Barnet’s Got Talent!

We may not have Susan Boyle working for Barnet but we do have talented staff. Whilst we wait for news on what Future Shape will mean for staff and public services I hope staff will be given the opportunity to contribute to any Future changes.  

 

Some Good News

 

Those of you who have had the time to look at the Future Shape website will have noticed the term ‘Quick Win’ on a number of slides. I believe the term ‘Quick Win’ has been acknowledged as an inappropriate term conveying a negative message.

 

Where is the good new news?

If and when services are packaged together they need to go through a robust process before any decisions are made.

 

Cemeteries and Crematorium services were put down as a ‘Quick win’ a Consultants report recommended the privatisation option. The Trade Unions produced a report which raised concerns about the process & recommendations in the report. I am pleased to report the service is going through the correct process. The Trade Unions and the staff are now part of the process. This is key.

 

Back to Future Shape, it is important that staff don’t panic if they see their service being packaged up for a possible privatisation model. There is still a great deal of work which would need to take place before any decisions about moving forward to a procurement including if an in house bid would be included.

 

From the little that is being made available the Seven Groups reflect the complexity of the problem facing Public Services across Barnet. It is important that decisions are not rushed which is why the Trade Unions are confused why there are different completion timescales for the Groups which are clearly interlinked.

To visualise the complexity we have constructed a diagram.

To view image click here http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/sites/default/files/Future_Shape_jenga1.JPG