Updated 5 July to add this glorious quote from a forum on parking in Barnet:

“Appealing to the council is like playing chess with a pigeon. You might be a chess grand master but the pigeon will always knock all the pieces over, shit on the board and then strut around triumphantly.”

Gold.

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It’s kicking off in Barnet again…

…this time, the council (or its CEO at least) appears to be after a local trader who produced a poster on behalf of Barnet Traders – a group that campaigned against the abolition of pay and display parking in Barnet at the recent elections.

I post this in solidarity with Helen Michael and the Barnet bloggers who are also posting about the issue. I’m also posting this because I’m generally pissed off with heavy-handed reactions to protest posters and leaflets, particularly in the leadup to the Olympics. It does not thrill me to know that I could be fined, or jailed, or tasered, or whatever for hanging an “Olympics 2012 Sucks” poster out of my own window. For Christ’s sake. I’ll say that the Olympics suck if I want to – not least because I’ve contributed God knows what in tax towards the whole circus and as a direct funder of it, I reserve the right to describe it as shit.

Anyway – Mrs Angry backgrounds Barnet Postergate in inspired style:

“Helen had, as part of her efforts to oppose the parking scheme, created, published and distributed a poster directly linking [Brian] Coleman to the damage to high street trade. It was a hugely popular poster, for obvious reasons, with traders and residents alike, all of whom were badly affected by the impact of the scheme, both financially, and in terms of restricted accessibility.

“…out of the blue last week – and blue does seem to be the appropriate colour – Helen Michael was contacted by police and told that she would be obliged to attend a local police station for an interview in regard to the Coleman poster.

She was asked for her ‘co operation’ – failure to show such ‘co operation’, one imagines, might have led to her being arrested. Taking legal advice, she sent a statement to the DPP, putting her version of the matter.

Yesterday, Helen spent two hours at Barnet Police Station, not arrested, but under caution, being interviewed – a recorded interview – by two detectives from what she was told is Scotland Yard’s ‘Special Investigation Unit’ – whatever that means.

There is a Specialist Operations branch which deals with various security issues, including counter terrorism, but one would imagine that only a complete idiot would think it likely that a cafe owner from North Finchley worried about the drop in sales of her tuna mayo baguettes was a threat to national security, or even the security of a tedious minor local politician – or indeed think it a justifiable use of public resources, especially at a time of such need for counter terrorist scrutiny in the preparation for the Olympic Games.”

That last paragraph is particularly brilliant. You can read the rest of Mrs Angry’s post here.

From Barneteye:

“Let’s just stick to the facts. Helen Michael was yesterday interviewed by 2 officers from Scotland Yard’s special investigations unit. This is the unit responsible for, amongst other things, terrorism investigations. Helen was read her rights and interviewed under caution.

The reason? Because a poster produced on behalf of Barnet Traders, campaigning against the abolition of pay and display parking in Barnet and extortionate parking charges, may have breached election law on a technicality. The purpose of the law was to prevent anonymous smear campaigns against people standing for elections.

The complaint against Helen Michael was initiated by the CEO of Barnet, Nick Walkley. Mr Walkley doubled up in this role as the returning officer. The Barnet Eye wishes to explore the motivation of Mr Walkley in making the complaint and wishes to know in what capacity he has been pursuing this.”

Read the rest of the Barnet Eye post here.

From the marvellous Mr Reasonable:

“Something is very, very wrong in Barnet. I am sure you have read on other blogs about the questioning of Helen Michael by the Special Investigations Unit of Scotland Yard over the poster she put up regarding parking in Barnet. It appears that the complainant is Mr Nick Walkley, Chief Executive of Barnet. What I find utterly incomprehensible is that just days after we have been told there is a massive black hole in the Met Police Budget and just over 3 weeks away from the biggest ever policing event in the capital, that someone in the Met has deemed this worthy of investing so much time in such a trivial non issue.”

The rest is here.

Perhaps Scotland Yard should leave this woman alone and go and throw Bob Diamond in the can. Just a suggestion.

Barnet council leader Richard Cornelius has kicked up a fuss about the way he was portrayed in the documentary A Tale of Two Barnets.

The film features people affected by service cuts and increased charges in the borough. Cornelius agreed to be interviewed for it.

