One Barnet programme going ahead - reactions

Dear friends,

I've recently moved to Nottingham, of all places, but my eyes are still on what's happening in Barnet. We have the depressing but predictable (well, I thought it was predictable) news that Maria Nash's appeal for a Judicial Review of Barnet Council's One Barnet privatisation programme was rejected.

There is some possibility of going higher to the Supreme Court. However, on the basis of Maria losing at the Court of Appeal, Barnet Council signed the two big contracts with Capita. In case you want to know what that looks like, the Council has generously captured the occasion and published the photograph on their website (and, no, they aren't saving taxpayers £126 million).

While I've campaigned against One Barnet for the past four years, I haven't been on the ground for this most recent chapter of the saga, so I'll just provide some links to informed comment below.

Over the next few days I plan to write a few 'parting shots' blogposts reflecting on my experiences campaigning in Barnet and on what I hope to do next. I hope these posts will be useful for readers, and I'm sure they will be useful for my own thinking.

But, for now, back to One Barnet. What are we to make of the Barnet Tories' and Capita's victory? Allow me to quote from Roger Tichborne's "Barnet Eye" blogpost:

If anyone at Barnet Council thinks that the opposition will melt away, it will be the latest in a very long line of very bad judgement calls that they have made.

Appeal Court judges uphold One Barnet judgment - Barnet Eye blog
Justice denied: the One Barnet appeal fails - what next? - Broken Barnet blog
Giving up is not an option for us or any other resident - reaction by Barnet Alliance for Public Services
Capita's takeover of Barnet - Mr Reasonable blog
Mr Mustard no longer believes in Father Christmas - Mr Mustard blog
The One Barnet campaign shows local democracy is alive and well - the Guardian's Hannah Fearn
The One Barnet decision is a threat to local democracy - Roger Tichborne and Barnet Alliance for Public Services reply to Hannah Fearn

Were Barnet’s Tory councillors secretly whipped?

Were Barnet’s Tory councillors secretly whipped? Barnet bloggers call for an investigation

At Barnet Council’s full council meeting on 16 July, Councillor Brian Coleman alleged that Barnet’s Conservative members are ‘entirely whipped’ when attending scrutiny and other Council meetings, including those dealing with the highly controversial One Barnet privatisation programme.

According to the Council’s constitution, any whipping arrangements must be declared, but we believe that no such declarations have been made at any of the relevant recent meetings. Such actions would be in breach of the constitution and therefore unlawful.

If Councillor Coleman’s allegations are true, this clearly has very serious implications and casts into doubt the legality of many of the highly significant decisions which have been taken by the current administration, most importantly the decision to grant two massive contracts to Capita and Capita Symonds in the outsourcing of a large number of our local council services.

We therefore call on the Leader of the Council, Councillor Richard Cornelius, to instigate an immediate and independent public inquiry into the claims made by his former colleague, and we also ask that the authority’s external auditors at Grant Thornton should as a matter of public interest hold an urgent inquiry into the allegations. Residents need to know whether decisions have been made legally and whether Tory councillors have acted constitutionally.

Signed:

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Vicki Morris

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

19 July 2013

Barnet Tories must condemn Brian Coleman's aggression

An open letter to Richard Cornelius, Conservative leader of Barnet Council.

On Friday 3 May Councillor Brian Coleman pleaded guilty to the charge of common assault by beating of Helen Michael, in the High Road in North Finchley. Evidence from CCTV was shown in court and proved incontrovertibly that this incident was nothing less than an utterly indefensible act of aggression. It resulted from Councillor Coleman being caught parking in a loading bay, trying to evade the hugely controversial parking payment scheme he had imposed on residents in this borough.

Despite the fact that he has now been convicted of a criminal act of assault, Barnet Council has refused to comment, absurdly claiming that this is unnecessary as the attack did not take place while the Councillor was on council business.

Indeed local Tory members, including leader Richard Cornelius, openly continued to support their fellow member after he was charged, and were privately informing others that the story of the assault was false. Councillor Coleman was suspended from the party only after intervention from Conservative Central Office.
Since the conviction, local Conservatives have issued no statement.

By his own actions Councillor Coleman has shown himself to be unfit for public office: such bullying behaviour, dishonesty and hypocrisy are not acceptable in an elected representative of the community. We demand therefore that he stand down from his seat in Totteridge, and that the Conservative Party expel him from membership.

We call on Richard Cornelius, as leader of Barnet Council, and on behalf of the Conservative Party in this borough, to apologise to Ms Michael, and to dissociate himself and his colleagues from this appalling incident.

To remain silent is not an option: to remain silent is to condone an act of violence against a woman, and this was and must always be absolutely unacceptable.

Signed:
Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

Eggcentric socialists no. 3 - Albert Einstein

In 2010 I began an occasional series called 'Unlikely socialists', featuring famous people that others might be surprised to find out are socialists. It has turned out to be very occasional, I've only written two posts!

I am reviving the strand now but rebranding it 'Eccentric socialists', in tongue-in-cheek tribute to Richard Cornelius, Tory Leader of Barnet Council. Cornelius thinks that opposition to his wacky One Barnet policies in Barnet is confined to 'eccentric socialists, American exiles and a coffee shop owner'. (He could do worse!)

Since it is Easter Sunday, I've included a little pun in this entry. I think that the revolutionary scientist Albert Einstein is someone deserving of the 'eccentric' title - showing that 'eccentricity' is a virtue, someone that stands up to the mainstream, and challenges ideas that deserve to be debunked.

