Barnet UNISON

6 December 2010

 

Dear Lynne

 

RE: Budget Consultation 2011-12

I have been reflecting on what happened at the end of last week. As you know on Friday Council staff attended Budget a number of briefings and 818 of them received protective redundancy notices, something I have not seen in 16 years of working in Barnet Council.

I noted your comment at the last Cabinet when you said you had not come into politics to have make cuts to services but that we are in unprecedented times.

The consultation process has begun and I will be submitting more detailed response with the other Trade Unions in due course but I think that as we are living in extraordinary times I wish to give you some initial comments.

 

If there was one current feeling I would like to report from staff it would be confusion. The confusion is not that they don’t recognise that we are in difficult financial times, but at the approach the Council is adopting in response to responding to this problem and why they are not being engaged in the process. It is a theme that the Joint Trade Unions have documented in over 20 reports over the last two years.

 

In times when every income source is precious to the council, staff working in services that generate income are angry and shocked that the Council would want to share that income with another organisation.

 

I would like to draw your attention to two significant income generating services albeit there are others.

 

Parking.

A decision has been made to privatise this service but no evidence has been offered by management to support the decisions being made. UNISON submitted a detailed report to which, to date, we have no response. I have bullet pointed below some of the key issues:

·         “Did you know that many pcn.s are contested by vehicle owners and are eventually resolved through an adjudication process. Last year Westminster was next to bottom in winning adjudications (21%) i.e. 4 out of 5 drivers that contest their parking ticket in Westminster get off without paying anything.

·         In 2008/09, that council’s private sector process provider (Vertex) did not contest 14,000 appeals which equates to approximately a loss of £1.12m.

·         Why is Westminster being quoted particularly by senior officers, as the example to follow?”

·         “Did you know in the last year across London private sector parking enforcement companies performed 29% worse than in-house operations,

·         How does the decision to appoint and external provider to deliver parking control in Barnet benefit our community?”

• The only significant change in the Barnet Parking Team over the past two years is that the Council chose to release the senior managers who had delivered a parking account surplus of £6m. Under current management arrangements this is forecasted to be at least £3m. less in the current year.

All of the above is evidence based and understood by staff working in Parking, which is why they do not understand the rationale for privatisation.

Hendon Cemetery & Crematorium

Almost two years ago the Council was on the verge of privatising this service. UNISON submitted a critique and the recommendation was changed, senior officers were tasked to carry out a full Options Appraisal. One of the key drivers was the urgent need for new Cremators. The Options Appraisal was completed in July 2010 and the overwhelming best Value for Money option was the in-house proposal. The urgent work which needed to start has still not taken place and this service has now been added to the Future Shape DRS bundle.

 

You may be aware that four Funeral Directors signed our staff petition which we submitted to Cabinet. I am aware that they are frustrated that the plans for the new Cremators has not been progressed and as a consequence and there is a growing and significant risk that the Funeral Directors could easily take their business elsewhere.

 

In these extraordinary times how can it be acceptable that we could lose significant income as result of failing to implement the outcome of the Options Appraisal?

 

Frontline Services

I have mentioned two services that generate income which supplements funding for frontline services. I do so because I was shocked to read that we are proposing to delete 4.5 mental health social work posts (Home Treatment Team) and the one social worker in the soon to be closed Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit (BIRU). These are frontline of services, and despite the best efforts of the Director of Adult Services to mitigate the risks, they will almost certainly have a detrimental impact on service users. I could identify make similar concerns about the cuts across Children’s Services where we are seeing closures of children centres and youth services.

 

I would wish for you and your Cabinet colleagues to think again about how the One Barnet programme is being taken forward and to look to a “different relationship with staff and the trade unions & citizens” one in which all are equal stakeholders in future development of Council services. The Trade Unions submitted a report to Cabinet entitled “The Wrong Transformation” our recommendations presented a different and more inclusive approach to the financial challenges we face.

 

I am happy to meet up to provide clarification on any issues or concerns you may have with my feedback. I would be grateful for a speedy response, especially to the particular issues raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely

John Burgess

Branch Secretary

Barnet UNISON

CC: Barnet UNISON members

 

 

 

On Friday 3 December the Trade Unions were informed that 818 protective redundancy notices were issued.

“What does this mean?”

It means that everyone who receives a letter is at risk of redundancy however it does not mean that everyone receiving a letter will be made redundant.