I’ve seen the film and think Cornelius would be better off shutting up and moving on. The film is certainly problematic for the council, in the sense that it features interviews with people whose lives have been made extremely difficult by council cuts and charges, but so what. That’s Cornelius’ problem. If he wants to be leader of a council which cuts services to vulnerable people, introduces parking charges that are killing trade and local businesses and pursues badly-thought-out outsourcing projects against advice – well, he needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the fact that people don’t like what his administration is doing. Anyone trying to justify the destruction of public services on Barnet’s scale is bound to look ridiculous.

Anyway – here’s a press release written by the film’s director and producer in response to some of Cornelius’ complaints. There’s a list of upcoming screenings at the end of it:

Following comments made to the Barnet Press Newspaper concerning A Tale of Two Barnets, film Director Charles Honderick and Producer Roger Tichborne issued the following statement.

“We are disappointed to see that Councillor Richard Cornelius has implied that there was a breach of trust involved in the way the film portrayed him. As per the agreement to appear, the filmmakers provided a list of questions prior to the film. During the interviews, Charles Honderick stopped the camera several times to clarify matters, which were not covered. As with all other interviews, the director condensed an 8 minute interview into approx 1 minute. Continue reading →

…who has put up this fabulous post about Barnet council’s somewhat misguided attempt to get me to take down a document I never posted. My first non-takedown takedown notice. #WIN

Suppose they’ve got to fill the day somehow.

Update Tuesday 21 February: I’ve had advice from the NUJ (my union) that linking to a document does not constitute publication. As you were, then.

Hey – here’s Brian Coleman from Barnet council filling his day: (photo from Adam Bienkov):

Last month, Barnet eye blogger Rog Tichborne was sent a confidential document in a stamped Barnet council envelope. He posted the document on his site.

He assumed the document had been sent to him by a Barnet council staff member who was concerned about the council’s methods for choosing big private companies as partners and service providers.

He was probably right. Only a day after he’d posted the document on his site, he received a letter from Barnet council’s legal department which threatened him with legal action if he didn’t take the document down.

It’s easy to understand why the council was and is so sensitive. For several years, Barnet council has been working towards commissioning-council status – as a commissioning council, the borough would outsource all council services to the private sector and administer contracts for those services, rather than provide services directly.

This has been a tremendously controversial project in Barnet. Staff aren’t onside: workers have taken several days of strike action so far in protest and were on strike again on Thursday 9 February to oppose the council’s outsourcing plans. An enormous amount of money has been spent (many say wasted) on consultants to advise the council on its outsourcing plans – that figure runs into the millions and does not, as Rog T says, include the council officer time and resources diverted to the project at a time when services to vulnerable and young people have been cut.

The public-private partnership projects that are developed by outsourcing councils are themselves extraordinarily costly – last year, for example, Barnet council agreed to set aside £750m for a private partner to assist in the delivery of a support and customer services project.

Questions have also been asked about the council’s ability to manage and control big private sector contracts. Last year, the council’s internal auditors found major irregularities in the council’s contracting processes – no tendering, no financial or CRB checking and no written contract with a major provider in at least one case. A series of reports by Barnet Unison found that the council failed to produce convincing business cases for its most expensive outsourcing proposals. Unison believes savings figures have been grossly overestimated and the failure of similar projects in other boroughs ignored.

So – the leaked document. I’m happy to link to it and have been doing so for some time. It’s been in the public domain for a while. As it should be. Like Rog Tichborne and many council bloggers, I believe these commissioning documents should be public. Council services (and the NHS for that matter) are rapidly being transferred to private providers with almost no consultation with service users and voters. The contracts private companies are winning are enormously lucrative – for them. The Mail’s investigation this weekend into McKinsey’s influence on NHS reforms gives people some idea of the extent of private sector influence on public sector “reforms” and the scale of the behind-the-scenes operations that protestors and opponents of privatisation are up against. Councils need to open their books up on some of these massive outsourcing deals, too. Continue reading →

Very interesting post over at Rog T’s (THIS LINK IS NOW BROKEN – SEE REASONS WHY BELOW) – it seems he has been leaked a document which describes the (very) loose process the council is using to choose a private strategic partner for a £290m project. Makes worrying reading, all right. I went through a more selection stringent process when I joined the girl guides.

Will add more as it comes available.

