A cursory effort to understand: in which Mrs Angry reads a letter, and is puzzled

Richard Cornelius, 'leader' of Barnet Council

*Update Monday 6pm: Your Choice Barnet - legal challenge forces the Board to agree consultation, see below ... 

So anyway:  Mrs Angry put on a pair of rubber gloves this afternoon, stuck a peg on the end of her delicate nose, and picked up the letters page of the Barnet Press to read. Ignoring the editorial, her beady eye was distracted by the leading letter, from the alleged Tory leader of Barnet Council, Councillor Richard Cornelius:

"I am afraid that I have been moved to write by the inaccuracy of your recent editorial (The Press, May 30).
 
There should be at least a cursory effort to understand the actual situation, both in terms of outsourcing and Your Choice. 

There is no "relentless drive to outsource all service provision". Instead, each service area has been looked at and the best method of delivery identified. 

We are bringing recycling back inhouse, sharing public health and legal services with Harrow, embarking on a joint-venture project and, yes, outsourcing some back-office functions. These changes will protect and improve service quality and in no way represent a "race to the bottom". 

We have also established a trading company, The Barnet Group, of which Your Choice is a subsidiary. 

The reason for this set-up is entirely logical: the increased usage of direct payments means that many people are barred from purchasing services direct from the council. 

Without placing council services with an arm's-length provider, excellent services such as the Rosa Morison day centre could not be accessed and used by the majority. 

Your Choice is designed to create a service people can and will choose, balancing quality and cost. 

Reporters have a duty to challenge and be sceptical about the council, but should apply this equally to those who criticise us. 

I wonder, for example, if the Tirza Waisel quoted of CADDSS is one and the same with the synonymous BAPS coordinator and whether this relationship is representative of that between the organisations? 

A hard-left pressure group should be subject to as much scrutiny as anyone else. 

Councillor Richard Cornelius Leader of Barnet Council" 

Dear me, thought Mrs Angry,  what a load of erm ... complete nonsense. (Self regulation, see).

Where to begin?

Is Cornelius spinning this, or does he really believe it? Mrs Angry was puzzled. She therefore made a cursory effort to understand the hapless 'leader' and his comments.

He claims there is no 'relentless drive to outsource all service provision' Ok. Except there is, Richard. Everything that isn't nailed down was put out there, on the cart, being trundled off to the auctioneers, and flogged at a knockdown price to Crapita.

'Each service provision has been looked at and the best method of delivery identified.'

Mmm. No, again: it has not. Some options, ie the most obvious, in house provision, were tactically avoided. So the definition of 'best method' is spurious.

As evidence of his claim, Cornelius refers to the one service that has been brought back in house, ie recycling, which was returned after the full significance of the One Barnet disaster began to impinge, albeit too late, on the consciousness of the Barnet Tory councillors, and they panicked. One service, brought back to where it should be, in house. 

Why then, Richard, if you are now prepared to countenance an in house option for one service, did the council refuse to consider any in house option to consider as an alternative to the £1 billion One Barnet programme of privatisation? 

If recycling works best this way, how many other council functions could be made more efficient, under the direct democratic control of elected members? But no, your administration allowed itself to be persuaded by senior officers that privatisation was the only way forward, and an in house solution should not even be looked at. 

Why is that, do you suppose?

He next claims that Your Choice Barnet was necessary, inevitable perhaps, because of the changes which have led to a system of direct payment. Well, if that was true, why hasn't every other authority in the country followed the same path, and shoved their adult care support  into an ALMO (Arms Length Manamgement Organisation) and LATC (Local Authority Trading Company)?

"Your Choice is designed to create a service people can and will choose, balancing quality and cost." 

A service people can choose. 

As opposed to what, exactly? Where is the choice, in Your Choice? 

And where is the quality, when profit must be extracted from the delivery of vital care to such vulnerable residents? Are you absolutely sure that such sensitively focused support should be subject to the vagaries of market forces?

Our dear leader then tries to belittle the efforts of resident Tirza Waisel, who happens to be active in Barnet Alliance and also supports the work of CADDSS, ridiculously suggesting that she and other members are all 'hard-left' activists and proclaiming:

"A hard-left pressure group should be subject to as much scrutiny as anyone else."

Ah. good point. 

But as we have not been allowed any real scrutiny of anything Cornelius and his chums have set in motion, there is little to worry about, is there?

Perhaps the most telling statement in this letter is hidden away, easily overlooked. 

