Breaking News: “Outsourcing Has Failed Our Children and Our Workers – Bring School Catering Back In-House Now”

Barnet UNISON is calling on Barnet Council to end the failed outsourcing of school catering and bring the service back in-house.

At the upcoming Cabinet Committee meeting on 21 July 2025, Barnet Council will be asked to approve the continuation of an outsourced school meals contract. Barnet UNISON is demanding the Council reverse this recommendation and recognise the devastating impact outsourcing has had on schoolchildren, workers, and Barnet’s local economy.


John Burgess, Barnet UNISON Branch Secretary, said:
“For over a decade Barnet UNISON has warned of the dangers of outsourcing. Those warnings were ignored – and the result has been catastrophic. Low-paid Black women workers dismissed, children denied hot meals, and a kosher kitchen built with public money now left empty. Enough is enough.”

 

The Case Against Outsourcing:

  • Children Left Without Hot Meals: Barnet pupils were denied nutritious school meals due to the collapse of the kosher meal service.
  • Black Female Workers Dismissed: 41 Black catering staff lost their jobs when the kosher kitchen service collapsed. Only the trade union fought to secure their redundancy pay.
  • Wasted Public Assets: Barnet now has a kosher kitchen standing idle – a visible symbol of outsourcing gone wrong.
  • Poor Pay and No Pensions: Catering workers are excluded from the Local Government Pension Scheme and face poverty wages, resulting in reliance on housing benefits and in-work support – costs borne by the taxpayer.
  • A False Economy: Barnet claims savings, but the reality is a transfer of cost from the Council to the welfare state, undermining long-term financial sustainability.

A Better Alternative: In-House Services

Barnet Council ran a successful in-house school catering service for decades. In 2014–15, it generated a £190,000 surplus. Schools had confidence in the service and trusted its quality and reliability.

There has been no serious financial modelling on bringing the service back in-house. Despite citing inflation and “market pressures,” the current Cabinet report presents no updated analysis of how in-house provision could now be rebuilt to meet modern needs.

Council Equality Commitments Undermined

Barnet Council’s corporate values include a commitment to equality and inclusion, yet outsourcing has overwhelmingly harmed Black, female, low-paid workers – a group protected under the Equality Act 2010.

“This decision contradicts the Council’s equality duties,”.

“How can you talk about inclusion while outsourcing continues to hurt the very communities you claim to support?”


Labour Party Policy Backs Our Call

  • Ending Outsourcing: Labour’s 2021 Conference endorsed the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation,” including school services such as catering.
  • Tackling In-Work Poverty: Labour’s platform includes stronger rights at work, a real living wage, secure pensions, and an end to exploitative contracts.
  • Racial Justice at Work: Outsourcing has been shown to disproportionately harm Black workers. Labour-aligned campaigns highlight insourcing as a racial justice imperative.
  • Community Wealth Building: Labour supports local procurement and public ownership to retain wealth and secure good jobs in our communities.

Continuing to outsource the school meals contract undermines Labour values in one of the most diverse boroughs in the UK.


UNISON Demands:

  • Immediately halt the outsourcing procurement.
  • Publish a full Equality Impact Assessment.
  • Commission an updated in-house service feasibility report.
  • Bring Barnet’s school meals service back in-house.

 

For further information or interview requests, please contact:

Barnet UNISON at contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

To read Barnet UNISON report submitted to Cabinet Committee 22 July 2025 click on link below

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Barnet-UNISON-Report-Schools-Catering-2025.pdf

 

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Special Offer to Barnet UNISON members – Your health and wellbeing

Barnet UNISON Supporting Statement:

Barnet UNISON is pleased to share the launch of the WorkWell North-Central London programme with our members. This free, government-funded initiative offers vital early-intervention support for workers managing health and wellbeing challenges in the workplace.

We know how important it is for our members to have access to timely, practical support—especially when facing health-related barriers to work. WorkWell provides personalised coaching, expert referrals, and connections to local services, all designed to help employees stay well at work or return to work with confidence.

We strongly encourage any members living in or registered with a GP in Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Camden, or Islington to consider this opportunity. Whether you’re currently off work or simply looking for support to stay well in your role, WorkWell could make a real difference.

Barnet UNISON is proud to support initiatives like this that prioritise the health and dignity of workers. If you have any questions or need help with a referral, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Please seee details of the offer below

In solidarity,

Barnet UNISON Branch

WorkWell North-Central London Offer 

Members of Barnet UNSION and beyond are invited to take part in WorkWell North-Central London, a free, government funded, pilot work and health programme. WorkWell aims to help employees manage their health and wellbeing at work, reduce sickness absences, and enable a faster return to work for those who are signed off sick.

