Author: admin
JUDICIAL REVIEW CHALLENGE TO PRIVATISATION OF BARNET COUNCIL SERVICES LAUNCHED
Public Interest Lawyers
Press Release – 7 DECEMBER 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUDICIAL REVIEW CHALLENGE TO PRIVATISATION OF BARNET COUNCIL SERVICES LAUNCHED
________________________________________________________________
Public Interest Lawyers, acting on behalf of Susan Sullivan, a concerned Barnet resident, has today notified Barnet Council (at 9.39am) of her intention to seek judicial review of the “One Barnet programme”. The pre-action protocol letter sets out her claim against the Council. She alleges that the Council is acting unlawfully, both as to the process it has adopted and the substance of its proposals. The One Barnet programme is unprecedented in its ambition and scale nationally, yet it has never been the subject of a consultation of Barnet residents nor an effective equalities impact assessment.
The letter seeks the immediate suspension of any further contracting decisions by the Council and the carrying out of a full and effective consultation and equalities assessment. She contends that the results of any such assessment/consultation would cause the Council to re-evaluate the ill-advised programme.
The Claimant argues that the Council has breached the following legal duties:
a) The Public Sector Equality Duty – this requires the Council to have “due regard” to equalities considerations and the impact of its decisions on protected equalities groups throughout its decision making process. The Council has failed to have regard to this duty both in relation to the timing of its equality impact assessments –postponed until too late in the contracting process; and in relation to the form of the few assessments that have been carried out. They have failed to evaluate the most important question: what is the impact of a wholesale and irreversible contracting out of the Council’s functions? High-flown contractual promises of bidders lack essential rigour and detail and are no answer to this question. There has been inadequate consideration of mitigating actions.
b) The ‘Best Value Duty’ in s3 Local Government Act 1999 – this duty requires the Council to obtain ‘best value’. This includes community as well as financial value. Statutory Guidance requires consultation to take place. This has not happened. An evaluation of value requires the consideration of maintaining in-house services. This has not happened.
c) Public law duties of consultation and information. In failing to consult, and to consider viable in-house alternatives, the Council has unlawfully closed its mind to valuable democratic considerations.
Speaking today, John Sullivan, the father of Susan Sullivan stated as follows:
“The Council has robbed Susan and her family of their democratic voice in failing to consult on what is a wholesale privatisation of local government. If this happened nationally, there would be outrage. Why should it be any different for our beloved Barnet? The national contract failure rate is 25%. When these contracts collapse, who will be left to pick up the pieces? No-one but the poor, the disabled and short-changed Barnet service users, residents and taxpayers.”
Speaking today, Daniel Carey of Public Interest Lawyers stated as follows:
“The law requires the Council to consult residents and carefully evaluate the impact of its decisions on equalities groups. Yet, in the biggest decision the Council could possibly take – to effectively cease to be a Council as we know it – it has failed to do so. I hope the Council will now listen to the legal arguments and give proper and lawful regard to residents and their concerns.”
For further information, contact:
Public Interest Lawyers
Daniel Carey, Solicitor
Telephone: 0121 515 5069
Mobile: 07815 089526
E-mail: info@publicinterestlawyers.co.uk
– ENDS –
Barnet College – Lead UNISON rep reports back
Our UNISON lead rep Christalla has so far carried out a herculean task in negotiating on behalf of all of our members in the College.
To voew here detailed report click here
Pre-Action Letter – Proposed Claim for Judicial Review was served on Barnet council.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, STOP PRESS:
Pre-Action Letter – Proposed Claim for Judicial Review was served on Barnet council.
A Barnet resident, Maria Nash, has instructed lawyers to seek Judicial Review of the One Barnet Programme. A pre-action protocol letter was sent to the Council today, prior to the Cabinet meeting tonight which plans to approve the appointment of Capita plc as preferred bidder for the first of the One Barnet contracts, worth £320 million.
The letter details the grounds on which a Judicial Review will be sought:
1. Breach of the Council’s duty to consult Barnet residents, businesses and community organisations about its plans, the result of which is that it has spent millions of pounds – the Agilisys contract alone has cost over £4m and is likely to rise to £6m – on professional consultants helping it to run the procurement process, but has not once asked local people for their views.
2. Breach of councillors’ duty to the residents in their area, to make sure that their decisions represent the best available value for public money. In order to be sure that they are getting best value out of this or any other contract the Council must compare the costs, benefits and risks of outsourcing with the costs, benefits and risks of retaining services in house but reforming the way they are provided to optimise value. Despite having been urged to do this, and despite the fact that it has been done by other local authorities, like Edinburgh, Barnet has refused to do it.
3. Breach of the public sector equality duty: the Council must take issues of equality into account when making important decisions which affect people’s lives, like making radical changes in the way Council services are run. The “equalities impact assessment” done in the One Barnet case was a pure paper exercise, which took no account of the views of people who would be affected by the changes.
4. Breach of public procurement law, which requires that this contract be awarded to the company submitting the “most economically advantageous tender from the point of view of the public body”, i.e. the provider that gives the “best value for money” , taking into account the council’s responsibilities. Lack of consultation with local people, lack of consideration of equalities and lack of an in-house services comparator means the council cannot state that Capita gives the best value for money. Such a breach of the public procurement rules leads to cases like West Coast Main Line.
5. Breach of councillors’ duty to make up their own minds: Individual councillors must by law make up their own minds how to vote after informing themselves on the issues. They are not allowed blindly to follow the party line. Councillors have been starved of information and have not had the opportunity to understand the highly complex proposals for the contract, so they cannot legally vote to do anything other than defer a decision so that they can inform themselves and come to a proper view.
