“The Commissioning Council- It’s what it says on the Tin!”

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“The Commissioning Council- It’s what it says on the Tin!”

There has been a lot of talk about what is Commissioning Council means. What it really means is the Council moves to a strategic commissioning role and away from delivering services.  

In the last 12 months we have seen the following services leave the council

·         Residential/ Supporting Living/ Day care services for adults with disabilities

·         Council Housing Services

·         Parking Service

·         Legal Services Department

·         Audit Service – the majority of the service is provided by the consultancy Pricewaterhouse & Cooper

The next big tranche of Council services are New Support Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO)

Which involves the following services

·         Information Technology 

·         Human Resources & Payroll

·         Pensions

·         Health & Safety

·         Financial Services

·         Customer Services (Call Centre) which includes Social Care Direct Team             based in Adult Social Care.

·         Estates, Property Services

·         Revenues & Benefits

·         Corporate Programmes (Project management)

·         Procurement

·         Electoral Registration

These Council services are closely followed by Development and Regulatory Services (DRS):

·         Trading Standards & Licensing,

·         Land Charges,

·         Planning & Development,

·         Building Control & Structures,

·         Environmental Health,

·         Highways Strategy, Highways Network Management, Highways Traffic & Development, Highways Transport & Regeneration,

·         Strategic Planning & Regeneration,

·         Hendon Cemetery & Crematoria.

·         Priority Intervention Team

Music Service is going out early 2013.

Public Health Service – This critical responsibility was recently handed to Local Authorities. The staff have only recently arrived in the Council for the NHS only to hear Barnet have decided to transfer them out of Council control. 

 

The next stage of One Barnet is called Wave Two

1. Street Scene Services.

The decision to keep these services in-house was agreed at a Cabinet briefing at the ‘eleventh’ hour. Brent Council had announced in their executive meeting that they were going to carry out a joint procurement of Street Scenes with Barnet Council. The recycling service is being brought back in-house next year because the council will gain all of the financial benefits. The decision to bring this service back in-house was always the plan even if they had gone ahead with the joint privatisation with Brent.

2. Registrars Service

At the Cabinet Resources Committee on 17 December councillors are going to consider service delivery options for this service.

Incredibly they are now looking at Children’s social work.

Have you noticed a theme emerging?

When services are being reviewed, the question being asked is not if we (Barnet Council) can do them better ourselves but WHO can deliver them instead of the Council.

This is what a Commissioning Council looks like.

This is why the Council is breaking up the staffing structure and issuing redundancies.

This is why in-house staff are being referred to as delivery units!

The key message Council staff are getting is that the Council does not want them and are desperately seeking other organisations to take them on. What we have seen with the NSCSO project has reinforced this view and it seems the Council are unconcerned about the numbers of redundancies it brings.