Here's what he wrote about his socialist beliefs in "Why socialism?", an article for the US magazine Monthly Review in May 1949. (Read the whole article here.)

The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals. ...

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition.

The Friday joke on a Thursday

Tomorrow, 8 March, is International Women's Day. The origins of the day are, believe it or not, in the socialist and trade union movement, and it used to be called International Working Women's Day.

Most, almost all, women work in some capacity or other, but it is still useful to remember the origins. All appearances to the contrary, it is not, or shouldn't be, International Careerist Women's Day, International Bourgeois Feminist Women's Day or even, shudder, International Radical Feminist Women's Day.

As I might be running around tomorrow taking photos at various events marking IWD, I thought I would post my Friday joke (a rare event) a day early. It isn't about feminism, but if you have been following Barnet local politics lately you will know what it is about.

(Mystified? This article will explain.)

Eccentric, socialist bloggers of Barnet, unite!

Barnet Council's Tory leader Richard Cornelius has made some choice remarks about the residents opposing his bonkers One Barnet privatisation plan.

At the Council meeting on 5 March, that passed an insane and vicious cuts budget, Cornelius said of his critics:

“(They are) just a group of eccentric socialists, American exiles, bloggers and a coffee shop owner.” 

I wasn't at the meeting, detained as I was on family business. But read the report by the Times series here. Mrs Angry who writes the Broken Barnet blog says Cornelius actually said "esoteric" socialists, which sounds far more intriguing.

I think I know who he means by "American exiles", but that's just two people and they are very respectable - formidable, even. Then there are bloggers - but they have their uses, don't they? And coffee shop owners! So sneeringly dismissed.

If he means Helen Michael, who owns Cafe Buzz in North Finchley, well, you could see what good work she does for the community as she helped produce a lively celebration of one of Barnet's beleaguered high streets last Saturday. Read about it here.

I am definitely a socialist, and possibly eccentric, but there are worse things one might be.

A complacent Tory, for example, who blandly complies with his party's decimation of public services, and denigrates those Barnet residents who won't just sit back and let them do it.

Citizen Barnet's review of the year 2012

Hello, it's time for Citzen Barnet's review of the year 2012. I use photographs I've taken throughout the year to illustrate an episode from each month of this year in the London Borough of Barnet, where we edged closer and closer to 'One Barnet' outsourcing bliss/blight.

Grab a glass, enjoy, and happy 2013!

January - you've been Johnsoned!

In some ways, 2013 was the year of Boris and Brian (more, much more anon).

On Tuesday 17 January Boris Johnson hosted a TalkLondon/ElectBoris roadshow at the Peel Centre, Aerodrome Road. He bestrode the stage like a colossal ****. Brian Coleman, his GLA running mate, was effectively muzzled by being made chair for the evening. Still, no one could miss in the (too) well-behaved audience - although Coleman did his best to - a vociferous group in bespoke t-shirts protesting against Barnet Council's new parking regime: this was my first sight of North Finchley traders' leader Helen Michael whom I now count as a mate! A year can be a long time in politics.

I didn't take a picture that night, so this month is illustrated with one of the odd pictures I made during his election campaign highlighting Boris Johnson's penchant for doughnuts and what I think of his politics generally: mouldy, old dough.

Freezing February - Barnet's marching season

February perversely was, as I remarked at the time, the month for three outdoor demonstrations!

On Saturday 4 February I paid my first visit to Friern Barnet to take part in a Save Friern Barnet Library group demonstration. On Monday 6 February I joined the North Finchley traders' funeral march. On Thursday 9 February, I supported the Barnet Unison picket at the council offices at North London Business Park. This was how I reported the strike:

Around 300 workers due to be transfered to private sector employment under the council's "One Barnet" outsourcing plan will be taking their fourth day of strike action.

They included 20-odd 'back office' staff of the parking service (pictured) - ultimately made redundant when NSL took over the parking contract (worth £15 million over 5 years) in May.

VICKI TIP: You can follow Barnet Unison on Twitter (a social medium that came of age in Barnet this year): @Barnet_Unison

March at the movies

On Monday 5 March Brian Coleman was found to have breached the councillors' code of conduct. A prize (of sorts) if you can guess how many months hence he will comply with his penalty.

Also in March, Barnet Tories began to attempt to repair their electoral arses by announcing a review into their new disastrous parking regime, and choosing Brian Schama as their new mayor and Kate Salinger as his deputy. As the year goes on, we will see how little this was and too late.

Monday 19 March saw the premiere of the film "A Tale of Two Barnets" by Charles Honderick (director) and Roger Tichborne (producer). The Phoenix cinema in East Finchley was packed out for this treat of a film which explored the lives, hopes and expectations of some of Barnet's residents as the borough gears up for the massive 'One Barnet' outsourcing programme.

Little did we or - I suspect - even Charles and Roger know that 2012 would be so busy that it would require a second film by the end of the year!

The picture below is of the orderly dole queue formed by protesters outside Downing Street on a warm Budget Day, 21 March.

April - adumbrations!



Foreground: Maureen Ivens, Save Friern Barnet Library group; background: Barnet Council Assistant Director Bill Murphy briefs an electrician on turning the power off.

Barnet Council went ahead and closed Friern Barnet Library on Thursday 5 April but could not carry through their plan without resistance! Some stalwarts of the Save Friern Barnet Library group, bolstered by members of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services and one or two members of the local Labour Party, 'sat in' at the library for five hours after the planned closing time of 1pm. We even thought to improvise a Twitter hashtag: #OccupyFB. Prophetic in a way!

