Friday 17 September 2010

Future Shape: the game is up

Barnet council have already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds (are we into the millions yet?) on preparing Barnet council services for wholesale privatisation, the so-called Future Shape/easyCouncil/One Barnet programme.

Then they started spending money on commissioning reports looking at how they are doing on preparing Barnet council for wholesale privatisation. The conclusions of one just published, by Grant Thornton ("Review of the Governance Arrangements of the One Barnet Programme: Value for Money Review 2009/10"), suggest what critics have always suspected: the council is floundering about, making little progress, and wasting money, not saving it. I think this snippet ("Recommendation 1"!) about sums the problem up:
The Council [should] develop and agree a business case for the One Barnet programme, incorporating:
· the planned benefits and outcomes of the programme;
· the estimated cost of the programme;
· overall timescales of the programme, including key anticipated milestones; and
· a high level risk profile.
Here is the full report going to the Audit Committee on 21 September.

Rog T has compiled the choicest quotes already, and you can read his comments here.

Future Shape: is the game up? It bloody well ought to be! Stop wasting our money and jeopardising our services. No to Barnet easyCouncil!

1 comment:

Mrs Angry said...

This is an issue which the opposition MUST get their teeth into and not let go. Enough polite shillyshallying with scrutiny committees etc, time to go for the jugular.

PS In regard to the possibility of the spontaneous combustion of Brian Coleman and the advisability or not of pissing on him when this happens, well, nothing to add, really, just enjoying the thought ... Of course I am confident that should such an unfortunate event occur, the local firefighters will hurry with all thier usual dedication and professionalism to rescue him,and carry him tenderly down their ladder, without dropping him on his head, as soon as they have a free moment, probably sometime in 2012.