Madness by Madness

Some days I think is it me or has the world gone completely mad, do members have these sorts of days?

So my music video for this week is Madness by Madness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8J1istSg8

Privatisation Special??

Today I have been inundated by emails highlighting a number of reports about privatisation of public services. It is very, very clear from reading flawed options appraisals and business cases for the One Barnet no evidence has been produced to substantiate the exaggerated claims that privatisation of Barnet Council services and staff will deliver savings.

Barnet UNISON has produced almost 30 detailed reports on easyCouncil and recently submitted two detailed reports on the business case for the privatisation of Development and Regulatory Services (DRS).

I want to quickly remind members of what the reports said

Professor Dexter Whitfield (European Services Strategy Unit, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Adelaide, with over 35 years experience of planning, researching and analysing local authority policy documents in Britain and overseas) was commissioned by Barnet UNISON three years ago to provide consultancy support for the Easycouncil/Future Shape/One Barnet programme you can view his reports here.

Dexter Whitfield said this about the DRS business case:

·         “The DRS Business Case has a superficial appearance of authenticity but is fundamentally not fit for purpose and elected members have a duty to decide it is non-compliant.”

·          “There is clearly a high risk that user charges will be increased in order to achieve the income generation targets.”

 

Adrian Waite (Independent Consultancy Services) was commissioned by Barnet UNISON to examine the financial aspects of the business case. Adrian is a highly experienced and respected local government finance expert. He has held a number of senior roles in local authorities including Director of Finance and s151 Officer and is a fully qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

I

Adrian Waite said this about the DRS business case

“During the thirty years that I have worked in local government finance as a local government officer and management consultant, including some time as Finance Director of a Borough Council, I have seen and written many business cases, business plans and options appraisals.”

“This business case is remarkable for the apparent lack of robust evidence to support its main conclusions that £28million of savings and increased income is achievable and that this can only be delivered through outsourcing.”

To read Dexter Whitfield’s report click here

To Read Adrian Waite’s report click here

 

Back to the articles

It has been astonishing to read the number of articles about the risks of privatisation in the national media. I had to keep checking that they had not been written by UNISON

“The government was not prepared to run the political risk of fully transferring services to the private sector”  Note of a meeting between Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude and CBI director John Cridland

Lots of members believe that One Barnet is simply political ideological. Have a read of the following articles see what you think.

1. Outsourcing ‘not an inevitable response’ to austerity, says Socitm report

new warning note about the risks of outsourcing IT appears in a briefing from Socitm Insight, the research arm of the public sector IT managers’ association.

Costs of Outsourcing – Uncovering the Real Risks accepts that there are good reasons for outsourcing, especially for smaller organisations. However, outsourcing a major component of the ICT service, or even the whole service, “is a major commitment and fraught with risk”.

According to the report, Socitm’s benchmarking service, which has compared costs and user satisfaction over a decade, shows that, when comparing the costs for any service; most elements will be more expensive if outsourced. The risks associated with benchmarking begin at the tender stage when suppliers will benefit from being experts at the process of negotiating contract terms, in contrast with the local authority that will go to market only rarely for a major outsourcing, the report says.

The briefing also counsels public services to avoid the mistake of outsourcing information assets alongside their technology.

‘Outsourcing should not be considered an inevitable response to austerity’ says Martin Greenwood, author of Cost of outsourcing. ‘Even smaller organisations that need to gain economies of scale, and struggle to keep up to date with technological development, should consider collaboration and sharing with other local public services as a genuine alternative. If they do take the plunge into outsourcing, they should make sure they are aware of the pitfalls and know how to avoid them.’

Costs of outsourcing – uncovering the real risks, is available free of charge to Socitm Insight subscribers, and can be downloaded from www.socitm.net.

2. Socitm report highlights outsourcing risks

The report, ‘Costs of Outsourcing – Uncovering the Real Risks’, examines the risks in detail and offers advice about how to tackle them.

“How to make outsourcing pay for client and supplier Socitm points out that although there are often good reasons for outsourcing, especially for smaller organisations unable to benefit from economies of scale or afford to change technology as regularly as their larger competitors, outsourcing a major component of an ICT service is fraught with risk……”

It goes on to say

“It also argues that when comparing the costs for any service, most elements will be more expensive over a 10-year period if outsourced. This may seem counter intuitive, but report author Martin Greenwood said: “It is a myth that outsourcing is cheaper, across most areas it is more expensive and people outsource for a range of reasons other than cost.”

Further adding

“Another risk lies with outsourcing information assets alongside technology, as the ability to exploit these is a key source of efficiency savings and even advocates of outsourcing advise against this.”