We are an early-intervention service, focused on positive health outcomes. Employees who join our programme will be offered 8, weekly coaching sessions to help them identify their health barriers and come up with a plan to overcome them.

On top of personalised coaching sessions, WorkWell helps people navigate the various local provisions on offer through our connections with publicly funded services and voluntary/community organisations. The programme also makes internal referrals to our team of experts in the fields of physical health, mental health, and employment. At the end of the 8 weeks with WorkWell, employees can expect to be equipped with an action plan and signposting to a more specialist service if required.

Employees can refer themselves directly, or UNISON reps are welcome to make referrals on behalf of their colleagues so long as they have their express permission. This can be done:

WorkWell is free to use as it is funded by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Health and Social Care. Shaw Trust has been commissioned to deliver WorkWell North-Central London by the North Central London Integrated Care System.

At present we can accept referrals from people living in, or with a GP in: Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Camden, and Islington. For those in Westminster, Kensington & Chealsea, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, Harrow, Hounslow, and Hillingdon, we will gladly make an onward referral to WorkWell West-Central London.

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“3.2% is not good enough – members deserve better!”

The news is that the response of the employers to the joint trade union National Pay claim for £3,000 is 3.2%.

Barnet UNISON members can view what 3.2% means to their grade by clicking on the link below

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2025/04/24/national-pay-offer-3-2/

UNISON members know that their pay has fallen behind the cost of living and that they are “all now working one day a week for free.”

If we continue to fail to negotiate a pay award that directly deals with the cost-of-living crisis, soon public sector workers will be working “two days a week for free.”

We are in the worst cost-of-living crisis in 77 years.

Politicians seeking to confuse and defend poor pay talk about inflation rates falling as if that has improved things for our members.

Speaking to some of our lowest paid members in care homes, depots, and schools, they are seriously struggling to survive on poverty wages.

Inflation may go up and down, but prices are not going down and they keep rising:

  • 50% rise in local Bus Fares
  • 41% rise in Water Bills
  • 22% rise in Stamp prices
  • 18.4% rise in Energy Bills
  • 16% rise Rail Cards
  • 14% rise in Tuition Fees
  • 4.99% rise in Council Tax
  • 4.6% rise in Rail Fares

Whilst the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.

We have been here before in 2009 our Barnet UNISON Branch Secretary set out his serious concerns in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown 24 June 2009

“Barnet Council has made efficiency savings of £80.9m over 7 years, £58.8m in the last 5 years” 

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/NO_PRIMEMINISTER_0.pdf

15 years ago, Barnet UNISON had concerns about poverty, privatisation and the emergence of the Far-Right politics. In Barnet Council we had hundreds of redundancies for several years as the Council claimed they were not being funded. Things haven’t changed and we had our first round of redundancies last December due to the current financial crisis.

What is clear is that the voices of our members across the Council across workplaces, be it a school, a depot, care home or day centre need to be heard and LOUDLY.

Barnet Council is lobbying the government for more funding, but there needs to be more pressure than that. We all need to add our voices for more funding

We are asking our members to sign the following Petition to Angela Rayner (who used to be a UNISON rep). This petition is not just for our members but can be signed by members’ family and friends or anyone who wants to see an end to the destruction of public services.

https://chng.it/6DSvxfZqhz

 

end.

 

Message to all of our Barnet UNISON schools members

Dear Barnet UNISON

In early February, Barnet UNISON wrote to every school in Barnet seeking permission to speak to our members about the new School Support Staff National Negotiating Body (SSSNB) which will be established for all school support staff in England, including those working in academies and multi academy trusts.

You can view the letter to your school by clicking on the link below.

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025.01.20-Letter-to-headteacher.pdf

Our Assistant Branch Secretary Beverley Berwick has already started visiting schools speaking with members and the Head about the SSSNB.

This is likely to be the biggest change of our members in schools in a generation which is why we are keen to speak to our members.

If you are interested in helping to arrange a visit in your school, please email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk and request a visit.

 

End.


Background: 

Read more about SSSNB click on link below

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SSSNB-members-briefing.pdf

Message of solidarity to Tower Hamlets strikers on St Lukes school picket line

On behalf of our branch Barnet UNISON sends our unwavering solidarity and support to you and your NEU colleagues as you take strike action on the 1st and 3rd of April.

We stand with you in your fight against the proposed cuts to Teaching Assistant roles, a move that will undoubtedly have a devastating impact on the quality of education and the workload of all staff.

Your determination to defend education and demand reasonable workloads is an inspiration to us all. We recognise the vital role Teaching Assistants play in supporting students and teachers, and we condemn any attempt to diminish their contribution.

We understand the pressures you face and commend your courage in taking this stand. We will be sharing your message of resistance throughout our branch and encouraging our members to send messages of support.