Once the Tory leadership of Broken Barnet realised, rather too late in the day, that they were not going to get away with signing us away into bondage to Crapita without anyone kicking up too much of a fuss, there was a lot of panic, and the smell of real fear: what to do?

Thanks to the Barnet blogosphere, and Barnet Alliance, and the Barnet Spring, far too many people were waking up to the full implications of their dastardly scheme. The only thing to do was - to deny everything. 

Move along now, nothing to see. Look - over there - quick, while we remove the body. 

One Barnet? What's that? No, never heard of it. 

Did you mean 'the Change Programme'? Yes, yes, you did. 

Nothing to worry about. 

Privatisation? No: a number of different forms of service delivery. 

Almost all of them delivered by Crapita, true. 

What's that - a virtual monopoly controlling council functions, tied to a ten year contract the leader says he has not read? Ah.

And according to Cornelius' letter, and here we are, slipped in at the end, thinking we will not notice, he yet again tries to assert that he is only outsourcing 'some back office functions'. Some back office functions. The re-organisation of the stationery cupboards in Building Two, that sort of thing. 

This can only be interpreted by anyone with any knowedge of the One Barnet programme as a deliberate attempt to underplay the full significance of what they are doing. Pretty shabby, in fact.

So let us just remind ourselves of the immense scale and scope of council services being outsourced:

In the NSCSO contract:

Estates

Finance

Human Resources and Payroll

IT Infrastructure Support

Procurement

Revenues and Benefits

Commercial Service

In the DRS contract:
 

Building Control

Planning Administration

Strategic Planning and Regeneration

Transport

Highways Services

Environmental Health

Trading Standards and Licensing

Cemetries and Crematoria

Quite evidently, to dismiss all these enormously important and diverse functions as being merely 'back office' is misleading and dangerous. 

It denies the truth, that this council is effectively becoming a commissioning council, without the ability to take back services in-house if, as is highly likely, if not inevitable, there are major problems with the Capita takeover.

The next question, then, is why the are Tories seeking to hide the full significance of the two massive contracts which they are so desperate to sign?

In December, you may recall, our Tory leader tried his luck with selling One Barnet, when we were still allowed to call it that, on the BBC Politics show. As Mrs Angry wrote then here: 

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/one-barnet-one-billion-pound-gamble-it.html

"After a tight smiled attempt at belittling the impact of the toxic £1 billion programme Cornelius is wheeling through the streets of Broken Barnet, telling us that the horrible smell of rotting privatisation is really the overwhelming scent of sweet smelling roses, that this huge project is of minimal importance, only 13% of budget, 'just' back office functions, something that 'doesn't matter', 'small things that people won't notice', the Tory leader today informed us, smugly, that One Barnet was really a jolly good idea because 'it's no fun subsidising bureaucrats."

Cornelius also said that he thought then that planning, the outsourcing of which is of course of huge concern and raises all sorts of issues such as conflict of interest, loss of local knowledge and so on, only may be privatised. 

Again, no one believed this at the time, and of course it is, as we knew it would be, a major attraction of the DRS contract, along with irrestible lure of making money out of our dead relatives in Hendon Cemetery.

Small things that people won't notice. 

Mustn't subsidise that bogeyman of retro Barnet Tories, the bureaucrat. It is a good idea, however, to subsidise Capita instead. 

As we heard last week, the DRS contract will now only make £5 million in savings, instead of the £20 million we were promised. Why? Because, as Mr Reasonable was told last week, see his very interesting post here:

 http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/barnet-and-art-of-tautology.html

"The bidder has identified a more modest saving"... Oh. 

At the 'scrutiny' meeting last week, we heard that the financial benefit for Barnet that is expected from the contracts is largely dependent on 'growth', or selling services outside the borough. 

Capita Symonds, we were told, hoped to use Barnet as a base to 'grow business' in the South East region, a new market ripe for the picking. All very well, but as Mr Reasonable pointed out, the reality is that the major profits will be for Capita, not us. 

And if we do not sell the services which are to be relied on for the so called 'guaranteed' returns? 

Now we come full circle, back to the example of 'Your Choice Barnet', the local authority trading company set up to do just that, make a profit from running care services for residents, shamefully, in this case, vulnerable residents with disabilities. 

The failure to find that profit margin, predicted by a union report dismissed out of hand by the council,  has led to financial meltdown, and Barnet Council has ended up subsidising not faceless bureaucrats, but its own private company - with more taxpayers' money.

