'Barnet - billion pound gamble': get the DVD!

Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS), Barnet bloggers, residents, the odd MP, were at the Palace of Westminster (Parliament) last night for a screening of 'Barnet - the Billion Pound Gamble'.

This film by director Charles Honderick and producer Roger Tichborne is a follow-up to their 'A Tale of Two Barnets' at the start of the year. It reflects on developments since, and includes coverage of the campaign to save Friern Barnet Library, which was not in the first film.

At our meeting on 19 November, in the plush surroundings of Committee Room 12, we also heard a number of speakers: Barbara Jacobson for BAPS on how Barnet Council's 'One Barnet' privatisation plan (the billion pound gamble) will destroy local democracy; 'Mr Reasonable' blogger John Dix; and Barnet resident John Sullivan, whose daughter Susan is instigating legal proceedings against Barnet Council over One Barnet.

The film which lasts 30 minutes is available on DVD for £3 (£5 incl postage). Please email barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com to order a copy.

Some pictures of the evening below.

Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds Central and Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with Barnet Councillors before the meeting

Ruth Kutner (BAPS chair); John Dix aka Mr Reasonable

Barbara Jacobson for BAPS

 

John Sullivan

 

Cartoon: Welcome to the One Barnet Casino!

Excellent new cartoon, with script and voice by John Dix (aka blogger Mr Reasonable), exposing why residents should be concerned about Barnet Council's 'One Barnet' outsourcing programme.

Please do watch and share widely!

http://youtu.be/o6I9kP6nCMg

Ye Big Olde Society: Or, A Great Saturday Night Out in Friern Barnet

News update from the Friern Library community hub (as the occupation is now named). Please note that tomorrow evening (Saturday 29th) there is a great programme on at the library featuring blogger Mr Reasonable and his 'One Barnet' magic box, and the wonderful Pete the Temp, a comic poet and singer and general bundle of energy.

I feel that we should be producing some sort of music hall style posters for the happenings at Friern Barnet Library these days. In Barnet we are back to making our own entertainment - and providing our own library services! Is this what they meant by Ye Big Olde Society?!

Friern Barnet library update

FANTASTIC NEWS: over 3,000 books have been donated, **thank you** everyone. We also need SHELVES! CHAIRS! TABLES! COMPUTERS!

Meeting with council officials, Friary House, Friary Park WEDNESDAY, 3 October, 3pm (tbc) - all welcome.  

Various working groups have been set up - come into the library and join us.

Please bring food to share - evening meal every night at 7pm
Tues 6.30-7.30pm - Pilates
Wed 6-7pm New Author - reading from his novel
7-8.15pm Yoga - come, enjoy some peaceful exercise
Thu 11.30am-12.15pm Teddy Bears' Picnic - stories and activities
7-9pm-  Music night - open mic
Friday 4-5pm - French - beginners and advanced

THIS Sat 10am-12noon Chemistry Lesson GCSE/A level

7-9pm -  Mr Reasonable and the Magic Box:
one of Barnet's famous five bloggers tells us about "ONE BARNET" plans for privatisation, followed by discussion.

also Pete the Temp and Catherine (Cat) Brogan

Get involved!
We need your help to save the library:

Sign up to the rota:  the library will be able to stay open only if we have enough people to staff it. We need people to volunteer for two-hour slots to check books in and out, accept donations, etc. If you can spare the time, please stop in at the library and sign up to the rota.

Make yourself heard: phone, email, text, tweet and visit Barnet Council and the media explaining why the library is important.

Spread the word: tell friends and neighbours about us.

Come and meet us: we have organising meetings each Monday at 6-7pm

Barnet bloggers put another Yule log on the fire burning under the Barnet administration

Making it three posts in an afternoon - and me with a train to catch! - can I draw your attention to the Barnet council civic awards? Usually, not desperately exciting to most, the competition could be more interesting this year.

Barnet CPZ Action are nominating Barnet blogger Mr Mustard (aka Derek Dishman) for services to blogging and his part in the campaign against the CPZ charge rises, and David Attfield, also for the latter.

There will be other people who should be honoured, I would include all my other fellow Barnet Bloggers, Mrs Angry, Mr Reasonable and the incomparable Barnet Eye. The bloggers have done a great job this year scrutinising the failings of the current administration.

Private Eye has just honoured the Barnet Bloggers, Mrs Angry in particular, in its 2011 "Rotten Borough" awards:

The past year saw a growing trend for councils to use the law, or the threat of legal action, to stifle free speech and limit public scrutiny of the way elected representatives spend tax payers' money. Councils seemed particularly alarmed by the increase in 'citizen journalists' writing blogs and tweeting - and holding councils to account in ways that many local papers no longer have the balls to.

Highly commended: Tory 'easycouncil' Barnet was one authority which took fright at the interest shown in its activities by electors - in particular a busy group of bloggers. It seriously considered prosecuting one of them, 'Mr Mustard', under the data protection act, until the information commissioner told it not to be so silly. Meanwhile it hired security men dressed in black paramilitary style uniforms to intimidate members of the public who turned up for an important budget meeting. Hats off to the bloggers, in particular 'Mrs Angry', who revealed that the company, MetPro, hadn't got a proper contract, and used unlicensed, non CRB checked staff.

With all the plaudits rolling in, I don't think we'll be going away next year! To take part in these exciting elections - the awards ceremony would be a hoot - visit this webpage. You only have until 31st December to make nominations!

LOLZ

I hope you've been enjoying the Barnet bloggers' April Fool's jokes. My own effort was pretty thin gruel compared to everyone else's.

I shall be writing up the recipe for Mr Reasonable (who gave me the biggest laugh this morning).

Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine... but only if five other local people will do the same

John Dix (Mr Reasonable blog) has written about the cost of Barnet council's latest social media experiments. Local versions of PledgeBank, FixMyHole, sorry, FixMyStreet, etc. are to be supplied by a company called MySociety, up to a cost of £140,000.

There might even be a local version of TheyWorkForYou, the website where people can keep tabs on their MPs, only Barnet's version will be an attempt to make councillors more accountable (PMSL).

Mr Reasonable says:

Some of the cost is coming from grants, but the costs of the new Barnet Pledgebank website and the petitions website are coming out of council budgets. There still seems to be a culture of spending money on gimmicks while frontline service are being cut and frankly that offends me!

I'm with him on that.

The council document Mr R bases himself on is available here. Among the examples of things that MySociety might do for Barnet, I find something pretty ominous.

- The Democratic Services Team works hard to ensure that good quality agendas and minutes are made for each key committee or Cabinet meeting.

- Unfortunately... the core parts of committee activities – what they actually decide – is lost inside large PDF files, buried deep within part of the Barnet website.

- We propose to make it far easier to access the Decisions and Recommendations from committee and Cabinet and allow people to sign up for decision alerts based on keywords of interest.

What do you reckon? Do you think that the council is going to stop providing access to all their documents, such as the one that I found this proposal in? Are they going to dumb down "Governance and Democracy", and call it democratic?

P.S. Meanwhile, my own pledge on Real PledgeBank is going well.