E.g. In a team of 10 the Budget proposal may say that 2 posts need to be cut. This means all 10 staff are at risk but 2 staff will be made redundant.

“How do they select who can go?”

The Council will be selecting staff for redundancy using the Managing Change Policy. This is a new Policy which was passed by councillors without the agreement of the Trade Unions. You should be able to view the Policy on the Council intranet.

PLEASE NOTE:

If you are a UNISON member and have received a protective redundancy letter please contact the UNISON office on 0208 359 2088 or email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk and we will arrange for a rep to make contact with you.

“What happens next?”

Consultation begins as from 3 December. Over the next few weeks new structures /job descriptions will be circulated to staff and trade unions. It is important that all members take part in the process.

In the week commencing 3 January a number of 1:1 meetings will be taking place for staff at risk. If you require UNISON representation please contact the UNISON office ASAP.

“Can I volunteer to leave?”

You can volunteer but the decision on whether your request is accepted rests with the Council.

 Click here for more details

Barnet UNISON has produced a report entitled “The Wrong Transformation whgich covers the privatisation proposals for the following services

• Parking,
• Passenger Travel,
• Adult Social Care Services,
• Development & Public Health Services.

To view report click here.

Barnet UNISON has produced a report which is seriously critical of the risk and business reasons being used to recommend privatisation of this service.

Our report presents a damning analysis of the recommendations to view report click here

To view Appendices click here

Barnet Council has produced a report entitled One Barnet Framework which you can view here

We have produced a response the headlines are

Top Ten High Risks

1.    Failure to undertake Comprehensive Service Reviews

2.    Options Appraisals to date are fundamentally flawed

3.    Ignored government best practice

4.    Failed to carry out meaningful Oversight and Scrutiny reviews

5.   Failed to address major shortcomings in contract management

6.    Option appraisals pay scant regard to equalities

7.    Erratic approach to shared services and joint delivery

8.    Staff and trade unions have been excluded from the options appraisal process.

9.    Failure to respond over two years to a series of proposals from staff and trade unions

10. No evidence of an overall vision.

To view our Full report click here  

Incredibly this income generating service has been included in the privatisation of Development & Public Health Services despite the fact that a full Options Appraisal which included staff and Trade Unions clearly demonstrated the in-house service was by far the best value for money option.

I was involved in this Options Appraisal, interestingly this is the only Options Appraisal the Trade Unions (TU’s) & staff have been involved in. All the other Future Shape projects have been shut down in terms of TU & staff involvement. This is a service that generates income to the Council. In these times it is vital that any income produced should be directed back into front line services, literally every pound earned is precious.

So why is the Council prepared to give away this income with the private sector whilst at the same makes decisions to cuts services and jobs?

I can still remember the Westminster Cemeteries fiasco as I used to work for Westminster Council. I was chasing after the Leader of the Council Shirley Porter along with the BBC Panorama camera crew as she was entering the Town hall.

For those unfamiliar with the Westminster story:

“The decision to sell three cemeteries for five pence each was taken when the council was led by Dame Shirley Porter, the Tesco heiress, during the 1980s. She was later surcharged by the District Auditor for her part in the “homes for votes scandal”, in which council property was sold off in the hope of importing Tory voters to marginal wards.

Westminster bought back the graves at Mill Hill, Hanwell and East Finchley cemeteries in June 1992 at an estimated cost of £4 million. However, the owners kept all the unused land.”

You can read the full article here

The following is content from a local Barnet Blooger who goes under the name of Mr Reasonable.

I think it is apt to publish his Blog at the same time the Council is expecting residents to believe the last claims coming out of the OneWhichBarnet Council,.

Here goes Post Number One

“Barnet Council very kindly put up on their website a list of supplier payments over £500. Mr Reasonable spent a great deal of time going through those figures and some appeared very strange indeed. I posted some of my analysis following my one to one with Cllr Thomas and had a reply back from one of those suppliers Calco Services who stated that no they had not received £1.3 million they had only received £54k. Concerned that there may be a fraud being attempted Mr Reasonable contacted Barnet Council. This afternoon I have received a note saying the figures were wrong and they have now published a new supplier list. Going through the top 104 invoices by value (all £100,000 or more) I find that 32 payment details have been changed. These amount to £11.1million of changes. Frankly I have no confidence in the figures and I defy anyone to make a sound contribution on where budget cut should fall if we are not clear what is being spent. The odd error maybe but so many and of such scale and they would have gone completely unnoticed except for Mr Reasonable’s intervention. What a shocker!”