May the merciless

Thursday 3 May was the day, the frabjous day, when the Labour Party's Andrew Dismore slay the Tory Brian Coleman to become Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden, a richly deserved victory and defeat respectively. (Boris Johnson won his election, btw.)

On Thursday 31 May the Barnet Tories also lost a seat in a by election in Brunswick Park ward, left vacant on the death of former Council leader Lynne Hillan. The seat was won by one of the nicest men in British politics, Labour candidate Andreas Ioannidis.

Helen Michael celebrates the defeat of Brian Coleman in the plush surroundings of Alexandra Palace

June - Greece and an AGM

The Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) held its first AGM on Tuesday 12 June at the Greek Cypriot Centre in Britannia Road, N12. We have had an incredibly busy year, meeting almost weekly, organising talks, marches, stalls, and so on. We also have a swish new website, helped by sponsorship from some of the unions that are also opposing cuts and privatisation in our public services.



Paul Mackney, Greek Solidarity Campaign, Greek party Syriza and Greek-Cypriot party AKEL spoke at a Barnet Alliance meeting, 7 June

Dodgy jobs in July

Barnet Council had a dishonorable mention at the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in July for the number of senior executives it employs on contract rather than on the payroll (aka town hall tax dodgers), including its then deputy Chief Executive Andrew Travers. The Famous Five Barnet bloggers (who by now were having their elbows jostled by many excellent, new bloggers) wrote one of their year's many open letters on the issue.

At a BAPS conference "Barnet Council: not for sale!" on Saturday 7 July, blogger John Dix (Mr Reasonable) wowed the audience with his One Barnet black box trick, and public services expert Andy Mudd frightened them silly, presenting his daming report "London Borough of Barnet: Procurement and Contract Management", which concludes:

...there can be little confidence that Barnet has the capability, and perhaps more worryingly the culture, necessary to meet the challenge posed by the letting and management of contracts that, under the One Barnet plan, will be far bigger than anything the Council has previously dealt with.

John Dix shows how environmental health will be among those services disappearing into the One Barnet outsourced 'black box'

Angst in August

In August, if you could drag your gaze from the sporting spectacles on the telly long enough, you would notice that Barnet Council leader Richard Cornelius got in a strop over One Barnet. While he was on holiday, senior officers let it out that one of the big contracts, Development and Regulatory Services, would be a Joint Venture, whereas Cornelius was not keen on this. For a while we could legitimately ask, and we bloggers did: who runs the Council, the elected politicians or the unelected officers?

A few months later it was clear that the answer is the unelected officers, but they have to twist the politicians' arms first, as Cornelius too came out favouring JV. Of course, there is also the question of who the elected politicians represent, when they have never consulted residents over the whole principle of One Barnet, let alone which particular model it will take. But that is the theme of the last third of the year.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Barnet Mayor Brian Schama showing his face at a community games on Grahame Park estate.

Good sports in September

Friern Barnet Library was re-occupied in September by people who know rather more about the business than we who attempted it in April; by activists of the Occupy movement. I've learned subsequently that they had little inkling of the battle that had raged and was still raging around the building, but a political compromise and cooperation with existing campaigns was quickly established, and the library re-opened to the public under workers and users' control, its shelves filled with donated books.

Barnet Council quickly had the occupiers in court but hadn't prepared well, as it took them till December to get a possession order.



Barnet Alliance stall at Chipping Barnet Library, Saturday 15 September

October - omg!

October felt like the most torrid month in a torrid year, outside Barnet, where Jimmy Savile's paedophilia was exposed, and we had recently found out about the disgraceful behaviour of the establishment around the Hillsborough disaster, and, of course, all year the Murdoch newspapers cases rumbled on. But also in Barnet we had our own torrid autumn.

Brian Coleman was involved in an alleged assault on Helen Michael; Barnet Tories shilly-shallied about how to respond, finally suspending him from the local party in November, but only after the national party had already stepped in to boot him out of its ranks.

Barnet Council Chief Executive Nick Walkley (one of literary editor Boyd Tonkin's 'barbarian bureaucrats' for his role in closing Friern Barnet Library, and a chief architect of 'One Barnet') announced he was taking his bad haircut off to Haringey for a pay cut. He was replaced by his deputy Andrew 'Town Hall Tax Dodger' Travers.

The Council thought better of outsourcing 'street scene' services, thus relieving residents of one massive headache.

Barnet Council finally admitted that the 'landmark library' they were negotiating with the Artsdepot to replace the closed Friern Barnet Library was a chimera. It didn't stop them continuing to pursue a possession order on the library, so as to evict the occupiers and sell the building. (But they weren't there and they aren't quite there yet...)

Brian Coleman finally apologised - very badly - for his insults to residents (see entry for March - if you guessed right, your prize is a warm, satisfied glow. Plus, please get in touch: your encyclopedic knowledge of Barnet trivia could come in useful for a fundraising quiz I am organising).

Charles Honderick and Roger Tichborne's follow-up film "Barnet - the Billion Pound Gamble" premiered at the Phoenix on 22 October.

The Barnet Alliance presented its petition calling for a referendum of residents over the One Barnet programme at a Council committee, the Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which finally asked some awkward questions - including of Andrew Travers.

I helped design and edit a wraparound on the local newspapers which told residents more than they had ever been told before about the One Barnet programme. When I write up some notes on how we have run this campaign I will write in big letters WE SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS EARLIER!