Cornelius is a decent man at heart, but he is no leader. He is wading way out of his depth, and has followed, not led, dutifully accepting every fable spun for him by those intent on pushing the privatisation programme. 

His weakness is in that he lacks imagination, and the ability to see beyond the limitations of his own political prejudices - he castigates the critics of privatisation as 'hard-left', because he sees things in such curiously outdated, simplistic terms. This lack of perception will cost him, and this borough, dearly.

The dangerous truth for him is that in fact the activists in this borough are not, as he labelled them, the hard-left, or natural born anarchists, or 'eccentric socialists and American exiles'.

They are parents, carers, traders, ordinary residents - voters - people of all political persuasions, and none, burned into a searing desire to take arms, politically, out of sheer frustration at the lack of engagement by this council with its own electorate.  

They do not want their council services pimped for profit to Capita. They do not want to lose direct democratic control to a monolithic, unaccountable private company. 

They want their elected members to do what is best for this borough, not to facilitate the take over of our public services for the benefit of the private sector.

Whatever happens now, the Tories are sunk: if they win the Judicial Review appeal, and raise the flag of Capitaville over our Town Hall, the residents of this borough will never forgive them - and if they lose? Cornelius has threatened this will lead to a programme of savage cuts and redundancies. If that is the case, it will be an act of spite, pointless reprisal: it will be legally challenged too. 

There is now, and never was, any need for a wholescale privatisation of services. 

The answer to any need for making efficiencies was always here, lying in their hands. 

If this Tory administration had reviewed its own management of services, for example in the grossly incompetent organisation of procurement, countless millions of taxpayers' money could have been saved without the need to pay a company to run it for them. This is the largest source of 'savings' promised by the NSCSO contract, but how much more revenue will be lost in the shape of profit for Capita?

The truth is that Cornelius, who has admitted to having to be persuaded of the benefits of One Barnet, and then of the need for a Joint Venture, knows perfectly well the risks to which his administration has exposed our borough. But there is too much face to be lost by admitting it. 

He and his Tory colleagues are gambling on the next election arriving before the real horrors of One Barnet are revealed. 

Unfortunately for them, the ugly truth is already evident for anyone to see, and no amount of spin by Richard Cornelius can hide it anymore.

*Updated Monday 6pm: Your Choice Barnet - breaking news ... a u-turn, after receiving notice of a potential legal challenge from a service user:

The legal advisers acting for resident Susan Sullivan have received a response from the Board of Your Choice Barnet agreeing, belatedly, to hold consultation with residents affected by the impact of proposed changes, which amongst other plans, involved driving out or demoting skilled staff, cutting support staffing, making up to 30% cuts in already low wages, changing terms and conditions of employment, and exposing vulnerable residents to the risk of a dramatic deterioration in their standard of care.

"The Board has decided in principle to proceed with the front-line changes to supported living, salary enhancements and the change to waking night arrangements both within supported living and Valley Way. However, the Board is of the opinion that before making any final decision it needs more information on the effect on service users their families and wider stakeholders and to hear people’s views on any alternatives. To that end the Board intends to consult further. and Your Choice Barnet will shortly be drawing up proposals for the consultation exercise ..."

In addition:

"The Board has decided not to proceed for the moment with the co-location of Community Space and BILS. Further consideration will be given to these services at a later date ..."

Also:

"The 25 staff who have been offered and paid voluntary redundancy are being informed that due to a potential legal challenge the restructure involving their positions is on hold and therefore they are not at present redundant. They are being offered a choice on whether to go ahead with the redundancy or not."

This is a stunning development and a sharp lesson  for the Board of Your Choice Barnet, Richard Cornelius, the Tory councillors of Broken Barnet, the senior management team - and any outsourcing companies or private consultants who think they can dictate to us what sort of public services we will have here.

Perhaps the message is now getting through, loud and clear:

Nothing about us, without us.

A Healthy Dose of Criticism: carry on blogging, says Eric

Eric Pickles: embracing the principles of democracy, inspired by Mrs Angry

You may or may not know that Mrs Angry has been advising Eric Pickles for some time now on the sensitive subject of citizen journalism, (well, ok: in an informal capacity, unsolicited, via the medium of twitter, sternly worded emails, and the odd blogpost). 

Eric, who is, in his shy way, always trying to curry favour with Mrs Angry, has taken on board her advice, and has now, in a desperate attempt to impress her, even been moved to issue another valiant statement in support of bloggers, reminding councils who attempt to obstruct the reporting of their meetings that such behaviour runs counter to the best interests of the democratic process. 

