Barnet UNISON

#OneBarnet 7 Critical reasons not to outsource council services http://ning.it/OV8i6R #failedprivatisation

1. G4S is not an isolated incident http://ning.it/OV8pPC #failedprivatisation

2. Bournemouth Council chiefs set to bring back 22 staff from outsourcing partner Mouchel http://ning.it/MhCJRY #failedprivatisation

3. Bournemouth Councillors were warned by senior council officer http://ning.it/OV8Jhi #failedprivatisation

4. Somerset council takes back services & 160 staff back in house from Southwest OneCouncil http://ning.it/OV8MtB #failedprivatisation

5. Four out of five government departments are trapped in outsourcing deals http://ning.it/OV8Ucq #failedprivatisation

6. BT overcharging Liverpool council by £10m a year, report claims http://ning.it/MhCRAW #failedprivatisation

7. Suffolk council accused of ignoring £100m ‘overspend’ on BT deal http://ning.it/MhCSoB #failedprivatisation

  

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately UNISON learnt of this survey via a Blog which is a sign that all is not well. The survey confirms feedback coming into the UNISON office from our members. The One Barnet Programme is absolutely responsible for some of the stark responses back from staff. I would go further to say that the One Barnet programme has broken the spirit of some of our members and this is having an impact on their health and the quality of the services they provide. What the council is trying to do is impossible and the strain is showing across all departments. UNISON predicted staff would start making plans to escape 12 months ago once it became clear the council was simply not interested in investing in a public sector comparator (in-house service). We are now witnessing the consequences across all departments as experienced staff leave. The Council is struggling to fill posts but, it appears to have no problems recruiting Consultants!

Earlier this year UNISON carried out a stress survey in Planning and some of the results were equally shocking

Q: Do you feel valued by senior management in your work role?                        

 A: 100% said no

Q: Are you considering leaving your present post?      

A: 91% said yes         

UNISON is seeking urgent discussions about how to address these shocking results.

Solution

There is a simple solution which would have a dramatic impact on the workforce overnight. Drop the One Barnet Programme, meet with UNISON and let’s work together to deliver high quality public services and keep any savings within the Council.

You have expressed that you have anxieties about the introduction of a new way of working in terms of reducing the waiting lists.

Your union heard about this because you told us. Unfortunately this has not been discussed or negotiated in any way with the union. Your representatives are unable to comment if the proposals by senior managers are reasonable or not. This was:

Brought to our attention through members anxious about stress levels

No framework for consultation offered

And this left us with no option today than to raise it as a dispute in order to protect your interests.

This gives us the possibility of calling off the dispute if you tell us this is no longer a problem but means that we can challenge it if you wish us to. Therefore you should come to the union meeting to let us know what you think and where you want to go with this.

Date:    Wednesday 25th July

Location: Poplar room,

Building 4 NLBP

Time:   12pm – 1pm

Refreshments provided

For further details contact the UNISON office on 020 8359 2088 or contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

At the meeting the following Motion entitled “Let local people decide if they want the £1bn ‘One Barnet’ gamble” was debated

As this motion concerns all of the council workforce and in the interest of transparency and fairness I asked all of the Leaders of all three political party’s to send me a copy of their speeches which I said I would share with our members.

Here are three excerpts from their speeches

Leader of the Barnet Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore

“What really concerns me is that no-one in the Conservative Group seems to be taking any notice of the warnings about these risks. Very few have attended any briefings by the independent and well regarded APSE, and most tellingly, that includes the very people responsible for the stewardship of One Barnet – the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader and Cllr Rams. They are so set on Plan A that they just are not listening.”

Leader of the Barnet Lib-Dem Group, Cllr Jack Cohen

“Mr Mayor the One Barnet programme is gambling with our future. The One Barnet Programme is a dagger in the heart of local democracy, the One Barnet Programme is selling off the very soul of our public services

Madam Mayor this Administration is wasting millions of pounds of council tax payers money chasing an illusion driven by dogma. There is not one shred of evidence that any of it is going to work. The collateral damage to staff, services and reputation of the Council will be irreparable. The sooner we put a stop to it the better”

Leader of the Barnet Conservative Group, Cllr Richard Cornelius 

“This page is blank because to date a copy of the speech has not been provided”

 To read full reports click here

Recommendations

 

Accept the findings of the public consultation and do not go ahead with this proposal.

 

Revise the proposal which will see the Heads of the Centres untouched in their terms and conditions whilst their deputies have almost a 50% cut in pay. It is not the case that the Heads of the Centres will be providing 100% cover at the centres as their 36hr contracts do not match all of the opening times.