It has never been difficult persuading Barnet residents - of whatever party allegiance - that One Barnet is a bad idea. All we needed to do was to let more of them know earlier what the Council was planning and we might have stopped it before it began...

(I did warn you October was mental.)

November nightmares

Brian Coleman became a saint of a kind yet still a sinner. He came out against One Barnet in an article in the Barnet Press. He also denied the charge of "assault [of Helen Michael] by beating and driving without reasonable care" at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on 5 November - Coleman's case is due to be heard on Wednesday 6 February 2013.

Richard Cornelius finally consented to address the public over One Barnet, at a meeting organised by BAPS on 8 November. His performance failed to impress even those who had come with an open mind, in a packed room at the Greek Cypriot Centre.

Barnet Council workers learned that Capita had won the bid to provide a £750 million New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) aka big call centre. They would soon find out that around 200 would lose their jobs which would be exported out of the borough.

The Council learned of the first of two legal challenges to One Barnet, from John Sullivan on behalf of his daughter Susan. Barnet Alliance is helping to raise money to support this legal case and that of Maria Nash (announced in December). You can donate here.



Richard Cornelius listens to Andy Mudd, Barnet Alliance meeting, 8 November

 

December deadlines

 

Many things came to a head in the final days of a frenetic 2012. 

Barnet Alliance disrupted the Cabinet meeting on Thursday 6 December where Barnet Tories took the decision to go ahead with the £750 million NSCSO contract (now transmogrified into a £320 million contract - I'm still not sure how: that's my homework). We could not sit by and watch this illegitimate decision go ahead without making a protest, albeit a token one.

 

On Monday 17 December Barnet Council finally got a possession order against the occupiers of Friern Barnet Library but I understand the - on the face of it - dodgy judgment will be appealed. And the battle to save the library is, dare I say it, only just joined.

 

On Thursday 20 December Barnet residents visited and protested outside the HQ of Capita in Victoria. I have a feeling that Capita will come to regret winning this contract. I for one will play my part in building a national campaign that turns the spotlight on the operations of the big public sector outsourcing companies in the way that groups such as UK Uncut and Occupy have successfully shone a light on the tax evading behaviour of the likes of Starbucks.

 

2013 looks like being as busy as 2012.

 

Happy Christmas, Capita, from the Barnet Alliance for Public Services

 



Residents take over the town hall, Or: A lesson in manners

I've returned from a weekend away recharging my batteries after the last manic couple of weeks campaigning against Barnet Council's 'One Barnet' outsourcing programme. On a personal note, I suppose, I was keeping a low profile as well, since I was one of the 'ringleaders' of the residents' brief sit-in at Hendon Town Hall on Thursday 6 December and, you might be surprised to hear, I don't much like being the centre of attention or making a fuss in public.

The Cabinet was meeting to vote on whether to approve an outsourcing contract with Capita for a New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO), worth at least £320 million over 10 years. The champions of One Barnet say this means 'back office' services, things such as getting cheaper human resources management and stationery. They say - and said in the meeting - it wouldn't directly affect 'front-facing services', and residents wouldn't notice the difference.

Of course residents will notice the difference, because one of the big chunks of the NSCSO contract entails channeling all of our telephone calls to the Council through a Capita call centre. 200 jobs at least are likely to be lost from the borough and 'exported' to another city, for example, Belfast, Blackburn or Sheffield, as a result.

There are just two examples of the difference that NSCSO will make to Barnet residents.

At the Cabinet meeting, Barnet Alliance for Public Services decided to disrupt the vote. We knew that the Cabinet members would adjourn to another room to take it and that our protest was only symbolic, but we wanted to make the point that the public, insofar as it has even been told about One Barnet, rejects it.

At the meeting there were public questions, Labour leader of the Opposition Alison Moore spoke (and was challenged by the Tory Cabinet), and we didn't want to stop those. In the event, we timed our intervention slightly wrong; we thought Daniel Thomas was about to announce the vote, and started our protest prematurely, but in fact, when the Cabinet adjourned to another room, there was still some comment from the other Cabinet members. It's a shame we did not hear it, but I wonder, also, whether the Cabinet members' questions would have been any more probing or less stagey than usual.

For example, something along the lines of the box-ticking you usually hear:

"Has the Leader considered the potential impact of x proposed policy change on disabled people in the borough?"

"Yes, I can reassure the member that we have carried out a full Equalities Impact Assessment."

The necessity of carrying out Equalities Impact Assessments was a hard-learned lesson for Barnet Council when they first lost a legal challenge over their proposed (and carried through) policy of removing residential sheltered housing wardens.

There are now two legal challenges being brought against One Barnet, as Maria Nash sent a Pre-Action Protocol letter to the Council on Thursday to add to the action already initiated by John Sullivan on behalf of his daughter Susan.

I am learning that a lot of what Cabinet members say in public is more for the benefit of lawyers in case of a potential legal action, than for us the residents.

Why we disrupted the Cabinet meeting

The purpose of our intervention on Thursday night was not so much, as I have already said, to make impossible a vote, as to make the point that none of the decisions the Council is taking in relation to the One Barnet Programme has democratic legitimacy.

After the Cabinet members had adjourned to a side room to conclude their deliberations, we residents 'took over' the committee table and held an impromptu residents forum.

In May 2011 Barnet Tories changed the Council's constitution - possibly illegally - to BAN residents at the Council-run residents forums from talking about:

• policy
• Barnet-wide issues
• anything discussed already in the past six months.

What this effectively was, was a ban on public discussion by residents about the One Barnet Programme.

