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 →