Rather cheekily, the title would appear to be pinched from a Broken Barnet post on the same subject, but with no acknowledgement, tssk: still, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Look: is Eric blushing?

 http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/lights-camera-action-mrs-angry-makes.html  

but we now have this offering from DCLG:
 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lights-camera-democracy-in-action

 Says the Secretary of State:

"I want to stand up for the rights of journalists and taxpayers to scrutinise and challenge decisions of the state. Data protection rules or health and safety should not be used to suppress reporting or a healthy dose of criticism.  

Modern technology has created a new cadre of bloggers and hyper-local journalists, and councils should open their digital doors and not cling to analogue interpretations of council rules.  

Councillors shouldn’t be shy about the public seeing the good work they do in championing local communities and local interests. 

I challenge the Welsh government to give taxpayers in Wales the same rights as those in England now have, and stop the scandal of free speech being suppressed in Wales’ town halls."

As one of the new cadre of bloggers and hyper-local journalists, and in the interest of balance, Mrs Angry feels it is her professional duty to point out that for some inexplicable reason in this press release, Mr Pickles has chosen yet again to highlight the failings of a Labour council, ie Wirral, but neatly avoided all reference to the suppurating sore on the body of democracy that is the Tory run London Borough of Broken Barnet.

Yes, this is Broken Barnet,  where the Tory council tried to ban filming, using 'MetPro', an unlicensed and illegally operating bunch of blackshirted, quasi-military security officers to bar residents, with physical force, from the council chamber, who then covertly filmed local bloggers with hidden cameras. 

Pickles himself was driven to castigate his Tory colleagues here,over this matter in a very public forum: the CIPFA conference. Shall we remind readers of what he said? 

“I was shocked by a recent case in Barnet.

The council had hired a private security firm, MetPro, which included “keeping an eye” on the local armchair auditors and activist bloggers - at a cost of over a million pounds.

The contract had been awarded without a tendering exercise, without a written contract, and no proper invoicing.

An internal audit showed there “serious deficiencies in current procurement arrangements”, and there were no guarantees that against a repeat of such practices.

Irony of ironies - this misuse of public money was uncovered thanks to the determination of local bloggers and activists…

Including Barnet Eye. Mr Mustard. And Mrs Angry. (As she had every right to be)

Exactly the same people MetPro snooped upon.

I’ve got news for Barnet. Liveblogging from council meetings. Microjournalism. Call it what you like.

It’s here to stay.”

Since this humiliation, have our elected members learnt their lesson, and welcomed the active involvement of local residents and bloggers? Like f*ck they have.

And has this deterred anyone from scrutinising the activities of our scheming, pathologically secretive council? It has not: quite the reverse. At every significant council meeting now, there are usually at least two cameras filming our elected members and senior officers, and the meetings are live tweeted and reported in loving detail in several blogs. This has held the council to account in an immediate sense, but perhaps more importantly, provided very useful evidence for legal challenges.

For those citizens who have not yet begun to put their local representatives under such intense scrutiny, Uncle Eric has also taken the trouble to publish a helpful guide here to:

 'Your Council's Cabinet: going to its meetings and seeing how it works'. 

Very kind, thank you Eric: let's take a look.

Hmm ... apparently under the last government, councils - no, I simply cannot believe this - councils were able to evade the eye of public scrutiny:

"A cabinet could largely choose which of its meetings should be held in public thus hindering effective local accountability and scrutiny."

The rules of cabinet decision making are explained, in response to a question: 

"Who can make an executive decision in my council? The rules of your council define who can make a decision. The decision maker can be the executive, its committees and sub-committees, joint committees, joint sub-committees, individual councillors, and officers who have delegated responsibility from the executive to make executive decisions."

Please note, Tory councillors and senior officers of the London Borough of Broken Barnet, that these rules do NOT state:

The decision maker can be a non executive body of senior officers, overpaid private consultants and bidders meeting in unminuted secrecy to arrange a £250 million contract tender process, and change the business model to a Joint Venture, in ignorance of the elected Leader of the Council, or any member of the Cabinet, committees and sub committees, joint committees, joint sub-committes. 

This, however, is how things are run in the Tory borough whose name Eric Pickles dares not utter, for fear of the apocalyptic consequences that will ensue, in the shape of major reputational damage to the good name (or what is left of it) of the Conservative party, and the chances of any remaining electoral support in 2014 and 2015.

