One Barnet legal challenge 'will cost taxpayers' £2.2million'

5:10pm Wednesday 20th February 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Chris Hewett

Protestors have long campaigned against the council's outsourcing programme Protestors have long campaigned against the council's outsourcing programme

A legal challenge to Barnet Council’s outsourcing programme will cost taxpayers at least £2.2million, according to the authority.

The One Barnet scheme, under which the council is looking to sell off almost £700million worth of services to private contractors, will be scrutinised at a High Court hearing on March 18.

In December, the authority chose Capita to take on a £320million contract to run its back office services for the next ten years.

The council claims the deal will save it in the region of £125million over the contract period but the decision was made the subject of legal proceedings earlier this year.

Maria Nash, a protestor and member of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services, instructed lawyers to request a judicial review into the decision on the grounds the public were not properly consulted.

Budget papers published this week show the council expects to lose £2.2million in savings even if the appeal is unsuccessful but will be forced to find £15million-a-year if its decision is found to be unlawful.

Council officers recognised that the legal dispute has “significant implications” on the council’s budget plans over the coming years.

Comments(10)

You don't fool me says...
10:50pm Wed 20 Feb 13

It will cost us a shed load more if this unconstitutional One Barnet is allowed to proceed!
How many more Barnet officials have feathered their nests with nice little earners and positions at the consultants and other companies who have their mucky little fingers in the honey pot?
DO YOU REALLY THINK WE ARE NOT WATCHING?

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rony says...
12:50am Thu 21 Feb 13

Applying the Somerset experience with the outsourcing to IBM, killing the OBP NOW will save us at least £15 millions in direct financial losses, and prevent even higher losses on the cultural damage as the result of the destruction of the council services infrastructure and lost of expertise.

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Mr Reasonable says...
10:07am Thu 21 Feb 13

This is an entirely misleading and disturbing report. I asked at the Cabinet Resources Committee on 28th Feb 2012 if a three month delay in implementing the contract would impact on savings and I was told it would not as it was all related to the phasing of savings. If you read the full NSCSO business case report issued by the Council at the Cabinet meeting on 6th December you will see that the proposed savings are phased in. By December 2013, 46.32 posts will have been removed (albeit 203 posts will be moved outside Barnet). The big redundancies kick in in 2015/16 by when 135.45 post will have been removed and coinciding with the option to surrender on the lease on a large part of North London Business Park Offices. What the council have done is look at the POTENTIAL savings for the entire period and divide it by 120 to give a monthly savings cost when in reality the value of savings made in the first two or three months which may be affected by the judicial review are very modest indeed. It would be nice to see the council substantiate these wild statement with some fact before launching such a personalised PR campaign against Maria Nash.

It is also very disappointing that The Times has failed to run any stories about the huge overspend on the consultants contract advising on the implementation of One Barnet which was original budgeted at 'circa' £2 million but which has so far cost Barnet council tax payers over £5.5 million.

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rony says...
3:57pm Thu 21 Feb 13

Maria Nash is NOT a member of Barnet Alliance and has never been. I expect the reporter to show a bit of professionalism and to check his facts before publishing.
I don't know where Mr. Hewett got the other details from, but if those are reliable as his report on Ms. Nash associations, then it's high time for the Times to check its practices.

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Grumblepop says...
7:10pm Thu 21 Feb 13

if Rony is correct , then Maria Nash should consider a defamation action regarding her " membership" claims made the local rag's reporter Christine Hewitt, who somehow thinks by distorting the English language, does not make him a liar.

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rony says...
11:25am Fri 22 Feb 13

membership in Barnet Alliance is not a "defamation", on the contrary. However, this is an indication to the accuracy of the report, and the reporter failure to balance it.

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Tee double you says...
11:18pm Sun 24 Feb 13

Questions need to be asked – why is it that a resident had no other choice but to apply for Judicial Review in an attempt to save her own and her neighbours' future? Who is to blame for this? And how will a council that refused to engage in meaningful consultation with its residents pay the cost of its follies, a cost that could have so easily been avoided if they only listened?

Cllr Cornelius will scaremonger us and say 'from (further) cuts to services'. We ask: Why not from the £9 millions paid to consultants on the One Barnet programme only in 2011-12? Why not from the £50,000 a day (yes, a day!) paid to all these consultants and lawyers who had put LBB in this mess to begin with? Why not from the pay of top executives who are among the highest earners in the country?

The perspective presented in Chris Hewitt's article paints a picture of abusive relationship between the cabinet and its electorate: They hit us and we're supposed to shut up, and if we cry they threaten to hit us harder.

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You don't fool me says...
1:11pm Mon 25 Feb 13

I agree with Tdy, It is an abuse of power and against all democratic values. These people must be made to pay for their crimes against democracy and the people of Barnet!

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Mrs Angry, Broken Barnet blog says...
3:35pm Mon 25 Feb 13

It would be nice to read an article repeating spin from Barnet Council that was challenged in some way: why accept a claim like this without asking to see the evidence? What happened to the need to show balance in an article? Or does that only apply when it is focused on criticism of the council?
Mr Reasonable has demonstrated that this claim by Barnet is entirely spurious. The council has already thrown away millions of pounds, way above budget, on small and unaccountable private consultants who help to establish these massive outsourcing deals: why not challenge that? The point that is not made is that the JR is being pursued as a desperate last measure by concerned residents who object to our local public services being given over to a massive and again unaccountable company for maybe FIFTEEN years for them to make profit out of us. Maria Nash is to be commended for having the courage to try to save us from this exploitation and the loss of control over our council services.

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Mrs Angry, Broken Barnet blog says...
1:51pm Thu 28 Feb 13

By the way, the date here is wrong too for the Judicial Review - should be the 19th to the 21st of March.

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