The disruption we caused on Thursday night was noisy and not particularly polished - we are only learning how to protest - but it got a lot of publicity for our basic case: residents have not been consulted about One Barnet. Residents should have been consulted about One Barnet. We should be fully informed about and, if we want it, involved in ALL decisions that affect our Council services and the expenditure of our money.

Much as it causes me some personal embarrassment to be captured on video as the woman on the chair (I took my shoes off first, I'll have you know), leading the chanting, I'm very glad that we took the decision to protest in this way and, even more, that we had the guts to carry it through. Possibly contrary to appearances, I think the Barnet Alliance is growing up politically.

Brian Coleman sticks the boot into One Barnet - and so must we

A busy weekend that took me away from Barnet as far as Lewisham! On Saturday I took some photos at the inspiring demonstration to defend Lewisham Hospital where the A&E, and maternity and other services are threatened with closure.

Why are they at risk? Not because they're not good, or needed, but because the hospital trust is going broke. Why? Because of the disastrous PFI deals they are lumbered with.

Despite the teeming rain, thousands of local people turned out to object to this latest assault on their public services in the name of tackling... "austerity"? Or just incompetence? I expect this campaign to be very important in the fight to defend NHS services more generally.

You can see my pictures here.

Today took me all the way to King's Cross, Angel, King's Cross again, Old Street and back home. God, it's a busy life I lead!

This evening I looked in on Twitter (@vickim57, in case you want to know). One Twitter mate was asking whether Brian Coleman's blog had disappeared, as she couldn't access it. I had a look for myself and concluded that it had only temporarily vanished while it caused a ripple in the universe, so devastating were the contents of the self-styled King of Bling's latest blogpost.

Read it for yourself and enjoy Brian Coleman wreaking some kind of revenge for getting kicked out of the local Tory party by revealing how few of them believe in the One Barnet programme.

I enjoyed passages of this so much that I tweeted them to the twittersphere: I'll let you discover them for yourself.

Coleman's post is about the Barnet Tory group meeting the other evening where the Tory councillors were briefed on One Barnet. Yes, you would think they know by now what it is and what they think of it, but some of them still need to be told by the senior council officers plugging the thing.

Anyway, some of them do already know something, and some others of them didn't like what they heard at the meeting.

By Coleman's account, 7 councillors stayed away from the meeting out of tact. And 7 abstained when the vote was taken on endorsing the programme.

There are 37 Conservative Barnet Councillors (I know, it's depressing, isn't it?).

7 Tories stayed away. 7 abstained. So 23 Tories actually support the One Barnet programme, the mainstay of the Tories' policy for running Barnet Council services for the next 10 years or more.

The purpose of this vote was to bind them to vote for the policy in the Council chamber when it next comes up (22nd January, I understand). Whether they will all do that is unclear. I would lay money they will, but it's a bet I would be happy to lose.

It's time for some math!

There are 22 Labour Councillors. There are 3 Liberal Democrat Councillors And there's only 1 Brian Coleman (I can hear your cheering from here). So that's 26 out-and-out anti's.

Assume that all of the 7 Tories that stayed away from the group meeting are more or less grudingly in favour. That gives the pro's 30. The anti's thus potentially have 33, if the Tory abstainers vote against. Will they?

We must do whatever we can to maximise the pressure on them in the coming weeks. There are many ways we are doing this, and I would urge you to participate in the various intiatives of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services. Check out their website now for email messages you can send, and please sign the online petition calling for residents to be consulted over One Barnet.

Friday joke: As a community leader, we accept that Barnet’s communities are not interested in who delivers their public services...

Residents crowd into the Barnet Alliance public meeting about 'One Barnet', yet the council claims "Barnet’s communities are not interested in who delivers their public services"

Last night's Barnet Alliance public 'Question Time' with a panel of Barnet Council Leader Richard Cornelius, Labour group leader Alison Moore, Lib Dem group leader Jack Cohen, and Andy Mudd, a consultant with the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), was remarkable.

The hall at the Greek Cypriot Community Centre was packed; estimates vary but... it was packed! People standing at the sides and back and even outside the main room, in the cafe area. I arrived late and snapped the crowds around the door (above).

I missed the opening speeches, but they will be available on film soon, I expect, at the Barnet Bugle blog.

Richard Cornelius got a hard, but fair, ride. His basic arguments were: the massive One Barnet outsourcing programme will save us money, and stop us having to put up (even by inflation?!) council tax; we don't know what's in the proposed contracts, but we'll see in a few days' time - then Councillors Will Decide.

The audience had sent in questions in advance and a representative sample were chosen to cover various themes raised by One Barnet, including transfer of jobs out of the borough; how councillors will represent voters and residents in future, when all services are wrapped up in contractual agreements; what happens if the contracts fail?, who will foot the bill?, etc.

Extra questions and contributions were made from the floor throughout the evening. The level of debate was high, and, although Cornelius was clearly whipping boy for the evening, I thought fair and reasoned.




Richard Cornelius (Con); Alison Moore (Lab); Andy Mudd (APSE)

One of the final contributions from the floor was most telling; a woman who declared herself party neutral said that she had found Cornelius's answers utterly unconvincing. She got the biggest round of applause of the night.

The meeting lasted more than two hours, and most people stayed to the end. I feel that this evening's meeting was a small but overdue watershed for democracy in Barnet. The Conservative group simply hasn't put its plans before the electorate for its consideration, but now, finally, they have been forced to stand and defend their plans in public. And the public don't like them. Now what happens next?!