We wish you a strong and successful strike. We are with you in this fight for fair working conditions and the future of education.

End.

***Barnet UNISON AGM Tuesday 25 February 2025 4-5.30 pm ***

It is your democratic right to attend and participate in your UNISON AGM.

It is important that members register to attend.

You have two choices:

You can join in person at the Colindale office, or you can join online.

Please click on the link below to register to join the meeting.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrd-GorTsrGtQzqR9L3h9L-z1mKymCRU_i

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“Withdraw the compulsory redundancies”: £7,804,000

Before our members read this article. It is important to note that there is no detriment to the best of our knowledge to the Pension Scheme because of the unlawful actions identified in the report going to Full Council on Tuesday 28 January 2025. This is confirmed in paragraph 10.2 of the report.

“It should also be emphasised that as the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is a defined benefit scheme there is no impact as a result of these transactions on members’ benefits.”

 

What has happened?

UNISON has only recently discovered that something unlawful has taken place involving payments to the Council’s Pension Scheme.

The matter was first publicly discussed Pension Fund Committee – Tuesday 14th January 2025 7.00 pm.

You can listen to the discussion by clicking on the link below. You need to scroll 1 hour and 6 minutes to hear the discussion about the unlawful payments.

https://aisapps.mediasite.com/AuditelScheduler/Player/Index/?id=a1c6cfd1-5311-44ae-94fa-6aff99b35ae6&presID=11f4679ca075408d948fb7b34a51a1811d

 

The next piece of critical information came to our attention when the reports were published for the Full Council on Tuesday 28 January 2025.

One damning paragraph stands out:

“5.2.1 After taking advice, and based on the information available the Monitoring Officer and the Section151 Officer are of the view that the Additional Payments and the Repayments were unlawful.”

Source: Report to all Elected members of London Borough of Barnet Under Section 5(2)(a) of the local Government and Housing Act 1989 and Section 114 (2)(a) Local Government Finance Act 1988 By Jessica Farmer Monitoring Officer and Kevin Bartle Chief Finance Officer (Section 151 Officer).

https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s87758/Appendix%20A%20joint%20report%20S5S114.pdf

The report uses the term unlawful ten times unlawfully once and unlawfulness once.

It is a shocking report.

UNISON recommends that members read the above report that is being discussed at Council meeting.

The two paragraphs set out what happened:

“4.2 The Council (acting as a scheme employer) made a one-off prepayment of £20,477,000 to the Fund in April 2020 (“the Prepayment”) instead of secondary contributions for the years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23. This was because the Council was advised that a Prepayment would save the Council money compared  with making secondary contributions over three years. The Council received leading counsel’s advice, which was taken without reference to the Monitoring Officer, that making the Prepayment was lawful in principle.”

“4.4 After the Prepayment, the Council continued to make periodic payments of (in effect) secondary contributions for the three financial years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 (“Additional Payments”). These were made contrary to the Rates and adjustments Certificate. In effect, the Additional Payments would duplicate the Prepayment, and so officers also arranged that the Fund would repay most of the Additional Payment back to the Council in three annual repayments (“Repayments”). Because of a lack of documentation and staff turnover, the Monitoring Officer and Section 151 Officer have not been able to understand clearly when or why the Additional Payments and Repayments were arranged. As far as the Monitoring Officer and current Section 151 Officer can tell, the most likely explanation is that, at the time, officers believed that the outcome of these fund flows would be advantageous for the Council in accounting terms, while not being disadvantageous to the Fund. In any event, the Additional Payments were made and two of the three planned Repayments have also been made: £6,508,000 in October 2020 and £7,574,000 in October 2021.”

For those of us who are not financial experts the two paragraphs explain that not only was an unlawful payment of £20,477,000 made into the Pension Fund but that a further three payments were made of the next three years which resulted in effect in a double payment into the Pension Fund. Towards the end of the final paragraph the Council explains that the Council clawed back two payments back but that once the unlawful payments had been discovered everything was put on hold.

Many of our members reading this report will know that they all are expected to follow Council procedures and understand what happens if you don’t follow. Many of our members will be wondering about who has the powers to authorise spend. The responsibilities for senior managers are set out in what is referred to as the Scheme of Delegation which you can read on the Council website here https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s24780/Appendix%20D%20-%20Scheme%20of%20Delegated%20Authority%20to%20Officers.pdf

There are a number of questions UNISON has about how this could happen, but our immediate concern is in regard to the numerous redundancy consultations taking place.

£7.8million is a lot of money that is owed to the Council.

At this moment in time the Council is coming to a close on a number of redundancy consultations which, if confirmed, are going to mean staff will be made redundant. Vacancies will be deleted in teams where there is already increasing pressure on the workforce to deliver more with less resources and to work in a job where their pay has failed to keep up with the cost-of-living crisis.

