Some more on libraries

Yesterday was a fast paced day, but here s some commentry on what it meant for the libraries services, which are in complete chaos.

First the news that the Artsdepot had been dropped as the site of the "landmark" library. The magical all singing all dancing landmark library.

Then comes Cllr Anne Hutton's response exposing the chaos in the libraries service. I am particularly glad she slayed the nonsense about people wanting to set up a community library in Friary House. Also, the idea of having a "landmark" library in the small North Finchley library makes it seem as if "landmark libraries" are not quite so magical.

Finally, we brought the debate round the full circle, and asked for Friern Barnet Library to be re-opened. It really is simple, that library ha overheads of £6,300. Piddling. Having a full time librarian, and a cafe with social space could easily help with the cost of running the building. There are plenty of other options as well.

And then Cllr Hutton showed how the Council had wasted invested £91,000 in the failed landmark library, far more than the costs of keeping FBL open.

I am seriously concerned about the state of the libraries service. I understand there is a large overspend, and I want to make sure it is covered without damaging the service in the long term. the £91,000 is a huge chunk of the overspend, and would be a pity is librarians had to pay for Rams' folly.

Barnet Council- welcome to the circus!

With the announcement today that the magical all singing all dancing "landmark" library in he Artsdepot will not be going ahead, and instead they will be turning the existing library in North Finchley into a "landmark" library, credibility has left Barnet. It joins prudence, transparency and community as words that have emigrated out of the borough.

The Council seems to be in chaos. They took the decision to move to the Artsdepot last year, closed down Friern Barnet Library 6 months ago, but did not have the deal for the "landmark" library settled. How incompetent. How shambolic. A farce only a clown could do well.

But the Council are persisting with their eviction order, and will not negotiate over the use of the building, only wishing to talk about this unwanted "community" library in Friary House. That they still won't listen is mean.

But negotiating with the occupiers in the first place, then breaking off negotiations abruptly and evicting the pop up library, in the basis they never had dialogue, is just bungling.

So who do you get with a clown, who is mean, but never implements his plans successfully?

And the funny thing about Cllr Robert Rams is that last night, he replied to a tweet from me in support of the Christmas parking plans we have promoted. I was asleep, and out all day today, so didn't see the tweet till about half an hour ago, but my response is simple. I don't need lectures on costing from a man who spends more closing a library than keeping it open.

Perhaps if Barnet need a theme tune or anthem, this might do?



UPDATE: My colleague Barry Rawlings makes the point that the decision not to go ahead with the "landmark" library has been announced 6 months afer the closure of FBL, and so out of time for a judicial review. How cynical.

Continuing the circus theme, it seems one Councillor has been fired from a cannon!

And I have had a complaint from Dan Hope, who objects to using the joker as a picture. It is the joker from the 1960's batman series, and the point is that the Cesar Romero Joker got up to naughty things, but wasnt very good at it.

Let's have a memorial for Horace

I have submitted a motion for council for the Cabinet to consider commemorating recently deceased street legend Horace White with a bench in Finchley.

A small token, but I felt, having been to his funeral, that people would like to have some way of properly remembering him.

Town Centres need Christmas parking boost

We have called for a couple of measures to improve trading conditions for traders in the run up to Christmas.

We are calling for parking to be free after 3pm on weekdays and all day on weekends. This comes after our parking pledges campaign have forced some changes to the way the system is operated, such as the introduction of scratchcards. We don't believe that's enough however, hence our lattest calls.

At the last Budget and Performance meeting, the Council endorsed an idea most Conservatives cherish- that lowering the price of parking will increase the demand. Barnets high streets need the boost in the all important run up to Christmas, which can make or break businesses.

Eric Pickles Barnet Council

I bet the Council were delighted to see this!

"Government action to enshrine Town Hall transparency as an everyday activity will now also open up punitive parking charges to public scrutiny, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced yesterday."

"Councils will have to publish soon as it is produced the number of off-street parking places and the revenue raised from them; the number of on-street parking places and the revenue they raise; as well as the revenue from parking fines and the number of free parking spaces available in line with the Portas Review of the High Street recommendations.