These are, let's be clear, massive changes they are proposing - in the way services are delivered, in the governance arrangements of the council - not to be undertaken lightly.

Andy Mudd probably had the most telling line of the evening, fairly early on, when he said that of all the councils he had looked at, Barnet was the worst at letting and monitoring contracts - and so far we have only been talking about relatively small contracts. Barnet now plans to outsource £1 billion of business, affecting 70% of council services.

My favourite contribution came from a man who used to work for the in-house parking service but now works for the outsourced contract with NSL. He reminded people how the service has deteriorated; earlier on Derek Dishman (aka blogger Mr Mustard) pointed out that 25 jobs had gone from the borough when parking was outsourced. Is this the sort of thing we have to look forward to for all of our services in future? It is, under One Barnet.

P.S. I was looking for the Tory councillors' favourite quotation that Barnet residents don't care who delivers their services, private or public sector, as my headline to this report. I couldn't find which Barnet Tory politician said it, but I did come across yet another Barnet Council website with a quote to that effect, except it seems to be given as a sort of official mantra for Barnet Council.

As a community leader, we accept that Barnet’s communities are not interested in who delivers their public services as long as they are of a high quality, effective and publicly accountable.

What's the status of this website? It seems to be aimed at people thinking about working for Barnet Council. The tone is appalling!

Richard Cornelius faces public over One Barnet tonight

There has a been a steady clamour of rising anger about Barnet Council's One Barnet outsourcing plan, in spite of the administration's determination that "no one is interested in how services are delivered".

To try and make their prognostication true, they didn't tell anyone about it.

So we had to: bloggers, Barnet council unions, residents, organised through the Barnet Alliance for Public Services. And our weapons of information are becoming more sophisticated, eg, the wonderful cartoon by Azi Khatiri, feat. the voice and words of John "Mr Reasonable" Dix.

Finally, even Conservative Council Leader Richard Cornelius could not refuse to face the public over the plan. Perhaps hoping to fob BAPS off when they collared him at a councillors' surgery recently, he promised to speak at a public meeting. We finally pinned him down to a date, and... it's TONIGHT!

Cornelius had a say in who else was on the panel for this 'Question Time' format meeting; I tend to think that it's as well he did, for we started out with about 8 speakers and now, at Cornelius's insistence, there are a manageable 4.

'Our Barnet' Question Time  

7-9pm, Greek Cypriot Centre, 2 Britannia Road, London N12. Nearest tube: Woodside Park on the Northern Line (High Barnet branch).  

Panel: 

Cllr Richard Cornelius, Conservative Leader of Barnet Council  

Cllr Alison Moore, Leader of Barnet Labour Group  

Cllr Jack Cohen, Leader of Barnet Liberal Democrats Group  

Andy Mudd, public services expert, Association for Public Service Excellence  

The chair will be BAPS member Barbara Jacobson*.

Please come and play your part in this exciting event! Entry is free.

* Barbara is the most 'fair-minded' of all BAPS members. She is the person who tells the rest of us off for heckling during Council meetings, and we have all come to appreciate her rigorous style when she chairs BAPS meetings.

The damage done, Or: The King of Bling has left the building

I arrived late for the extraordinary Barnet Council meeting at Hendon Town Hall this evening, but found a seat in the overflow room with other tardy members of the public. On the end wall, like a painting over a grand fireplace, was a screen showing a sort of bird's eye view of the Barnet Council chamber where the session was in progress. A pigeon in the rafters sort of view of the proceedings.

When I arrived Labour councillor Kath McGuirk was speaking to the Labour Group's motion of no confidence in Tory Leader Richard Cornelius.

With 22 votes to the Tories' 37, Labour couldn't win this vote, not even with the tenuous support of the 3 Lib Dems, but it was important to put this motion to challenge Cornelius's 'One Barnet' programme.

Lib Dem Lord Monroe Palmer laid into the mass outsourcing plan as well, and he is the chair of Barnet Council's Audit Committee so he knows full well about the council's recent bad record in procurement and contract management.

The vote was taken and Labour lost (Brian Coleman abstained, for the record), but in the debate some good arguments were made. Unfortunately, I had not heard most of them and will have to wait for the video footage, that I'm sure Barnet's citizen filmers are editing as I type, to see it.

After a break, and the extraordinary council meeting being over, the ordinary council meeting began.

There were a lot of questions to the executive, raced through. Then there was another break. Public and councillors milled about in the corridors.

Earlier in the evening, I understand, the Conservative Group had met and kicked Brian Coleman out of their number. I'm not sure quite how this works; he was suspended by the national party last week. But I know Coleman wasn't happy about this latest rejection. In the break he was having a row with Cllr Anthony Finn, who is replacing Coleman in some of his committee positions, in a side room. I was too busy looking for a lost telephone, twitching about behind the velvet curtains, to hear what was said, but I know that Coleman was basically accusing Finn of betraying him.

When the council meeting re-convened, Coleman was not in the council chamber. (He is still a councillor until the electors of Totteridge boot him out in 2014. I wonder how delighted they feel about that.)

I know, as Richard Cornelius is always reminding us, that Coleman is innocent until proven guilty. But whatever about his impending trial, this evening's council meeting was a curious showcase of just how disruptive one individual can be.

A large part of the evening was given over to a Labour motion for some periods of free parking in Barnet's high streets at Christmas time. This has to be done to help mend the damage done to local trading by Barnet's disastrous meddling with the parking regime, hiking prices, and removing parking meters so that shoppers have to pay by mobile. Of course, Coleman was the architect of this policy.