It is UNISON’s understanding, and we would be happy to publicly correct it if we have misunderstood the report above, that Barnet Council is attempting to find a way to retrieve £7,804,000 back from the Council’s Pension Fund.

£7,804,000 is a lot of money and it is UNISON’s view that if this money were back in the Council’s bank account, then it could be used to mitigate some of the redundancies/cuts to public services which are about to be signed off by Barnet Council.

In the meantime, we have several questions.

  1. Was there a scheme of delegation for the Pension Fund?
  2. If not, why not?
  3. Who made the decision to make the prepayment?
  4. Who decided to make the decision to subsequently carry on with payments that the prepayment was intended to cover?
  5. Who can authorise a payment of up to £20million
  6. What was the cost of the initial legal advice in 2020?
  7. Who has authority to seek counsel’s opinion
  8. Who did seek counsel’s opinion in this case?
  9. Was counsel’s opinion seen by the monitoring officer?
  10. If yes what was their opinion, if not why not?
  11. Was the scheme was initiated by the council acting as the fund or as the employer i.e. did the pension fund ask them to do it?
  12. What has been the total cost of legal advice and tax advice taken so far?
  13. Has anyone been subject to a disciplinary investigation?

 

Recommendations:

As a result of the breaking news UNISON is demanding the following:

  1. The redundancies are withdrawn in anticipation that the monies owed can mitigate the need to make the redundancies in this year.

 

 

Over £1 million back in the pockets of our lowest paid: School Support Staff

Barnet UNISON is proud to announce that over a five-year period of constant chasing and negotiations we have managed to reach agreements with schools and some employers e.g. Barnet & Southgate College, Capita, ISS, BELS to ensure that Term Time Paid staff received some backdating money they were owed by their employer not using the correct formula to calculate their pay.

Barnet UNISON wants to thank colleagues at London Region and UNISON HQ for supporting the campaign to claw back some of the money that was owed to our members.

The Term Time Pay claim started because of UNISON pursuing several local authorities over their failure to use the correct formula for calculating pay of term time staff in schools.

Barnet UNISON quickly wrote to over 50 schools in Barnet seeking meetings and the opportunity to talks to our members about the campaign. We also discovered some of the outsourced contractors were using an incorrect formula and we pursued those organisations to correct the error and to negotiate back pay.

 

“As soon as UNISON established that term time only staff (TTO) were being incorrectly paid due to a flawed formula being applied in calculating the amount of holiday pay entitlement members were receiving we commenced on going meetings with management to rectify the situation. After several years of negotiations, we resulted with a positive outcome and agreement that the College would apply a new and correct formula to calculate their holiday pay entitlement.  I was pleased to announce to my TTO UNISON members that a settlement had been finally agreed and that all the College’s term time staff would receive back pay to 1 September 2019 ( 3 years) which resulted in approximately £200,000 total back pay deal for TTO staff. I informed my members that this was not compensation, that it was backpay as they had been underpaid for the work that they had already done.  This is a good example of why it is important to join UNISON as it provides collective strength and means we can talk to the employer to negotiate and improve conditions in the workplace.” Christalla Tsattala Barnet UNISON rep of members of staff working for Barnet & Southgate College.

 

“It was a massive team effort across the UNISON family with support and advice from both regional and national colleagues. School support staff are some of the lowest paid members we have in our branch, and they are totally committed to their work and the children they support. It was important that our branch took on this campaign and we would recommend any other UNISON branch thinking of doing the same to go ahead. We are in a cost-of-living crisis which is hurting our low paid members every penny we have helped put back into their pockets makes all the work worthwhile.” John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON.

 

Background:

Term Time Pay members meeting – February 2021

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2021/02/19/term-time-pay-members-meeting/

 

Update on the Barnet UNISON Term Time Pay Campaign – 2020

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2020/12/09/update-on-the-barnet-unison-term-time-pay-campaign/

 

Term Time Pay Drop-in meetings: February 2020

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2020/02/07/term-time-pay-drop-in-meetings/

End.

 

Updated Barnet Council Grades – includes new National Pay Award.

Dear Barnet UNISON member

We can confirm that the National Pay Award has now been formally agreed. This means that Barnet Council workers should receive their new rate of pay and back dating to 1 April 2024 in your November payslip.

If you have worked any overtime since the 1 April 2024, the backdating for this will be paid in December payroll.

If you have any questions, please email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

The table below are the new Barnet Council grades which include the National Pay increase.

End.

 

Any queries please email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

**Please note the above Grades are based on 36 hour a week contract. Barnet UNISON is waiting for the Term Time Pay figures for the Barnet Grades.

End.

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