Barnet UNISON

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

The Barnet Council Not For Sale Conference was a tremendous success. More new faces were welcomed to an every growing group of residents who are concerned about the One Barnet Programme.

In Part One of the Conference there were three speakers. You can view their Powerpoint presentations below 

Professor Dexter Whitfield ESSU click here

Andy Mudd APSE click here

John Dix local resident click here

Assembly points:

10:30am outside Friern Barnet Librar y,

Friern Barnet Road, London N11 3DR

11:30am outside North Finchley Library,

Ravensdale Ave . N12 9HP.

12pm Tally Ho Corner

1pm Party in Victoria Park

For full details click here

Following the merger of the two former Colleges and the recent completion of the middle management restructuring, the next stage of the merge restructuring is to review all service area structures to bring together the two former structures and respond to the requirements of the new organisation.  The new management team are planning to issue proposals in relation to these structures for consultation during the Autumn Term, this will effect UNISON members.

At a recent support staff interest group, UNISON raised some queries regarding how the existing curriculum administrative support is undertaken and acknowledged that the structures in place at the two former Colleges operate differently for the provision of this  services and offered to assist with the audit of the curriculum administration arrangements currently in place to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current structures and practices, understand the roles currently in place and the requirements for this service going forward. 

As a result it has been agreed that UNISON and Organisational Development/HR (OD/HR)  will undertake a curriculum admin audit and feed the finding through to the Executive Leadership Group (ELG) for consideration when reviewing the proposed structures going forward.

To undertake this work UNISON and OD/HR will be holding focus group meetings at each site with the different staff groups either currently providing this service or using this service to obtain your input and hear your views.  Curriculum admin staff, compliance team staff, curriculum managers and teaching staff will be invited to attending these focus groups.  In addition 1-1 meetings will also be held with Academic Heads and Managers of Curriculum Admin and Compliance Team. These focus groups will be held on all sites to obtain your feedback to inform the audit and recommendations being put forward for consideration.  The dates the focus groups are on:

·         22 June at Grahame Park Campus (9-10.30 = Admin Staff; 10.30–11.45= Curriculum Managers; 12 noon–1pm teaching staff in room GP/ F224)

·         28 June at Wood Street Campus (1pm -2pm = Teaching staff; 2pm-3pm = Curriculum Managers in room WS/BG09)

·         29 June at Wood Street Campus (1-2pm = Admin Staff in room WS/BF03)

·         19 July at Southgate Campus (10.30-11.30 = Admin Staff; 12noon – 1pm= Teaching Staff; 1pm-2.30pm = Curriculum Managers in room SG/Staff Training Room)

Please note, whilst this information/report will be useful and will be considered by ELG when preparing the proposals for consultation there will still be a consultation process which will be held during the Autumn Term which will give all staff potentially affected by the service area restructuring and UNISON the opportunity to put forward your/their views, comments and alternative proposals for consideration before final decisions are reached regarding the structures and role responsibilities required for the new structure.

Please try to attend one of these sessions as this provides you with an opportunity to voice your views regarding the admin support you require.  If you are unable to attend please send your comment/views by email to curriculum admin review inbox.

Dear Councillors

Please find enclosed copy of latest UNISON report entitled ‘Cost Costs and consequences of a One Barnet Commissioning Council’

If you have any questions or concerns with regards the report please do not hesitate to contact me.

I want to leave you with the words of Ian Liddell- Grainger Conservative MP for Somerset West and Sedgemoor talking about IBM and the Strategic partnership known as Southwest One. I am copying in the MP for Somerset West and Sedgemoor in case any of you would like to seek further clarification on what he is reporting.

“The company has recorded chronic losses in every year of trading and has failed to do what its creators promised – namely save any significant public money. Instead it squandered cash on a computer system that still isn’t working properly and continues to overcharge Somerset County Council and other “partners” for so-called services.

Somerset Council has now caved in to FoI requests and published the bids:

“BT came in almost £34 million cheaper than IBM on the standard bid – and very nearly £6 million cheaper on the “variant” bid – the projected cost of the grandiose extras the customer (Alan Jones) fancied. Capita’s approach was to pitch ridiculously high, like a builder who doesn’t really want the work at all. But the fascinating thing about this table of statistics is the IBM tactic. There is no difference whatsoever between their standard and variant bids. In other words IBM seemed to be prepared to keep the price the same whatever nutty bolt-on extras the customer wanted. Jones had asked for an “iconic” HQ for South West One, for example, to be built in Taunton. Needless to say IBM never provided it. They were promising the moon for the same price as an ordinary product.”

You can read his full article here

http://www.liddellgrainger.org.uk/local/THETRUTHABOUTIBM.html

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary.

Barnet UNISON