Today it was announced that the Council, thanks to the sterling campaigning efforts of Cafe Buzz owner Helen Michael, is introducing various measures to try and woo shoppers back to the shops in North Finchley, and during the evening they announced that they were talking with the shopkeepers of other high streets in Barnet.

Throughout all of this Brian Coleman sat nibbling his fingers and taking no part - for he is now without a group or responsibility - only taking an active part in the proceedings during question time (when he seemed to have asked an inordinate number of questions!).

Later in the evening, after he had left, there was an item of business reporting on how Brian Coleman had - finally, late and grudingly - paid the penalties handed to him by the Standards Board for insulting two Barnet residents by email. Another Brian Coleman sour misdeed.

And, finally, near the end of the evening, again without him there to hear it, it was announced who would replace Coleman as chair of the various committees that he was still in charge of, and that - the greatest ignominy for him personally, I imagine - he was no longer to be considered as a part of the Conservative group.

Alison Moore, Labour Group Leader, was quick to ask whether the Tory Group being lighter by one member would impact on the allocation of committee places, which is done in proportion to the groups' numbers. The Director of Corporate Governance, the soon-to-be retiring Jeff Lustig, said he would look into it.

So the evening was punctuated by reminders of the damage that Brian Coleman has done to the lives of Barnet residents and to the reputation of the Barnet Tory Party.

The Barnet Tories might be happy to be rid of him, but how will they fare now he is merely a glowering presence on the fringes of their group? To be honest, I think they will still fare ill. There was plenty of evidence of it tonight.

A number of residents had arrived to hear the Labour motion for the Council to re-open Friern Barnet Library, or at least to negotiate with campaigners. The motion talked about the fiasco of the now-never-to-be Landmark Library at the Arts Depot which Robert Rams, the Cabinet member responsible, has now admitted is not going to happen. Rams continually blamed the Arts Depot for the failure of negotiations around the library.

He said talks had been going well, when Arts Depot management seemed for some reason he could not understand to have changed their minds.

It strikes me that you are a very poor politician indeed when you are in charge of the libraries in a major London borough but can't hold an adult conversation with the management of the local arts venue.

When I first heard that the Landmark Library had fallen through, I tweeted Robert Rams that the attitude of Barnet Council when they cut the borough's fairly small grant to the Arts Depot had probably soured relations. The Council sat and watched as the Arts Depot management had to cast about to plug the gap in their finances. Now, is it any wonder if the Arts Depot don't feel like pulling Robert Rams's chestnuts out of the fire?

On a personal note, I found this evening dis-spiriting. The public gallery had mostly all left through ennui by the end, even though major crimes against justice and reason continued to be committed in the council chamber.

When the motion was put to approve the appointment of Andrew Travers to replace the scurvy knave Nick Walkley as Chief Executive I couldn't help reminding people loudly that the Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles regards people like Andrew Travers as 'town hall tax dodgers', because they have been employed long-term as personal contractors rather than being on the payroll, which incurs higher taxes.

As the meeting broke up a few people smiled indulgently at me, the mad loon who can't refrain from shouting from the public gallery when things get too much for her. I felt quite embarrassed about my outburst. Later on, around a table in the Lido noodle bar, it was pointed out to me that Travers had been sat at the front of the council chamber and heard it all when I publicly impugned his character. And suddenly I felt a whole lot better.

Bloggers to Conservative Councillors: Brian Coleman is right about One Barnet!

Letter sent this afternoon by five Barnet bloggers to Conservative Councillors in Barnet a propos Brian Coleman's recent article in the Barnet Press slamming the One Barnet programme.

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Dear Councillor,

We wrote to you recently about the impending vote on the motion of no confidence in Leader Richard Cornelius.

We observed that there was a rising tide of concern in your ranks about the One Barnet programme of outsourcing, and we asked you to act to halt the negotiations for the privatisation of £1 billion worth of our council services.

Now your former colleague Brian Coleman, who has been a senior member of the Cabinet and exerted considerable influence within the party, has chosen to speak out against One Barnet in the strongest terms, calling for its immediate rejection.

In his statement in the Barnet Press, Councillor Coleman refers to the proposed outsourcing as ‘an officer-driven juggernaut’ backed up by a ‘revolving door of endless consultants’ with a ‘promise of savings’. By implication, Cllr Coleman does not believe that One Barnet will deliver those savings.

He proposes:

The council needs to dump this flawed scheme and introduce a proper strategy which assesses where services belong, whether that is the private sector, shared services with other boroughs, the voluntary sector or indeed occasionally in-house - a mixed economy is what is needed.

We would give far more weight than Cllr Coleman to considering the in-house option fully as services are reviewed, but we are glad that he is prepared to voice publicly the idea that large-scale privatisation of services is not the answer to all our prayers.

He is not alone in this; many senior Conservative politicians in local government are saying the same. He also says of his erstwhile colleagues:

I don't know any councillors who agree we should privatise the planning department.

We invite those of you for whom this is true to speak out! We ask again: who controls the Council, senior officers or the elected Councillors?

We are pleased to see that at last a Conservative councillor is voicing in public the concerns that many of you have about One Barnet, especially since he has had to put aside loyalty to Richard Cornelius in order to do it. (Although, as he points out, Cllr Cornelius had become convinced that One Barnet will save money, he too was angered by the covert moves senior officers took towards adopting a Joint Venture for the DRS outsourcing.)

Cllr Coleman has also put on record the consternation that many of you felt when Nick Walkley pressed the button on his ejector seat out of the Barnet cockpit.