As it happens, there is another very important Cabinet meeting here in Broken Barnet, on the 24th June, and many local residents, taxpayers and citizen journalists will be trying to exercise their right to take part in this crucial function of the local democratic purpose: the statutory obligation to consult the electorate is blatantly ignored, and open debate and scrutiny is obstructed at every level, including by elected members of the opposition - but let's see how enthusiastically Tory leader Richard Cornelius and his colleagues support the clear wishes and stated guidance of the minister, now, shall we?

The purpose of scrutiny, or: a risk worth taking - the creation of Capitaville

Councillor Finn, philosopher and man of purpose

Councillor Anthony Finn, Chair of the Budget, Performance, Overview and Scrutiny committee asked himself a question half way through last night's meeting, thinking aloud, as if it was something he had always meant to consider, but had never quite had the time to get round to it.

What, he asked, is the purpose of scrutiny? 

There was a silence in the committee room.

Don't you know? asked Mrs Angry, pen poised, anxiously, worried that perhaps Councillor Finn was having some sort of existential crisis. Indeed, she mused: what is the purpose of scrutiny? Or committee meetings, or the democratic process, or life itself, here in what was once Broken Barnet, but is now to become Capitaville, where there is no purpose other than to make profit for our new masters, and to be obedient to their will?

But Councillor Finn was only teasing. He had the answer all ready, and directed this, in his usual manner of condescension, to his colleagues sat around the table, and to the listening public.

The purpose of scrutiny, he told us, was not to criticise. It was to make a positive contribution. 

Yes: last night our Tory councillors dropped all pretence of exercising their duty to challenge the takeover of our local services by Crapita, and simply stood by, greeting the invading enemies with open arms. It was Barnet, Open City: no defence, no resistence, no scrutiny - just a warm welcome - and a positive contribution.

This meeting was held, in theory, in order for our councillors to consider the merits of the bid for the DRS contract from Capita Symonds, enthusiastically recommended to our elected representatives by the senior management team. 

This contract is the second part of the £1 billion One Barnet programme of privatisation, in which we will be giving over almost every council function to Crapita to run for their profit, on the understanding that this will make enormous savings for the taxpayers of Broken Barnet. 

As usual it was left to members of the public and Labour councillors to at least attempt to perform the role of scrutiny of the One Barnet madness. Labour councillors pointed out they had only seen the contract on Thursday, and yet faced difficulties having their questions addressed after being told they had submitted them too close to the Monday morning deadline.

There were seventy seven questions allowed from members of the public, all of them focused, detailed, probing enquiries which should have been put by elected members, but were not. The Conservative members are not interested in details, or reality: they were there to approve whatever was in the contract, the significance of which they simply do not understand, and do not want to understand. 

Before question time began, a member of Barnet Alliance approached the councillors, bearing gifts. She had a handful of magnifying glasses, in order to assist them in their stringent scrutiny of the Capita bid. The members of Barnet Alliance are hopeless optimists, of course.

The residents came now to the table, posing their supplementary questions, and receiving nothing but meaningless responses and studied evasion in return.

The man from legal consultants Trowers & Hamlin took a seat with the officers from Barnet. Mrs Angry watched with interest as his demeanour changed from one of a slightly bored and complacent executive waiting to wrap everything up and go home as soon as possible, to someone clearly stunned by the amount of hostility, and informed challenge, from residents. 

He was particularly rattled, it seemed, by the typically incisive points made by blogger Mr Reasonable, John Dix, who had submitted thirty questions, ranging from the most obvious -why a an expectation of nearly £20 million in savings is now going to amount to only around £5 million, through a range of detailed trashings of the business case, and then to another very important question: 

Why was this report cleared by Trowers & Hamlin, not the council's own legal service (outsourced to Harrow Council) and does this not represent a massive conflict of interest given that Trowers & Hamlin have provided legal advice on the outsourcing project?

Ah.

But no, no: the reponse was this is standard procedure. 

Are you reassured?

Mrs Angry's question was about the Joint Venture:

In the light of revelations that the decision to change the model of the DRS contract to a JV co was made in secret, by the Corporate Directors Group, a body with no executive powers, and without consultation with the Leader or any elected member, does the Chair not agree that scrutiny and elected member governance of the One Barnet programme, and specifically the DRS tender process, has been completely undermined?