A recent survey found that almost seven in ten people intentionally avoided shopping areas with high parking prices. Two thirds said they would return to the high street if parking was more affordable. One in five felt there were not enough spaces available. It also found that four out of five people pay up to £150 per month for parking.

Eric Pickles said:

"We are ending an era of bureaucratic accountability and replacing it with a more open era of democratic accountability. It is right that taxpayers get to see how Town Halls spend their hard earned taxes so they can properly hold local politicians to account.
"Finally all councils have taken up the £500 transparency challenge but publication is only happening in fits and starts. By writing Town Hall transparency into law we can make certain every citizen gets open and equal access to information about local public expenditure.
"As part of that we will expose a great council cash cow cover-up unmasking punitive parking practices that hit residents in the pocket. We're calling time on local war against motorists - now, more than ever, we need to see the back of this shopping tax and encourage more people onto the high street."

The proposals mean that all local authorities would be required to openly publish their spending over £500 online including, tenders, contracts, senior pay, councillor expenses, voluntary sector funding, meetings, and frontline service data so that 'armchair auditors' can clearly see the decisions being made on their behalf.

This department has been publishing details of all goods and services spent over £500 matching the level required of councils since August 2010. As one of Government's transparency trailblazers that is now being extended to include all transactions above a new low threshold of £250. 'Can do' councils have been challenged to match that threshold.

As a minimum the code states that the public data that should be released in every council's transparency inventory is:

• expenditure over £500, (including costs, supplier and transaction information). Any sole trader or body acting in a business capacity in receipt of payments of at least £500 of public money should expect such payments to be transparent;
• senior employee salaries, names (with the option for individuals to refuse to consent for their name to be published), job descriptions, responsibilities, budgets and numbers of staff. 'Senior employee salaries' is defined as all salaries which are above £58,200 and above (irrespective of post), which is the Senior Civil Service minimum pay band. Budgets should include the overall salary cost of staff reporting to each senior employee;
• an organisational chart of the staff structure of the local authority including salary bands and details of currently vacant posts;
• the 'pay multiple' - the ratio between the highest paid salary and the median average salary of the whole of the authority's workforce;
• councillor allowances and expenses;
• copies of contracts and tenders to businesses and to the voluntary community and social enterprise sector;
• grants to the voluntary community and social enterprise sector should be clearly itemised and listed;
• policies, performance, external audits and key inspections and key indicators on the authorities' fiscal and financial position;
• the location of public land and building assets and key attribute information that is normally recorded on asset registers; and
• data on democratic running of the local authority including the constitution, election results, committee minutes, decision - making processes and records of decisions."

Mr Mustard must be in seventh heaven by now! If you wanted to upset the Tories,this is one way!

I like the paragraph that says 70% avoid shopping areas with high parking prices.

Barnet has seen a reduction in parking on high streets of 60%, and a fall in revenue for traders of 40%, 

Budget and Performance

Thursday night was the Budget and Performance meeting,chaired by Cllr Brian Coleman. unlike the last, this was a very low key affair, with only one item on the agenda of real interest. The Q1performance report. It's a pointless report, as we are in a position to know what Q2 will be like.

There were some issues which Cllr Alan Schneiderman and Cllr Alison Moore were able to pick up on. The parking revenue account has been badly hit this year. Apparently by the "recession". I know Skyfall is out, but it doesn't take James Bond to decode that one! Clouseau would do. Alan managed to find out that the changeover to NSL had some big teething problems to do with enforcement. Despite being the same staff, just employed by a different organisation. Well anyways, it's been Ironed out, and there is a parking recovery plan, and we have asked to see it.

My main contribution was to ask about the revenue targets. there are apparently no targets for the number of Penalty Charge Notices, but they budget for the revenue. I suppose we haven't moved on much from the days of King Henry VII and charges for this and that. God knows what he would have done with parking tickets!

Alison also made a useful point about getting experts in to advise on what to look for when scrutinizing the One Barnet contracts.