To read full article: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2049497/socitm-report-highlights-outsourcing-risks#ixzz1LOcn7ycX

3. Coalition scales back privatisation plans over ‘excess profit making’ fears

The government has privately admitted it is scaling back its plans to privatise swaths of the public sector for fear of appearing to be in favour of private companies excessively profiting from the taxpayer.

A leaked memo of a meeting between business chiefs and the minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, says there will be “no return to the 1990s” and wholesale outsourcing. Maude is preparing a white paper on public services – delayed since February – setting out the future direction of public services, which is expected to contain plans to match private sector companies to charities and volunteer groups to run public services.

Read full article here

4. Plans to outsource public services ‘scaled back’

“The government is scaling back plans to use the private sector to deliver public services, the BBC has learned.

Leaked documents suggest ministers have decided the “wholesale outsourcing” of public services to the private sector would be politically “unpalatable”.

Ministers instead want to use more charities, social enterprises and employee-owned “mutual” organisations.

Outsourcing was meant to be a key part of the government’s drive to cut costs and reduce the UK’s budget deficit.

The note, obtained by the BBC, is marked “strictly private and confidential” and was drawn up by the CBI as a record of the meeting.

It says: “The minister’s messages were clear cut… the government is committed to transforming services, but this would not be a return to the 1990s with wholesale outsourcing to the private sector – this would be unpalatable to the present administration.

“The government was not prepared to run the political risk of fully transferring services to the private sector with the result that they could be accused of being naive or allowing excess profit making by private sector firms.”

To view full article click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13273932

5. Leaked government documents suggest shared services are the future

Leaked documents have cast doubt on the government’s enthusiasm towards wholesale outsourcing to help it cut public sector costs and suggest that joint ventures would be a more palatable remedy to excessive government costs.

According to a BBC report, leaked documents suggest ministers view the wholesale outsourcing of public services to private companies as “unpalatable”.

To view full article click here http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/05/04/246579/Leaked-government-documents-suggest-shared-services-are-the.htm

Welcome to the re-vamped LGPS Campaign News – now known as ‘LGPS – Protect Our Pensions’. UNISON is campaigning hard to protect all the pension schemes to which UNISON members belong, but ‘LGPS – Protect Our Pensions’ will focus solely on our campaign to protect the LGPS.

 

‘Protect Our Pensions’ Bulletins 1 and 2 and eFocus have brought you up-to-date with the latest news about the Hutton Review and the Budget. LGPS contacts and branches with LGPS members should also have received copies of the leaflets produced for the joint union LGPS campaign; Ten key facts, Myths exposed, 2011 budget and Why the LGPS pension tax must be stopped (copy attached). If you haven’t seen them, you can view/download the leaflets at:

 

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/19833.pdf

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/19834.pdf

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/19835.pdf

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/19836.pdf

 

Make sure you get copies – ordered using the order form attached. Use them in your campaigning with other LGPS unions locally!

To view full document click here

To view invitation details click here

Colleagues

The attached model letter asks MPs to support the following Early Day Motions (EDMs):

The attached model letter asks MPs to support the following Early Day Motions (EDMs):

1629 in the name of Ed Miliband opposes the permanent change from RPI to CPI for public service pensions

1032 in the name of John Robertson questioning the change from RPI to CPI for pensions and benefits

1625 in the name of John McDonnell praying against the govt’s statutory instrument to make the RPI to CPI change for public service pensions

It’s important that MPs support these EDMs, therefore, I would urge you all to send this letter to your MP.  If you are unsure about the name of your MP please visit the http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ website.

Over the last three years there have been a number of updates about the IBM takeover (SoutwestOne) of public services in Somerset.

We have previously reported that SouthwestOne was not delivering and reportedly made a loss of up to £16 million last year.

Today we have a short video of a news report providing more details which further support Barnet UNISON’s view that One Barnet programme is playing high risks and not recognises the serious fundamental risks of these type of strategic partnerships.

The Conservative party Leader in this video claims that if they could rip up the contract they would be able to save £58 million! They are re-negotiating the contract but you don’t mess with companies like IBM.

I wouldn’t want to be a tax payer in Somerset!

To view video click here

Media spokesperson for Barnet UNISON ‘Handsoff Christian Anderson’ said that after consulting with members and retired members they had looked at the books and believe the savings are genuine.

Handsoff who has joined Barnet UNISON after working as a consultant for an Emperor (in a land far far away) said that he had made successful similar claims in his previous job. When pressed by local journalists he refuted accusations that his consultancy advice to the Emperor had been undermined by a little boy who noticed that the Emperor was in fact walking about in the nude!

Handsoff has pledged to draft a fairytale report and hand it to all Barnet councilllors at their Big Party on 17 May at Hendon Town Hall.

“We don’t have any evidence and we don’t know what we are doing but you just have to trust that we are right, just look at our claim £1,000,000,000 that is a lot of money and it all goes back into the community.”