Post Number Two

“In between trying to earn a living I have carried out a comparison between the two sets of supplier details. It would appear that approximately 3,120 of the 13,563 entries have been changed in the amended supplier payments list. So the original list that was published wasn’t just a bit wrong it was overwhelmingly wrong. Now being a reasonable chap I know people do make mistakes but what I want to know is why did nobody check this before it was first published and is the April to June list also wrong. Is this indicative of an underlying lack of quality control. When the council discuss their budget cuts at the budget meeting in December I sincerely hope someone will have checked the numbers then. “

One Barnet Framework report going to Cabinet on 29 November claims that the OneWhichBarnet Programme will deliver over a 100 million in savings.

I have seen the headlines in the local press here and the response from the opposition here . I was asked by the local press for a comment and several hours later when I had finished!

Seriously it is very easy for politicians to make statements and claims about their policies it is another to deliver.

The EasyCouncil sound bite seemed to work for a while; it courted national media attention, but inevitably the details of what it all really means has now come to light. The innovative policy easy Council which had policy anoraks excited can now see it is not delivering anything innovative. Commissioning Council is nothing new. Adult Social Services took this approach many years ago and it doesn’t work. For staff has led to a dramatic erosion of terms & conditions e.g. UNISON Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield quoted in a meeting I attended that 85% of Home Care across the UK has been privatised. Furthermore the terms and conditions since leaving the Council had significantly deteriorated to the point that all the gains for Equal Pay for women workers have been eradicated by the Commissioning Model. I haven’t even started about training and development, security of employment for care workers. It is nothing less than shameful how care workers have been treated. Yet all our members, their friends & family will at some stage come across the services of a care worker.

So for those reading this who wonder why we are campaigning so hard for our members, this is why, we do not ‘buy into the commissioning model for council services.’

The Trade Unions have and continue to promote an alternative model, a model which trusts in the skill and expertise of its workforce and the innovation and experience of its residents.

The Trade Unions believe that savings could be delivered quicker and cheaper than the Commissioning Model which is why we wanted to learn from the Newcastle model for delivering savings and improving services.

Back to £100 million pound saving!

My first reaction is that the figures have been made up…plucked out of the ether. Why would I say that? For the past two and half years I have had to listen consultants wax lyrical about how they will be able to ‘save the council money’, whilst at the same time they keep racking up the bill to the Council for their services!

“What have the Council saved for all this advice which in my reckoning must be over £4 million if you include officer and consultants time in the last two years?”

The above report states that the Council will have to commit a further £9.2 million to recover over £10 million in the next three years!

Programme Risks

The paragraph 4.3 of the covering report omits the following risks:

• Programme objectives not achieved cost effectively over time if the sufficient flexibility in a controlled manner is not built in to reflect changes in environment, client needs, technology during the life of the contract.
• Savings not achieved in the absence of adequate, effective and independent scrutiny.
• Programme delivery not on time or within budget in the absence of adequate expertise (Para 7.1) and capacity (Para 6.3).

Finally there is not mention of the assumptions and boundaries applied when preparing these savings/estimates. Further specific questions include :

• Were interdependencies identified?
• Were savings from interdependencies identified?
• Have the savings estimated excluded double counting these interdependency savings?

Yes, is the answer for those members wondering what we are going to do next. Yes we will be submitting reports to Cabinet articulating our views on this report and I beleive a number of staff will be joining me at the meeting on Monday 29 November…get their early…I hear it coudl be ‘standing roon only!’

Every year the Council produces a Budget and each year redundancies are issued. One of the duties the Council has when considering making staff redundant is to make sure that they have looked at all spend before issuing redundancy notices. Over the last few years the Agency & Consultancy spend has become a major issue facing public sector bodies and central government. On 4 June this year Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said:

“Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government.  Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips”

According to the Figures produced online it appears the Council spend on Consultants is

Total for Q2                                            £8,720,573.32

Total for Q1                                            £10,646,080.67

Total for Qs 1&2                                     £19,366,653.99

Extrapolation for the year                       £38,733,307.98

In relation to Agency spend the Council spent

Total for Quarter 2                                  £2,022,422.60

Total for Quarter 1                                  £2,132,180.86

Total for Quarters 1&2                            £4,154,603.46

Extrapolation for the year                        £8,309,206.92

The above spend is something the Trade Unions are taking up with the Council especially in light of number of jobs and services at risk identified in the Strategic Budget proposals.