We also had a report from property services. They gave us the list of Assets for sale! I have been battling for a month to get this. You could have drowned a fish and I would have been less surprised to see it.

Barnet 4th in Homelessness League Table

Barnet is the 4th Worst Borough in London for homelessness. This is becoming a bigger issue now, and you do notice the number of new people on the street.

I hope this shock will lead to a serious re-think on housing. There are thousands of people on the housing waiting list in Barnet, and as every Councillor with dozens of housing cases on the books knows, there simply isn't enough housing around. Now obviously, you have to fund and plan responsibly for any new housing, and take local factors into consideration. But I was alarmed by the figures from the 1st Quarter monitoring report that came from Budget and Performance last night, which said the Council were not meeting their deadlines on housing temporary accommodation tenants in 26 weeks, not meeting their housebuilding targets.

I myself have had a really tough housing case this week which laid bare many of the issues.

Nationally too, I fear that drives against welfare may make the homelessness situation worse. Cuts in benefits, replacing Council Tax Benefit (and making everyone pay, regardless of ability), the housing benefit cap and others will put more pressure on housing and housing costs. The Government must examine the impact of their policies properly.

UPDATE: You can see the list here: https://indicators.ic.nhs.uk/download/LBOI/Data/LBOI_02.01_12_09_V1.xls#%27Table 

Labour's interesting motion.....

We have an interesting motion likely to be heard at the next Council meeting on 6th November. Please come along to support us.

Barnet Labour have it here.

The motion, submitted by Leader of Barnet Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore says:
“Council believes that this Conservative administration has completely lost its way over the One Barnet Programme.
Council believes the process to outsource 70% of council services in two large contracts under One Barnet has been dogged by a lack of transparency. Scrutiny of One Barnet by elected councillors has been severely compromised by the administration scrapping the dedicated One Barnet Scrutiny Panel, and by preventing administration and opposition councillors outside the Cabinet from having sufficient time to scrutinise detailed financial information for the project – information which has been presented to elected members on blue exempt papers at the beginning of committee meetings, and then taken away at the end of the agenda item.
Council notes that the One Barnet Programme has so far not made any net savings, and that we are now in the third year of the programme. In fact the One Barnet Programme has actually incurred a net cost for the Council of at least £663,000.
Council further notes that the Leader and Deputy Leader seem to disagree over the appropriateness of the preferred model for the Development and Regulatory Services contract – Joint Venture – and that therefore the project seems to be in complete disarray.
Given the level of risk involved in the procurement of these two enormous One Barnet contracts, NSCSO and DRS, and the gambling of £1 billion of council tax payers’ money that is involved, Council resolves that the Executive Leader be removed from office and that a vote be taken on electing a new Leader who can propose a new way forward for Barnet Council and appoint a new Cabinet.”

BMOSC

I attended the beginning of the Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting last night, where the Barnet Alliance for Public Services handed over thier petition to call for a referrendum on One Barnet. What was most interesting were the exchanges with the new Interim Chief Executive, in which he was asked questions like "When you have just told us that you expect future cuts to be 30-50%, how can you know what the Councils financial position is going to be in 10 years to lock us into these contracts." And other gems like "In my businesses, when I write words like variances in, it helps compensate for a low bid- it's where I get my profit from." Tow hich the reply was "That's standard Practise in the private sector" (!)

It's clear now even Tories are getting cold feet, but there is still some effort to go. The Committee did not vote to send the request to Cabinet for their consideration.

Come to Buiness Management on Wednesday

Tomorrow evening, if you are at a loss for things to do, at Hendon Town Hall will be the important Business Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee. the Barnet Alliance for Public Services will be submitting their petition against Mike Freer's One Barnet catastrophe.

It's important to attend and support BAPS. You can see the agenda here.

There isn't much time to stop One Barnet, and I hope you will all be emailing your Tory councillors and Tory MPs to tell them to stop this madness.

Labour will be represented on the Committee by Cllr Alison Moore, Cllr Barry Rawlings and I think Cllr Alan Schneiderman is subbing.