Barnet UNISON unofficial auditor Rip Van Winkle after hearing the claims is reported as saying he “will have to sleep on it” before deciding if he can sign off the fairytale report.

Look out for further announcements from Barnet UNISON Easter Bunny later this week.

Barnet Council is embarking on a policy called One Barnet Programme (OBP) the fact that there is nothing ‘One Barnet’ about handing over all your services to a vast number of private sector organisations is another matter.

I have been actively pursuing answers to important questions following news that 2 former council care homes (now owned by Catalyst Housing) were found to be infected by the legionella bacteria. A month later we were informed it was now 3 care homes and Catalyst had been served an improvement notice by Barnet Council.

These are the questions

1. Can you confirm whether any resident/service user/member of the public has contracted Legionella?

2. Who is responsible for monitoring the safety of the water supply in these settings?

• Is it Barnet Council?
• Is it Catalyst Housing?
• Is it Fremantle?
• Is another organisation?

 3. When and where in each of the affected homes did they discover Legionella bacteria?

4. When was the last time each setting was checked and who has the records?

5. Does Barnet Council include issues like Health & Safety in the contract monitoring process? If not why not? If yes when were these last reviewed?

6. Are risk assessments on health & safety carried out in all of the settings?

7. As part of the contract monitoring by Barnet Council are these risk assessments reviewed? If not why not? If yes when were they last reviewed?

8. As part of good safeguarding practice have other residential care homes provided by Catalyst and Fremantle been informed about the outbreak and if so have the checks been carried out in those settings?

9. What was the cause of this outbreak and what controls have been put in place to secure the safety of the residents, staff and visitors?

10. Was a risk assessment carried out after the Legionella bacteria was discovered? If yes, what did it say and what control measures were put in place? If not why not? 

11. Can you confirm that you have issued an improvement notice and if so please provide me with a copy of the notice?

12. Have relatives of residents and day care users been informed and kept up to date on developments?’

Barnet UNISON along with Barnet Alliance for Public Services is campaigning for a Public Inquiry into what happened.

If you want to support this campaign please do the following:

1. Sign our petition here
2. Ask your MP to sign this Early Day Motion here
3. Circulate our petition and Early Day Motion to your friend and family and any mailing lists you are on.
4. Put our campaign on Face book
5. Tweet our campaign on Twitter

It has been reported in the Hendon Times that there are significant problems the headline was “More than 8,000 Barnet residents hit by council tax administration errors”

“THOUSANDS of council tax forms have been sent out without vital payment details, while thousands more have been sent duplicate bills, in the latest administrative blunder to hit Barnet Council.

Read whole article here

“How could this happen to what has been previously reported as a low cost high performing service?”

Barnet council have had to undergo major change in its revenues and benefits department. A company supplying the revenues and benefits system that was used by the council was purchased by a larger distributor (Northgate). Northgate decided that they where no longer going to fund the system that the council were using. This left the council no choice but to seek an alternative.

The council went through an extensive tendering process and the company that was chosen stated that they would be able to supply a match to what was already in place. The company “Civica” who supply services to a number of councils, one of those councils being Camden, was then chosen as they had indicated that the requirements of the revenue and benefits sector would be met.

From day one since Civica taken the reins the project has been flooded with problems. Civica are required to supply the hosting, software, scanning and mail opening.

The handover of the project was on in December 2010 and the system was due to be back up beginning of February. When in fact it took a month longer than they stated it would take. This might have been due to the fact they did not upgrade their servers, which resulted in a major disruption of the service.

Mail scanning has been disastrous with documents and emails not being scanned in to the system, which has resulted in further delays.

The software has not been fully compatible with data already held we understand that Civica’s response is that those areas are an added extra and the Council will need to pay more.

The situation has been worsened as benefit claims have not converted over to the new financial year, which has left benefit assessors in a nightmare situation of having to totally reassess those claims. The benefit department has been inundated with phones calls from disgruntled members of the public regarding the fact that their benefit has not been assessed.

Barnet Council have penalised Civica for their failure to meet the contract that was set out. Revenues and Benefits staff are hard at work actively seeking work a rounds for the current problems in order to give the public the service that they require.

These problems will continue to run into the months ahead and the revenues and benefit staff are clearly trying to manage with what they have now been given. It is just another clear sign that the private sectors just do not care about the public and are only interested in money.

All the above has been identified in the Corporate Risk Register which you can view on the Council web site here

Go to Appendix 11 and scroll down to  ORG0014 – Financial

Risk: new revenues and benefits systems will not be in place with effect April 2011 to collect taxes and administer benefits.

Cause: Current supplier of Revs & Bens IT taken over by third party. Third party are desupporting the existing system with effect from January 2011 forcing all current users to source new systems.