The Barnet bloggers take a risk by publishing this document out – there will be nervous moments as its authenticity is confirmed and the council will hit the roof either way. But the hell with the council – it wouldn’t be the first time questions were asked about its procurement processes. And I know bravery when I see it – I publish this in solidarity with Rog T and will add more as I get my head round the document.

Update 21 January 2012

It would seem that the document’s authenticity has been confirmed:

From Rog’s blog: “At 19.10 last night, I received a letter from Barnet Council legal team. The letter suggested that as the document I published on Thursday concerning the One Barnet tender process was marked confidential, I was not allowed to publish it and must remove it from my website immediately. They also suggested that I may be liable for any legal costs of claims arising from publishing it. As it the letter arrived at such a late hour on a Friday evening as I was going out, I removed the document from my website pending legal advice.”

Will provide more updates as they come through. Bloggers are organising to support Rog AND the public’s right to know how councils like Barnet select private companies for these massively costly private sector contracts. The document Rog T published on his site demonstrated that process of selection/elimination very clearly and that’s why it’s vital that bloggers are supported as they fight to bring details of council deals with private companies into the public domain. Millions are being spent with private companies in this era of so-called austerity and people have a right to know which company gets what and why. This is a big issue and I’ll be supporting Rog all the way on it.

Update: Mr Reasonable has blogged about the issue. He’s right, too, when he says he can’t understand why the council wants to hide documents which describe how councils choose private companies for projects that are worth a fortune. As he says:

“There are 350,000 people in Barnet whose lives will be affected by this outsourcing project [Barnet council’s plan to outsource a swathe of services to one of four companies currently bidding] yet no more than a handful are privy to the detail or involved in the decision making. What is taking place here is wholly undemocratic so it is not in the least bit surprising that people are leaking details and even less surprising that there is a desire to make these leaked documents public. Rather than hassling Roger T perhaps the Council should be spending more time engaging with the residents to explain what the hell they are doing and asking why the staff are so unhappy that they feel the need to leak these documents. Doing long term mega-outsourcing deals without public consensus and scrutiny is a both a disgrace and, in the long term, politically unsustainable.”

Amen.

Update: Mrs Angry has posted a very good blog on the issue as well.

Photo essay by deptfordvisions.com and me at false economy about the realities of privatisation. It’s the story of a group of North London careworkers whose service and working lives were ruined by a private sector employer.

From Barnet Unison:

“300 UNISON members will take a one-day strike action on Tuesday 18 October as part of a trades dispute.

Unlike other strike action there is a twist.

On the picket line outside the headquarters of Barnet council (north London business park) UNISON members will stage a short piece of street theatre to demonstrate the dangers of the One Barnet Programme to residents, services and staff.

There will be two performances at 9am and 9.30 am.

At 10.30am, a number of strikers will take a coach trip across the borough and give help and assistance to a local charity. The strikers will spend the rest of the day carrying out tasks for the charity.

UNISON members are calling on the leader of Barnet council not to pocket the money he saves from the strikers and instead donates that money to the mayor’s charity

Later on the same day, other UNISON members will support ‘Operation RESDIENTS MUST KNOW!’ by handing out newspapers and leaflets to Barnet residents outside tube stations across Barnet.

The day’s activity will end with a candlelight vigil outside Hendon Town Hall from 6.30 pm before the planning committee begins.

Barnet Easy Council is promoting the ‘One Barnet Programme’ (a mass privatisation project) which is being rolled out across all council services. The council previously identified £3m to implement what was called Future Shape policy. The latest brand One Barnet programme has a £9.2 million budget to pay for expensive consultants to carry out this mass outsourcing programme.  70% of the council workforce could be transferred to the private sector in little more than 15 months time.

John Burgess Barnet UNISON Branch Secretary said

“The council is gambling that the private sector can deliver £100m savings over the next 10 years. We have seen no evidence to substantiate these claims. In other parts of the country, we have seen the consequences of such blind allegiance to public sector bad private sector good. Our members can see that redundancy and cuts to jobs and services are behind the transfer from the council to a private sector contractor.

‘Strike action is always a last resort. For the last three years we have been asking for a genuine dialogue with the council to explore ways to save money, improve services.

‘Barnet UNISON is asking for the One Barnet Programme to be put on hold while meaningful talks with staff, trade unions and residents take place to look at alternatives to the One Barnet Programme.’