To view full report click here

 

UNISON raised the issue with management about the inequality of London Weighting (LW) pay between the Teaching Staff and the Business Support staff and has asked for a justification for the disparity in pay.  UNISON stated that in the interest of fairness and to ensure that no discriminatory practices are occurring surely LW must be calculated on a fair and transparent basis and applied consistently to all Barnet & Southgate College staff. 

ELG has endorsed a positive recommendation to the Finance and HR sub-committee of the Corporation who agreed on 12 July to align the current London Weighting Allowance for service area staff to the same level as Academic staff which will result in an increase for all service area staff with effect from 1 August 2012.  HR will be sending out a letter to all service area staff confirming this change.

UNISON will endeavour to consult and negotiate to harmonise the terms and conditions of service area staff during the consultation for the restructure of service area staff in the Autumn term.

In the interim, UNISON and Organisational Development/HR have run individual meetings with Heads of Curriculum; focus groups with curriculum managers and teaching staff; focus groups with central admin team and the compliance team with the objective to:

·         Review current curriculum admin support,establish the strengths and weakness of the current admin support in place at all campuses.

·         Establish what of admin service/provision is required to support the curriculum area.

·         Obtain suggestions for a proposed model of delivery for curriculum admin support which will meet the organisational needs within a cost-effective framework.

 

After analysing the results of these focus groups a comprehensive report based on the findings from the audit will be submitted to ELG  for consideration in advance of the ELG proposed structure changes for Business Support which will be taking place in the Autumn term.

 

I would urge each and every member to act as a recruiter.  If every member recruits an additional member our total membership will exceed by a significant margin, please contact me for further information.

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a good summer break and look forward to meeting with you all in the new academic year.

Christalla Tsattala

UNISON Barnet & Southgate Senior Steward

The outsourcing saga of Barnet Council Legal Services to Harrow Council continues. The likely date of transfer to Harrow could be early August. The target date was 2 July, but that was before the #Spartacus revolt and plans of the new Harrow Legal Service revealed.

Yesterday staff were informed the new name of the service will reflect the shared service ethos,……?.

There were two issues that are causing concern.

The first is how are the Barnet Council going to overcome the tricky issue of Capita?

Capita currently provide IT services for Harrow Council. Barnet Legal services are currently advising all of the One Barnet projects and using Barnets IT service. They will still have to support the One Barnet projects after they transfer to Harrow, BUT then they will be using IT services provided by Capita.

Capita Group and Capita Symonds are bidding for both outsourcing contracts worth up to £billion pounds.

The staff were told a solution is being worked on…….

The second issue concerns contract monitoring.

UNISON has been concerned about the lack of transparency and requested a copy of the Due diligence which has taken place to support the business case.

UNISON was informed there is no actual Due diligence document. UNISON asked if there was a Due diligence template and was told No.

UNISON asked how the Council was going to ensure the new shared service was going to deliver Value for Money for Barnet residents.

At first UNISON was reminded of the joint strategic board which includes both chief executives). UNISON was already aware of this and asked who would actually monitoring of the contract. Furthermore UNISON asked if the council would monitor outcome or outputs (sorry readers if you now fall asleep).

UNISON was informed that the Council was going to monitor outcomes &outputs and a contract manager would be appointed.

UNISON asked if this was one of the posts in the recent chief executive restructure and was told it was a separate post.

At the Legal services briefing yesterday UNISON asked when this post was being advertised. Staff were informed that they were still working on the details, but they could confirm it was a level four post which makes it a Head of Service post.

UNISON found this strange as the Chief Executives restructure involves all posts level four to level six. The Council has already started assessing staff for the new posts in the Chief Executives restructure and understands some staff have been successful and others not. The Legal Services Contract Monitoring post has not been made available for staff to apply……..more later…

 

Film lovers maybe familiar with the Film The Cincinnati Kid….in Barnet we have our local version which has been dubbed the £billion pound gamble and it has brought in some heavy hitters such as

Lancy ‘Capita’ Howard 

Cincinnati ‘BT’ Kid

EC ‘ Shooter’ Harris

Our esteemed cartoonist Tim Sanders has produced this

UNISON commissioned a brief which has been passed to all 63 councillors

Local Authorities are obliged by law to “make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”. This is the duty of best value established by the Local Government Act 1999. Whilst it has been amended over the years it is still a fundamental requirement of local government decision making.  When applied to procurement decisions it can and should be, interpreted as a duty to ensure that preferred delivery arrangements are demonstrably the ones which represent the best use of resources.

To view full briefing click here