Consequence: Go-live has been delayed on 2 occasions due to IT hosting and the required quality criteria for data conversions. Current golive mid February 2011. Level of debt and benefit administered within the affected

This is a service that has been pushed into a Future Shape/One Barnet Project for privatisation.

The options appraisal for this decision was made at Cabinet Resources Committee 2 March.

Barnet UNISON’s critique of the options appraisal made the following comments with regards Revs & Bens

“There are massive legislative changes about to be made by the current government especially in relation to all benefits, which are to be replaced by a universal benefit. Under these circumstances it is premature to include Revenue and Benefits in this project. Their inclusion gives the impression that they have been included to create a desirable contract package rather than the needs of Barnet residents.

Further, Revenue & Benefits is currently implementing a new ICT system. This service is high performing low cost. Any attempt to impose the CSO model and therefore its breakup would be a high-risk to performance and cost

The poor track record of the outsourcing of this service in London, for example, Hackney, Ealing and Southwark and nationally where this service has been returned to in-house operation. Where strategic partnerships have taken over Revenue and Benefits these have generally been high performing service before they were outsourced. In addition, government review of the benefits system could lead to this service being nationalised. This is another reason why it should be excluded from the project.”

Response from the Council to these concerns were

“Whilst these are high performing services, there is potential to reduce costs and improve performance which the options appraisal identifies can best be delivered through the procurement of a strategic partner to deliver these services. For Revenues and Benefits there are also benefits that can be realised by delivering this service closely with Customer Services”

The One Barnet programme (OBP) has three principles

·         a new relationship with citizens;

·         a one public sector approach; and

·         a relentless drive for efficiency.

Perhaps there should be fourth principle adding? 

“A relentless drive to ignore and/or discount any criticism of the OBP”

 

Last week, # Barnet easycouncil hosted a ‘market day’ for private sector companies interested in making a profit out of running public services in Barnet.

I am sure they went away confident they would be able to deliver significant income to their shareholders…but what about Barnet residents??? 

Last Friday afternoon I sat down with UNISON members to listen to a presentation on the process to privatise the Parking service by April 2012.

Understandably staff were upset to be privatised, they asked a number of questions which made it clear that political ideology is replacing sound evidence based decision making.

 Last November UNISON submitted a report which you can view here we provided evidence to substantiate our report which you can view here

The report was presented to Cabinet and a number of senior officers and consultants and to date there has been no comment.

Our report claimed

“Actually, there is only one borough (Westminster) that has tried to privatise all their parking service using separate contractors to carry out their enforcement and administrative activities. Their enforcement is carried out by NSL who also dominate the market in enforcement across London albeit their performance is below average. Appendix A provides recent information on parking charge notice (parking ticket) issue over the twelve months to August 2010 compared to the year before. The best performances were from in-house teams (+8.6%). The three main private sector providers’ performances over the same period were comparatively very poor ie. Vinci Park (-3%), Mouchel (-5.7%) and NSL (-13.2%).”

“There is a legal risk associated with the requirements set down in the Traffic Management Act 2004 around decision-making on representations & appeals. LB Westminster is the only authority that has externalised both formal and informal back office activities and their performance at adjudication is the second worse in London with only 27% adjudications won last year (see Appendix C). This is a real risk to both income and the Council’s reputation.”

Scrutiny undermined

Earlier this year UNISON had been told Parking Service business case would be going to Cabinet Resources Committee (CRC) on 21 April.

The decision not to take the Parking Service business case to CRC unlike other One Barnet projects suppports Barnet UNISON’s view that there is no effective evidence based scrutiny of One Barnet projects.

Equalities issues

I have been contacted by a number of members asking if the decision “not to go to CRC discriminatory?”

The breakdown of the workforce is predominantly from the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) community. I will be asking for a copy of the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) with regards the decision not to go to committee along with the EIA for the business case.

The *OJEU contract

The OJEU notice was sent out 4 April 2011 the contract has been valued between £15- 25 million for a 5 year contract (plus 2 year).

You can view the OJEU notice here

The only justification for privatisation is the private sector will generate money to the council

In our report we stated:

“The surplus within the Special Parking Account (SPA) was actually just under £6m per annum in 2008/09 (Para 4.6) which shows that an in-house team can provide a financially efficient and beneficial service.”

In my discussions with staff, there is one reoccurring theme. They are angry because they believe the service was allowed to fail in order for the service to be privatised.

 If you follow the current One Barnet thinking, the Council are privatising Parking (a service which used to high performing and generated far greater income) because it no longer provides enough income. They claim the Private sector will be able to generate the required savings the in-house previously generated!  So we are handing over money to a Private sector partner which otherwise could be spent for benefit Barnet residents and not the shareholders of the private sector!

We now await the business case for Parking Service.

* Official Journal of European Union