Barnet Tories 2023/24 Council Budget Plan to cut hundreds of jobs……
Barnet Tories 2023/24 Council Budget Plan to cut hundreds of jobs and the right to representation by a trade union.
Read details here on the Council website https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s76600/Conservative%20Alternative%20Budget%20Final%20Publish.pdf
In the biggest Cost of Living Crisis in over 75 years Barnet Tories have proposed an alternative budget that according to the Councils Chief Finance officer has this to say:
“Notionally this would be taking approximately 100 posts out of the services not mentioned above. This would have a significant impact on the delivery of those services and the S151 would advise caution in the delivery of this saving and the impact it could have on services.”
This anti worker rhetoric sums up where we are politically. The only response the Tories have is to frighten workers with redundancies and at the same time take away the right of workers to organise and be represented by trade unions.
If they want to look at waste, Barnet UNISON warned the Tories of the dangers of their mass outsourcing ideology back in 2008. We warned it would lead to poorer services, mass redundancies and of course we warned that Barnet would become a cash cow to the contractors.
Take a look at Barnet Blogger Mr Reasonable and read in horror the latest figures of Council spend on the two Capita contracts read below
http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.com/2023/02/capita-continuing-to-disappoint-in.html
To date Barnet Council has given Capita an eye watering £634 million of which £273 million more than the contracted value.
Back in 2012 Barnet UNISON was assured that Capita would be held to account, but the reality is that they have been treated differently to in-house services who have had to try to deliver services through austerity whereas Capita keep holding their hands out asking for more.
What was worrying at the last Audit Committee on 16 January 2023 is that the Council were not seeking compensation for poor performance and even more worrying that the Council is not monitoring Capita in the last few months of contract take a listen below:
The Tories spent £13 million to consultants to help develop and manage the mass outsourcing of services.
What about the decision to set the Council depot based in the centre of the borough ideally located to deliver frontline services to the residents of Barnet. A decision that saw services split between Barnet and Harrow. This model did not work, and the costs associated with moving services back to one location have cost millions with more still to be spent.
Barnet UNISON is proud of the hard work and commitment of all our members working across all parts of the Council including schools. They were quite rightly lauded as key workers, most of whom went into work when others worked from the safety of their homes.
We will continue to organise and mobilise our members wherever they are.
End.