Her supplementary question, much to the annoyance of the Chair, she felt had to be preceded by a fisking of the complete load of shite which was given in the written response, stating that JV was 'set out' as 'a vehicle to explore' at an earlier stage - in fact it was discounted as being too high risk - that JV was seen as 'a progressively more attractive option' in discussions with bidders - yes, , no doubt it was, but elected members knew nothing about this until too late - and finally that the Member Panel was briefed on the options - this took place months after the secret discussions and only once the decision had been made, quite improperly, by the officers.

And your question Mrs Angry? You have never had an independent risk assessment of the OB programme, yet you have chosen an even higher risk option to use for the DRS tender: so much risk for such little return, only £5 million when you have already spent over £6 million on a few 'implementation' consultants from Agilisys/iMPOWER ...

Cllr Robert Rams was called to the table. Ooh, Mrs Angry was scared. He was pleased to answer the question, he said, not daring to look Medusa in the face, He believes it is a risk worth taking. Really? For - potentially - 40% return ...  Eh? Potentially, said Mrs Angry ... potentially. 

Risk, potential, growth, aspiration, projections, expectations: fantasy. 

So much of the promised financial benefits for Barnet come from 'growth', selling services to other outside bodies, or service changes which councillors may well have to veto, if they can. Any problems with service delivery, and there will be, or failure to supply the profits promised, and there are countless examples elsewhere we have already written about, will have to be fought over, perhaps legally challenged, while residents put up with declining services and increased charges, and councillors face the reality of the loss of direct democratic control. But they neither understand, nor care.

Pam Wharfe, Director of Place. (All of them, not just some places, here and there. Very important post).

After the public questions were asked and duly ignored, Ms Pam Wharfe, Director of Place (don't laugh, it's unkind - they love all these new titles they have awarded themselves) leapt up to show us a presentation. This was a thrilling slideshow, with a few pictures of Ms Wharfe's mini break in Bruges last week. Alright, that is a lie, but Mrs Angry wishes it was true, just as she wishes we had not had sit through the turgid presentation of nine pages intended to spell out to the dopey Tory councillors, in carefully worded and easily digested bullet points, the marvellous benefits of the bid from Capita Symonds.

Both Wharfe and Captain Cooper, the erstwhile director of commercial services, spoke to the members through what was clearly a strategically directed and possibly rehearsed approach intended to calm, and reassure, and defuse any likely possibilities of tension and lines of awkward questioning. 

Captain Cooper reassures the councillors

Mrs Angry even wondered if they had been coached by someone (and yes, our senior executives have paid for such glorified elocution lessions before, as a trawl through council spending revealed). Their tone was smooth as silk, and discreetly flattering to the empty headed Tories who hardly know their arses from their elbow but were now being addressed in such unusually deferential terms: you will be doing this, and you will be doing that, all very inclusive, and meant to convince the members that they will still have some status and control, now that we have been annexed by the Capita empire. 

One of the grossly amusing revelations of this presentation was in the idiots' guide to 'Service Improvement Proposals', and the example given of marvellous opportunities for growth in the provision of services to one previously under exploited section of our community: the dead.

Yes: it is only remarkable that this opportunity has been overlooked for so long, when you think about it. Why should the dead residents of Broken Barnet be allowed to rest in peace, a burden on the taxpayer, and making no positive contribution to the community? Make'em earn their keep. It's the Tory way of death: as much money as possible has been extracted from the hapless motorists, penalised for trying to park almost anywhere in the borough: next step was to charge the disabled for their care, through the good offices of Your Choice Barnet - and now the ultimate act of capita-list enterprise, see what you can screw out of the deceased, and their grieving relatives.

The proposals from Crapita in regard to one particular income generating option reminded Mrs Angry of the grotesqueries of Evelyn Waugh's novel 'The Loved One', and even more so of Jessica Mitford's 'The American Way of Death', in which the commercialistion of funerals predates on the bereaved with breathless efficiency.

Hendon Crematorium was added to the DRS package as an afterthought, when Barnet senior officers realised it would act as a 'sweetener' to potential bidders. Crematoria are attractive because, of course, people will keep dying, and thereby providing an easy target for would be profiteers. In Capitaville, plans for Hendon Crematorium include the 'potential for growth' from flogging higher prices to non residents to be buried there, and an intention to achieve 'Gold Standard' of the 'Charter for the Bereaved' by providing such things as - oh dear: a new catering facility.

Yes: bury your loved ones in Hendon Cemetery, and then why not nip into the cafe for a skinny latte, or a burger? Bound to cheer everyone up. All this mourning is all very well, but where is the profit? Life goes on, and there is income to be generated, in order to back up the claims made for fabulous rewards to us all from Capita Symonds.

Barnet is, we are told, in the officers' report, is to be used as a base for Capita to 'grow business' in the wider region. As the committee was told last night, they see the south east area as ripe with opportunities. What is worrying, however, is that Capitaville-Barnet will provide the base, but not take a fair share of any profit, as John Dix pointed out, wearily, to the blank faces of officers, and the incomprehension of councillors. One councillor, Andrew Strongolou, turned up forty minutes late for this meeting, incidentally - perhaps he was having trouble finding a parking space? He then made no noticeable contribution - just not good enough.

A couple of residents spoke to the committee. Veteran campaigner Julian Silverman tried to give some historic context to the economic situation which our Tory councillors use as justification for every decision they make: this was wasted breath, of course, and the Chair sneered at his speech, sniggering to his colleagues at the table. 'Do you mind not speaking? 'asked Julian. 

He suggested money could be saved by the council in various efficiencies, such as cutting the pay of senior officers, disbanding the LATC - the frantically subsidised 'Your Choice Barnet', taking back Barnet Homes, restoring direct labour, creating some sort of competent control of procurement. 

Finn told him to stop. Play by the rules, he was told. You don't, heckled an enraged member of the public. In fact there was an awful lot of heckling last night, quite a bit of it by Mrs Angry, who thought it entirely necessary, in the absence of any other form of meaningful engagement.

Former Tory MP John Marshall raised his shrill patrician voice to inform Mr Silverman that he had spent the first third of his speech on issues that were nothing to do with Barnet Council. He had admitted, said the old hardliner gleefully, that he know nothing about economics and he had demonstrated this beautifully. A typical example of the contemptuous way in which the Tory councillors view their residents,and their opinions, in fact.

John Marshall

John Dix's speech was as usual the most sensible, insightful contribution of the meeting, which it is why it was viewed with suspicion, and silence, and completely ignored. 

He asked why, in view of the £6 million thrown at 'implementation' consultants Agilisys/iMPOWER, Barnet had not seen fit to spend maybe £30-£40, 000 on an independent professional assessment of the outsourcing programme from a company like Deloitte? The officers at the table looked down. CEO Travers had his arms crossed. The man from Trowers & Hamlin looked sideways at John Dix.

Which other authorities have they spoken to: what about Somerset, who might have something to say about the disastrous Soutwest One?

As for the independence of Trowers & Hamlin in signing off the contract - how did that square with what looked like a conflict of interest, or as Labour councillor Arjun Mittra put it, rather like an author reviewing his own book?

He suggested to the committee that as the Judicial Review appeal would be heard until July 15th, there was time for the contract to be looked at in more detail - include the public. Otherwise the suspicion remains that they were there simply to rubberstamp the decision. Please, he said: prove me wrong.

Former Tory councillor Dan Hope (aka the Barnet Bugle) addressed the committee, and expressed his concerns about planning, and accountability. Tory member Brian Gordon chipped in, and made some bizarre claim about consultation. Mrs Angry pointed out, without invitation that there had been no consultation, which is why the council was returning to the High Court. 

 Nelson Mandela impersonator, Brian Gordon

We are not rubber stamping: we have to stick to the decision. Whose decision? asked Mrs Angry.  (Leaving the Town Hall later, she noted, standing in front of the entrance, as soon as Cllr Gordon spotted her blocking the way, he made a sudden and apparently unplanned diversion to the gents loo).  

Officers advise, members decide, proclaimed Councillor Marshall, with all the certainty of a man who clearly had forgotten the decision to embrace the Joint Venture was taken, without the knowledge of even the Leader, by the officers across the table, looking on with fond indulgence at the old duffer now.

Time for the councillors to ask questions. This was also a pointless exercise.

Labour leader Alison Moore objected to the lack of response to questions, and was told only that written answers would be provided at a later date. She was not happy about this and pointed out the scrutiny process was hardly as Finn had suggested 'democracy in action'.

Labour's Arjun Mittra asked about how the DRS bid would address the issue of protected characteristics. Leader Cornelius made one of his usual disparaging remarks about equalities legislation, speaking of being 'compelled' to follow the obligations of an EIA.

Alan Schneiderman and Tory Hugh Rayner asked the same question - Rayner does ask the right questions, sometimes, it's just that he chooses to ignore the answers, which amounts to the same as not asking them, Hugh, really doesn't it? they wanted to know what would happen to revenue if councillors exercised their veto on some of the more 'surprising' ideas that Capita wanted to try out on the guinea pig residents of Broken Barnet? Well, the real answer is that this 'guaranteed' money will have to be extracted elsewhere, of course.

Councillor Rayner

At this point Dr Khatiri, one of the residents sitting by Mrs Angry, a very bright woman who had been heckling her well directed disapproval throughout the meeting, was told off by the Chair, who decided to refer to her as 'young lady'. She objected to being addressed in this way. Labour leader Alison Moore, who often receives the same treatment from Councillor Finn, defended her, saying that indeed he did sometimes patronise members of the public. Councillor Finn patted her on the head, metaphorically speaking, and carried on.

Would proposals to increase income lead to any increases in fees? No, we were told: this was not about hiking up existing fees. Make a note of that, readers, for future use.

Labour's Ross Houston pointed out that there was a danger that Barnet staff would be used to create profit for Capita, and the best staff used to create business, at the expense of this borough's best interests.

Oh, no, said Richard Cornelius, with all the authority of a man who sat in the room next door last year and said three times in another scrutiny meeting weeks after Pam Wharfe had announced the decision, that he knew nothing about the Joint Venture, and was 'every bit as curious as you are' ... Richard told us that we have protective measures in place, and I for one believed him. Well, no, not really.

Up piped John Marshall, who thought we should remember that 'reputational risk' was of huge importance to Capita, and therefore they would not do anything bad here in our lovely borough, and he added that otherwise they would be unlikely to win other contracts. When the laughter had stopped, we moved on to the interesting issue of the 56 KPIs, key performance indicators. It emerged that 27 of these had not been agreed by Capita. Oh. A crucial point, suggested Alan Schneiderman. Some extra smooth reassurances dropped like honey from the mellifluous tongues of Captain Cooper and Pam Wharfe: this was not a problem, apparently.

Some argument then, from Ross Houston, with Pam Wharfe over the probity of a private company running quasi-judicial functions. No, I don't know what it means, either, but what was amusing was the statement made in response by Ms Wharfe in regard to legislation, which Ross reminded us was the will of parliament. The Director of Place said:

 'Yes, the will of parliament, quite a long time ago ...'

Mrs Angry was unable to contain her amusement, and she fears Ms Wharfe may have been disconcerted by her unseemly laughter at this point. Clearly, in Capitaville, all ancient rights and expectations in law are now suspended, if they were enacted prior to the beginning of Year Zero, the new beginning that is One Barnet.

 Some interesting debate now about the new status of employees, who will, and will not, be employed by both and neither of the two partners of the Joint Venture - remember that in Alice in Wonderland, the White Queen believed six impossible things before breakfast, and similarly in Broken Barnet it has always been possible to be two different things at the same time. 

Councillor Rayner tried to very loudly inform the public (especially Mrs Angry) that the perception that One Barnet  is an officer-led process was wrong (like the Joint Venture? yelled someone) ... it is the members, who must 'educate' the residents and members of the public. That was a popular suggestion, as you can imagine. 

Alan Schneiderman tried to propose that the meeting be extended to 10.30. He was wasting his time, of course. It was 'against the rules', 'over scrutinising' ...

Alison Moore proposed that there should be some sort of consultation with residents.

To the lasting shame of the Conservative members of Barnet Council, let it be recorded that, despite everything that has happened, despite the ruling in the High Court by Judge Underhill that the authority had completely failed to consult residents and tax payers over One Barnet, last night they voted AGAIN against the very idea of even the slightest commitment to debate with their electors on an issue of such huge significance, in defiance once more of the fundamental principles of democracy, of the very concept of localism, and, as we expect to see, in breach of the council's statutory obligations.

As the public left the room so the councillors could carry on with the closed part of the meeting, the Chair smiled kindly at us and said: And may we thank you for your co-operation, this evening? Mrs Angry stopped in her tracks: We didn't, she replied. Oh, Mrs Angry, tutted Councillor Finn, as she pointlessly made an insolent face in his direction.

But we didn't: and we won't. And we'll see you, and Crapita, and Trowers & Hamlin, and the rest of you, in court, next month.

*The Judicial Review Appeal will now take place on July 15th and 16th, the Royal Courts of Justice, in front of the Rt Hon Lord Dyson, Master of the Rolls, and two other senior judges.