Barnet UNISON recommendations to Cabinet Resources

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Recommendations

 

1. The Business Case has failed to make a strategic, economic, commercial, financial

and management case for commencing the procurement process and should be

rejected by Cabinet Resources Committee.

 

2. Given the impending changes in the organisation and delivery of local government,

NHS and benefit services, the Council should avoid being locked into a long-term

contract. It should commit to engage with staff and trade unions to undertake

transformation in-house drawing on external support on an as-and-when basis (a

practice adopted by Kent County Council and Newcastle City Council in drawing on

external consultancy to support in-house transformation).

 

3. If the Council proceeds with current plans then it is essential that it:

  • undertakes a full risk assessment;
  • confirms the full scale of potential job losses and assesses the economic and
  • equalities impacts with appropriate policies to eliminate or mitigate negative consequences;
  • makes a commitment to secondment or a TUPE Plus transfer of staff;
  • ensures that staff suffer no reduction in the quality of their pension;
  • commits to requiring service delivery to remain in Barnet;
  • requires contractors to pay the full rent for council accommodation;
  • designs a new fully resourced contract monitoring and management arrangements;
  • reassesses the savings forecasts to take account of the potential cost of redundancies, potential larger loss of income and the increased costs of contract monitoring and management;
  • assesses the potential impact of the CSO-NSO contract on the pension fund as a matter of urgency;
  • strengthens Oversight and Scrutiny
  • to ensure that it carries out rigorous and regular assessment of performance and employment policies;
  • increases the resources of Internal Audit to enable more effective and continuous auditing;
  • introduces Gateway Reviews of the options appraisal and procurement process;
  • requires improved performance of the Council’s external auditors;
  • rewrites the contract monitoring and management section of the Business Plan to take account of the current fundamental problems and weaknesses in the Council’s procurement practice and
  • addresses the wide range of new issues that will emerge in a strategic partnership that is going to be subject to significant changes during the contract period.