Of course, we have many differences with Cllr Coleman. For example, his suggestion that Conservative councillors have gone along with the One Barnet proposals because the unions had their own separate objections to them seems far-fetched. We find it hard to believe that the Conservative philosophy has as shallow a basis as knee-jerk hostility to anything the unions say.

Notwithstanding that, and our very many differences with Cllr Coleman over the years, there is an indisputable truth in much of what he is now saying about One Barnet. It is only a pity that someone did not speak out publicly before!

A glance at what is happening with the parking contract recently outsourced to NSL shows the dangers ahead if the Council plunges ahead with One Barnet.

The parking contract has been in place for six months and NSL are still experiencing serious difficulties as a result of 'teething troubles'; this contract was for £15 million over five years. If you scale up from a £3 million a year mess to £100 million a year how much havoc will be wrought in the lives of residents?

Opening his article, Cllr Coleman says:

Something has happened in the last few months in Barnet. Residents have been taking an interest in the way Barnet Council is proposing to operate in future, the so-called One Barnet scheme.

He is right, residents are very interested in that, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Of course, like you, residents are concerned about the fate – for that is what it is – of their council services, and of the money they have paid out in taxes to secure them.

We hardly need to remind you that residents will also take an interest in who was in charge when their services were handed over wholesale to two large companies, and tied up in 10-year contracts. We all know who they will blame when the service delivery falls short of the high standards they have experienced up till now, or when there are contractual wrangles about service levels with the contractors BT, Capita et al.

Cllr Coleman suggests that Barnet Conservative councillors are behaving like lemmings heading for a cliff. That is not a very positive image but we have to believe that his comments do have some valuable insights and that there must be some truth in them that demand your urgent consideration.

We ask you now then to follow the instinct of your own common sense, stop behaving like lemmings, and abandon the reckless One Barnet programme before it is too late.

Yours,

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

Letter to Barnet Tory councillors: seize your chance to stop One Barnet!

Dear Councillors,

In the next few days you will be asked to vote on a motion of no confidence in the Conservative party leader Richard Cornelius.

You will no doubt be asked to express your loyalty to Councillor Cornelius and to defeat the motion.

As local residents we would like to ask you to think very carefully about the consequences of such an action.

We know that many of you are now deeply concerned about the future of the Conservative administration, that you have profound misgivings about the viability of the One Barnet programme, and that you are also concerned by the response of the leader to issues arising from the arrest and consequent charging of your colleague Councillor Brian Coleman, in relation to an alleged assault.

The announcement today that the much trumpeted Landmark Library plan has fallen through can only add to your sense of misgiving.

The continuing difficulties felt by residents and traders over the contentious parking policy has caused enormous damage to the relationship of trust between this administration and the residents of Barnet, and now it has become abundantly clear that the massive scale of privatisation of a further £1 billion worth of council services envisaged by the One Barnet project is hugely unpopular not only amongst residents and voters, but within your own ranks.

Last week Andrew Travers, the newly appointed 'interim' Chief Executive of Barnet Council, affirmed to a committee that the 'Joint Venture' model was still very much under consideration, despite the fact that elected members have not been involved in the discussions for such a proposal, and that the leader has stated previously that he was being excluded from such discussions.

Councillors must ask themselves why they are being distanced from policy decisions of such vital significance. Who is in control of this council, councillors or the officers of the senior management team?

Once the £1 billion contracts are signed, of course, elected members will effectively lose all control over almost all of our council services, which will then be in the hands of unaccountable private companies for a period of ten years, with huge financial penalties to the authority, that is to say to residents, should any serious difficulties arise, which they inevitably will.

Councillors must also ask why there never been an independent assessment of the risks posed by the One Barnet programme, and why there has been such a clear failure to mitigate the risk of conflict of interest raised by the exchange of senior officers between the council and the private companies bidding for contracts as part of the One Barnet programme.

Such an apparent lack of regulation might reasonably be said to have compromised the whole procurement process, and to have exposed the authority to legal challenge, a prospect already a clear possibility on the basis of the blatantly inadequate consultation with the residents and stakeholders who will be bearing the full impact of the privatisation of almost all our council services.

Another question that must be addressed is the extraordinary level of cost to local taxpayers of Agilysis/iMPOWER, the consultants who are acting as the One Barnet 'implementation partners' - newly released figures reveal that their bill for September alone cost us nearly half a million pounds, and spending on all consultants, wildly out of control, is now estimated to reach a staggering total of £9.5 million.

Such extravagance with taxpayers' money at a time of austerity, with no return in the form of savings is clearly a reckless indulgence, benefiting no one other than the consultants themselves. In combination with the loss in revenue as a result of the newly privatised parking service, it perfectly illustrates the improbability of the delivery of any of the promised savings from the outsourced profit of the One Barnet programme.

Last week Cornwall County Council voted to halt their own Joint Venture proposals at a late stage in the negotiations, due to the extent of concern felt by councillors and residents over the plans for their large scale privatisation of council services. The Conservative leader lost a vote of no confidence, having shown a determination to proceed with the plans in the face of enormous opposition.

Now here in Barnet you, our elected representatives, face the same choice as your Cornish counterparts - and now is the time for you to have the courage to act.

Please use this opportunity to bring a halt to the One Barnet programme and instigate a fundamental review of a commitment which will place the long term future of our borough, our services, our residents, in the hands of unaccountable private sector companies using us for their own profit.

Please take this last opportunity to stand up for what you know is right, what is the sensible thing to do.

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne