and may be unable to deal with your email within our normal 10 working days very true. We will respond to you as soon as possible and apologise in advance for any delay. Again very polite but no substitute for an answer.

Information about Council Tax can be found on our website at http://www.barnet.gov.uk/council-tax Please go away and answer your own question even though it is not your area of expertise, it is ours.

Payments can also be made on line at http://www.barnet.gov.uk/pay It is very unlikely that the email sent in was "how do I pay" as it tells you on the bill.

Please remember to always quote your Council Tax account reference number in the subject line of all further emails to assist in speeding up a response. One would hope that everyone does this. Unfortunately the council rarely quote my reference when they write to me. Why not?

Make life easier – pay your Council Tax by Direct Debit Make the council's life easier, paying by direct debit can easily mess yours up. If you let the council help themselves when you like and why they like the possibility of you paying something that you don't owe is increased. At this very moment Mr Mustard has his account for the empty property he is still refurbishing (decided as no-one was showing any signs of buying at the right price to get rid of the horrible Everest double glazed windows and fit double glazed sash in wood made and installed by local firms - one makes and one fits) under query and if he paid by direct debit he would probably have had some instalments collected that Mr Mustard does not think are due. As soon as he is satisfied he will pay the account.

What has gone wrong this year? Last year it was the enforced change of software which led to some people being billed twice (including those who pay by direct debit) and this year it is the fault of senior management who have decided upon a massive reorganisation of One Barnet when they don't really know what they are playing with. They "let go" the expert who has kept the service running run for years, Dave Sharpe, when he was exactly the man they needed, the staff respected him (they tell Mr Mustard) and they are pushing staff who don't want to go there into a call centre. Staff are already slowly starting to leave as they find other posts. I am sure that all of the surrounding local authorities will be keen to take the Barnet employees who have performed so well.

Mr Mustard predicts that the March 2013 statistics for council tax recovery will be worse than for March 2012 and he can already hear the twistometer being cranked into life and excuses about the recession being lined up. Bill Murphy and John Gregson and all the other town hall tax dodgers and consultant cronies will be well up the road by then ruining another high performing council somewhere else but don't worry as Mr Mustard will make sure news of your failings follows you to the next council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard