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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

Barnet Council Consultant says: “People should apply for the job if they like the look of it. Where it is, is important but perhaps less important. When I’m applying for a job I think firstly about the role. The location is really not that important.”

Unfortunately it is very important for most people and the colleagues in Social Care Direct are like most of us. Location, location, location – it’s important! This is one of the things they heard at the meeting today which told them that all Assessment Enablement Officers will be going into the Customer Call Centre.

There will be the opportunity for 2 professionally qualified colleagues to go with them. The other colleagues will be put into a Rapid Response Team or redeployed across the service. We do not yet know what a Rapid Response Team will look like. This is to be worked out in tandem with the process of the others going into the Call Centre.

The colleagues going into the Call Centre will then be transferred onto BT or Capita, sometime early in the New Year. It is not known if these companies intend to operate from Barnet.

The branch will be organising a union meeting for all Adult Social Services workers in the next 2 weeks or so. This restructure has big implications for all of us in this sector as there are potential knock-on effects in our workloads.

BBBREAKING NEWS!

The big issue coming out of this Briefing is the location issue. UNISON members are already fully aware that the two Bidders (EC Harris and Capita Symonds) for the DRS contract  also in Dialogue Two made a public statement that they will be delivering the services within the borough of Barnet for the life of the10 year contract and beyond.

The evidence is for all Barnet staff to read here on the intranet

Click here to view the EC Harris and Capita Symonds presentations from the Meet the Bidder Days

However at the NSCSO ‘Meet the Bidder briefing’ the response from Capita is that they are unable to answer this question at this stage, the reason being they are about to enter Dialogue Two. Furthermore they are not the ‘preferred bidder’ so until that point (approx 5 month time) they will be unable to answer this question.

I left the briefing with the following questions ringing in my ear “why are they refusing to answer this question, if they can do it for DRS why can they not do the same for NSCSO?”

I wonder what BT have to say this Friday?

If there is one news story I would ask every UNISON to read then it is the story that broke earlier this week about a senior figure working for Goldman Sachs who had his resignation letter published in the New York Times. It is of massive interest is the connection of Goldman Sachs with a number of catastrophic financial failures including the Greek Debt crisis? At a time when we are told that we need to accept the deficit and accept less money, less services, more misery, it appears that the whole financial system has learnt nothing. Please find a number of high profile articles of the subject of Goldman Sachs and their connection with the Greek Debt Crisis.

1. TIME Magazine “ 7 Ways of Seeing Goldman Sachs”

The article in the TIME magazine see link below refers to another article by James Shaft of Reuters argues along similar lines, saying that financial markets don’t operate properly without strict regulation, and that pining for the days when banks took the long view misrepresents the past. It wasn’t because investment banks weren’t publicly traded or that bankers of 40 years ago had more scruples, he argues, but that heavy regulation prevented the kind of excesses that investment banks engage in now.

http://business.time.com/2012/03/16/is-goldman-sachs-guilty-of-nothing-more-than-hardnosed-capitalism/

2. “Goldman Sachs shares slump”

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2115794/Goldman-Sachs-shares-slump-amid-row-Greg-Smith-resignation.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

3. “Goldman Secret Greece Loan Shows Two Sinners as Client Unravels”

According to the article below Goldman Sachs appears to have used a clever financial instrument to disguise the Greek Governments growing debt burden

“As first reported in 2003, Goldman Sachs used a fictitious, historical exchange rate in the swaps to make about 2 percent of Greece’s debt disappear from its national accounts. To repay the 2.8 billion euros it borrowed from the bank, Greece entered into a separate swap contract tied to interest-rate swings.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-05/goldman-secret-greece-loan-shows-two-sinners-as-client-unravels

4. “Toxic bank Goldman”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/toxic-bank-goldman-sachs-web-763345

5. Goldman Sachs involved in the Greek debt crisis watch this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07-hA9DW-Po

Questions:

“In light of this story breaking what should the Regulators do about Goldman Sachs?”

“Should those people who lost out as a result of Goldman Sachs advice now consider putting in a claim for losses from Goldman Sachs?”

Last night I attended a Barnet version of BBC Question time in Woodhouse College, I was on the panel responding to some excellent questions submitted by pupils form Barnet schools

1) Do you think the cuts to youth support services together with youth unemployment in Barnet doubling since 2008 will lead to further youth disengagement and a repeat of the summer riots?

2) Considering the fact that groups such as the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association have withdrawn support for the Health Bill, do you think the Bill should still be pursued and why?

3) Do you think that Livingstone’s pledge to introduce a London EMA is necessary and feasible?

4) To what extent do you believe that reported proposals to privatise parts of the police services will obstruct the course of justice and lead to problems in the relationship between the state and the police?

5) Last week whilst travelling on a bus in Barnet I was attacked because of my postcode, do you think that this is a sign of increasing social tensions between young people and what do you think should be done to address issues of safety on public transport?

 6) With Barnet Council spending £4.6 million on CCTV between 2007 and 2011 – one of the top 10 local authority spenders on CCTV – do you think this is inappropriate in times of such austerity?

7) Considering recent tensions with regards to Baroness Warsi’s claims of ‘militant Atheists’ and a ‘Christian Britain’, do you agree that Michael Goves plan to send a copy of the King James’ Bible to every English school is a waste of money and out-dated? (If you had the opportunity to send one book to all schools in England what would it be?)

8) Considering the u-turns and broken promises that have occurred over the past two years – in particular those concerning tuition fees – do you think that the coalition is an effective and capable government?

At the end of the evening a pupil explained that there was a consistent theme emerging i.e. Budget cuts, privatisation of public services. He asked the panel

“Does this not spell the end of the Capitalist system?”

This is a question that should be on everyone’s lips. How can we carry on with the same financial system that refuses to be regulated and continues to reward banking bonus culture even when they are failing., whilst at the same time the majority of citizens are told to tighten our belts, work more for less and in some case lose your job.

At the same time it appears that Consultants are taking over the running of public services before handing them over to private sector companies who will drain public money to feed the avarice of the shareholders of those companies. If an when they are exposed, they intimidate public sector organisations with their big city lawyers threatening massive penalty pay outs if they dare to question the quality of the delivery of the contract.

This event was a well organised and professional, a tribute to those students who organised it and those students who took part in the event. I think it is safe to say that the future is NOT Orange but very challenging, but, I have confidence that things will have to change, so…..politicians beware!

Barnet Council staff have had a visit from EC Harris & Capita Symonds, both of whom were shortlisted through to the next round for the £275 million Development & Regulatory Services (DRS).

Both bidders delivered a presentation to staff and will now be going in confidential discussions with the Council.

In the meantime there have been smaller scale One Barnet outsourcing taking place across the Council. Our branch is currently supporting members who are facing the daunting prospect of being handed a ‘at risk of redundancy’ letters in the first week of their TUPE transfer. In pre-consultation discussions UNISON has learnt that some Council jobs being TUPED to the contractor are  immediately going to be handed over to another subcontractor, all before the contract has even started!

What is really upsetting staff is that senior managers have known about this, months ago!

Any way UNISON members working across DRS services are going to meet up for lunch on Wednesday 14 March to evaluate the presentations delivered by EC Harris and Capita Symonds.

Key message to the Bidders from members – ‘Sign up to TUPE Plus’

TUPE Plus can be viewed here

Over the last few weeks I have attended a number of TUPE meetings with contractors (Barnet Homes and NSL) and tow briefing sessions with EC Harris and Capita Symonds who are bidding for the DRS contract.

A common theme is emerging from these discussions, TUPE. In every meeting I have attended the contractors have been at pains to point out that they will honour TUPE not just for 12 months but for the life of the contract, something which was a key issue in TUPE plus.

Barnet Council rejected TUPE Plus and offered TUPE Commitments instead. However the TUPE commitments are rapidly proving to be, in the words of a UNISON member facing a TUPE transfer ‘not worth the paper there are written on’ a view which was overwhelming supported at the UNISON AGM last week.

We will be asking all of the Bidders to back up their statements and sign up to TUPE PLUS and have put up the details on our web site here

On Wednesday 22 February Housing council workers attended the first TUPE meeting with Barnet Homes and asked the following questions.

1. Is the restructure mentioned in the measures letter dated the 19^th January a measure?  What is the Operations Directorate mentioned in the letter?  If the restructure is a measure presumably the consultation will start once we have been transferred over.

2. Are we facing a situation where we could be tupe’d over and face having 30 days notice served on us as there are less than 100 staff in HNR.

If this is the case will we immediately be served with “at risk” letters and will this lead to compulsory redundancies?

3. Barnet Homes is funded through Housing Revenue Account and we understand that this cannot be used for HNR staff.  The General Fund money that HNR staff will be being transferred with – is this ring fenced just for general fund activities i.e. not related to Council Tenants.  If so how do you propose to demonstrate that this money is being used solely for this purpose?

4. We understand that there is a time pressure on saving money due to the reduction in the budget.  As part of the natural wastage we keep hearing about will there be voluntary redundancies allowed?  Will you also be looking at other ways to save money other than reductions in staff which will have a direct impact on our already struggling service?

5. If jobs are to be downgraded how will you consult on this and how long will grades be protected?

6. How long is the existing Barnet Homes contact with Barnet Council and how much of that contact is outstanding as an ALMO?  Is it likely to be renewed as an ALMO?  If not what status does Barnet Homes have outside the LATC? 

7. Capita are applying for some contracts – is there a relationship between Barnet Homes and Capita.

8. Data is being delivered to find out how many posts will go into the Call Centre.  Will posts be going from Barnet Homes and HNR as a collective into the call centre?

9. Can staff be TUPE’d across from Barnet Homes into the LATC? 

Project X was one of the action to be completed on the last day of One Barnet strike action on Thursday 9 February.

Letters were sent to 6 Big private sector companies

The letters were signed by staff currently working in services which are down to be outsourced early 2013.

This is what was in the letter

Dear Chief Executive

We are employees for the London Borough of Barnet providing services which your company is interested in taking over. We are currently in dispute with our employer, London Borough of Barnet, as we wish to remain working for the authority and to be based in Barnet.

We want to take this opportunity on the fourth day of strike action to pass on this message that staff want to remain employees of Barnet Council. This is not a reflection of the way we view your business. We hope that you will take our position into consideration in your ongoing discussions with Barnet Council.

Yours sincerely,

John Burgess

Branch Secretary

Barnet UNISON

Proof of delivery to

Serco,

BT,

Capita,

FM Conway,

EC Harris,

HCL Axon (consortium)

*** UPDATE since we delivered the letters, the Council annouced yesterday that BT & Capita were selected to go through to the next round and Serco and HCL Axon (consortium) were unsuccessful.