Notes for editors
1. Capita has been chosen as the preferred bidder for the New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) contract with Barnet Council, worth at least £320 million over 10 years and advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union as worth between £600 and £750 million. A second contract covering Development and Regulatory Services (DRS) worth £275 million over 10 years is also being bid for by Capita Symonds and EC Harris; parking services were recently outsourced to NSL for £15 million (5-year contract).
2. Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) is a coalition of residents, trade unionists and community campaigners in the London Borough of Barnet, formed to defend and improve public services.
3. Maria Nash is unfortunately unable to talk to the press due to illness. She has asked BAPS representative to speak on her behalf.
Contact: Barnet Alliance tel: 07534 407703 – Vicki Morris tel: 07446 292994 – http://barnetalliance.org ; Barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com
One Barnet:”When something looks too good to be true………”
Between November 2006 and September 2007, ahead of the credit crunch, Barnet Council entered into a number of fixed term deposits worth £27.4 million with two Icelandic banks. Councillors were advised that the Icelandic banks provided a very attractive and sound return on the investment, they were also informed that these banks had sound strategies, business plans and delivered excellent performance. The investments in these banks were apparently within the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Strategy approved by the Cabinet Resources Committee in March 2008.
http://www.barnet.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/345/annual_performance_report_2008-2009
http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/Data/Cabinet/200810231830/Agenda/Document%209.pdf
However, during the same period newspapers were reporting that these very banks were lending huge sums of money to investors (some Icelandic) to buy companies (many UK businesses) and paying eye watering prices which even the Middle Eastern sovereign funds would not pay.
What happened next was £27.4 million pounds of Council assets were frozen in two Icelandic banks following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system.
The point is that nothing is guaranteed and to date the Council has not provided either of the Council Scrutiny Committees of any robust evidence of learning lessons from other Councils.
It is wrong and naive to claim other Councils did not seek expert advice about drafting contracts. To suggest that by spending millions on expert legal advicethe Council wil be able to hold a multinational company to account and hence guarantee savings is quite frankly frightening.
In the real world everyone (apart from One Barnet Supporters) understands one thing
“Their (multinational companies) lawyers are always bigger and better
than the Councils.”
“Only some services….I am afraid it is over 200 local jobs!”
Update list of Barnet Council services down for outsourcing
In response to the Leader of Barnet Council services playing down the number of services on the Sunday Politics Show
View programme here http://youtu.be/O2enS9eT9sw
Please see list of council services either already transferred out or about to be transferred out
1. Residential/ Supporting Living/ Day care services for adults with disabilities
2. Council Housing Services
3. Parking Service
4. Legal Services Department
5. Audit Service – the majority of the service is provided by the consultancy Pricewaterhouse & Cooper
6. Services which are shortly to come off the Payroll
7. Information Technology
8. Human Resources & Payroll
9. Pensions
10. Health & Safety
11. Financial Services
12. Customer Services (Call Centre) which includes Social Care Direct Team based in Adult Social Care.
13. Estates,
14. Property Services
15. ·Revenues & Benefits
16. Corporate Programmes (Project management)
17. Procurement
18. Electoral Registration
19. Trading Standards & Licensing,
20. Land Charges,
21. Planning & Development,
22. Building Control & Structures,
23. Environmental Health,
24. Highways Strategy
25. Highways Network Management,
26. Highways Traffic & Development,
27. Highways Transport & Regeneration,
28. Strategic Planning & Regeneration,
29. Hendon Cemetery & Crematoria.
30. Priority Intervention Team
31. Music Service
32. Public Health Service
33. . …………
Local resident appeals to Scrutiny Committee – don’t sign
ONE BARNET NSCSO COMMUNITY DOSSIER
Thursday 29 November Barnet Alliance submitted the NSCSO Community Dossier
To view click here
The Dossier is an example of genuine consultation with our community. If you have any questions you think should be asked, please send them to contactus@barnetunison.org.uk no later than Tuesday 4 December at 6pm.
One Barnet – NOT Learning LESSONS from failure
NOT Learning LESSONS from failure
It was simple but clear request from the cross party Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee. They asked the Lead Cabinet Member Councillor Rams responsible for One Barnet Programme to bring evidence of when they visited other Councils, who visited them and what they learnt.
What they got was a list, but listen for yourself here http://youtu.be/_UQ17yFYeIs
The short clip is under 3minutes long. Have a read of some key extracts
Former Leader Councillor Brian Salinger tried to obtain details of the visits
“When the visits carried out who went on them and what did they learn from them? None of that is contained in here, six pages is desk top research. What members here are looking for are, what have you learnt from meeting up with councils face to face?
To Councillor Rams he asked “Which of these have you visited?
Councillor Rams replied
“I haven’t visited any of the sites, just by not visiting does not mean you are mot learning from your officers and desktop research”
Chair of Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee Councillor Hugh Rayner intervened and said:
“In fairness councillor Rams all we have here is a list of visits it doesn’t say whether they were for one hour, one day, one week, it doesn’t say when they were there, it doesn’t say what benefit we got from them, it doesn’t say who went, how detailed whether it was one person or a team, it’s so sketchy its absolutely useless I’m afraid”
He followed again by saying:
“I think the most important thing is to know what you learnt from each of them, for instance if you went on a visit and you found contracting out wasn’t a good idea maybe that should be noted, that they considered it was not a good idea and but here we don’t know.”
After four and half years of Future Shape/EasyCouncil/One Barnet, millions spent on consultants, Ten Conservative Councillors are on the brink of making the biggest political decision since the creation of Barnet Council in 1965, and the Council has still not provided any evidence of lessons learnt.
That is why this REALLY is a BILLIONPOUNDGAMBLE.