Sunday 25 September 2011

Uncle Eric's Citizen Samizdat: Barnet's bloggers and the FOIA, a statement


The Barnet bloggers' no 1 fan is, as you know, rather surprisingly, none other than Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Mr Pickles has been scathingly outspoken in his condemnation of the Tory councillors of Broken Barnet, who have caused nothing but embarrassment to their own Conservative party leadership since the new Tory administration here was elected in May 2010, and provoked widespread outrage by immediately awarding massive pay rises for councillors, despite their intention to impose a savage agenda of budget cuts in council services.

The extraordinary revelations we disclosed about the authority's incompetence in the wake of the MetPro affair led to an unprecedented public humiliation for Tory councillors in a conference speech made by Pickles castigating Barnet Council for its idiotic behaviour. Have lessons been learned? We don't think so.

Mr Pickles' stated attempts, through his policy of localism, to empower communities to take more control of local authority processes has been systematically obstructed by the Tory group in Barnet, who seem to think that they should empower themselves rather than the residents they are supposed to represent. The Barnet bloggers have had enough of this , and have therefore written to Uncle Eric.



A letter to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government


Dear Mr Pickles,

In June last year, as part of your policy of commitment to the principle of ‘localism’ and greater accountability by local authorities to the communities they represent, you issued the following statement:

New era of transparency will bring about a revolution in town hall openness and accountability

“Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government. Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips.

“The public should be able to see where their money goes and what it delivers. The swift and simple changes we are calling for today will unleash an army of armchair auditors and quite rightly make those charged with doling out the pennies stop and think twice about whether they are getting value for money.”

As part of your programme of action to make local authorities more accountable you have created an obligation for them to disclose details of expenditure and have expressed the intention to compel councils to allow citizen journalists to film, photograph and tweet reports of council meetings.

In conjunction with these new directives, you have expressed the wish that residents use existing legislation in order to scrutinise the processes of local government, including, most importantly, the rights given in the Freedom of Information Act of 2000.

All of these suggestions are commendable, and should indeed further extend the powers of scrutiny to local communities.

It is deeply regrettable, therefore, that here in the London Borough of Barnet, rather than embrace a policy of greater transparency, the Conservative administration is making every effort to resist any obligation to be more accountable to its electorate, and is, in direct opposition to your wishes, obstructing the efforts of the armchair auditors that you so applaud.

In a speech at the CIPFA conference in July this year you made the following remark:

“I was shocked by a recent case in Barnet. The council had hired a private security firm, MetPro, which included “keeping an eye” on local 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. Live blogging from council meetings. Microjournalism. Call it what you like. It's here to stay. In fact this citizen samizdat - local people reporting on their local council's triumphs and shortcomings - is the perfect counterblast to town hall Pravdas.”

As you know, Mr Pickles, here in Barnet bloggers have had to fight for the right to film council meetings, and we have made huge efforts to uncover the ‘deficiencies’ which lay at the heart of the MetPro affair, as well as bringing to the attention of the community a number of other serious issues of concern to all residents.

Earlier this year, in defiance of the move to greater transparency and accountability, and to a more meaningful engagement with citizens, we have seen Barnet’s Conservative administration attack the local constitution, restricting the right of elected councillors to speak at meetings, and worst of all, censoring the local Residents Forums so that absolutely no discussion of any council ‘policy’ may now be raised, nor any issue alluded to within a six month period be submitted for inclusion. These and other draconian and undemocratic regulations are read out in detail at every Forum, and their imposition has caused enormous anger and resentment amongst residents.

Even more worrying, perhaps, is that the culture of secrecy and fear of transparency which is so endemic in this local authority has now extended to the council’s flagrant abuse of the Freedom of Information Act.

Barnet bloggers and armchair auditors – and other residents – who have submitted FOI requests to Barnet Council are increasingly having their enquiries obstructed or needlessly delayed, particularly enquiries on issues of political or financial sensitivity.

Two FOI requests submitted by residents in regard to the MetPro affair, for example, were only answered a few days ago, on 16th September, after an inexplicable delay of several months.
One request had been made in early April, the other in early May. As you will know, the statutory period within which responses must be made is 20 days.

Another request made in relation to potential declarations of interest between senior officers of the council and a major private company was ignored for months and then obstructed on a pretext, despite a current outsourcing tender process for a package of services worth a staggering £750 million in total, in which this influential company is now one of those shortlisted.

In Barnet there is no open declaration of interests, gifts, or hospitality given to senior officers, and one response given to an FOI request by a blogger in regard to such declarations was sent with the identities of donors withheld, invalidating the information and again obstructing the purpose of the enquiry.

The FOI request in regard to the tendering company was reported to the external auditors at a meeting in July: despite an assurance that the issue would be investigated by them under the terms of their remit, we are not aware of any progress in their enquiry.

After struggling to hold the authority to account for FOI responses which were withheld, delayed, or misleading, one Barnet blogger has recently been sent, in reply to a perfectly valid question regarding a hugely over budget IT system, a response refusing to address his request for information, on the grounds that it is ‘vexatious’ and because of the alleged number of previous enquiries.

In Barnet, bloggers, armchair auditors and residents are obliged to resort to making an increasingly large number of FOI requests in response to an obstinate refusal by the authority to comply with the intentions of your stated commitment to greater openness, accountability and transparency, and in order to place the necessary information in the public domain, in a medium easily accessible to all.

Despite the demonstrably inadequate state of preparation revealed by the MetPro audit report, and despite the concerns of so many backbench Conservative councillors, a highly controversial programme of massive outsourcing is being promoted by Barnet’s senior management team and council leadership as the keystone policy of the ‘easycouncil’, One Barnet agenda. There could hardly be a time in which a need for openness and accountability could be more pressing. Public confidence in the governance of this borough is, however, at an all time low, and we, as residents and citizen journalists therefore ask that you, in defence of your policy of localism, investigate the obstructive and anti-democratic practices employed by this authority in a sustained attempt to prevent proper scrutiny of its actions and decisions.

Yours sincerely,

Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

8 comments:

Cneifiwr said...

A superb letter, and sadly one which could have been written about any number of councils. Like you, I await Uncle Eric's response with bated breath.

Mrs Angry said...

hello Cneifiwr: thanks and yes, the reality is that most councils are working entirely in the opposite direction to the alleged aims of the localism agenda. Barnet has not only ignored the spirit of localism, it has gone further and removed what few processes there were here that provided any real interaction with the democratic process in the past. There is too much at stake for certain parties in relation to the outsourcing free for all to risk any real scrutiny.

Very popular, this post, already - and look, the Audit Commission have called in: morning gents!

Mrs Angry said...

and several outsourcing companies too: worried about something? Want to talk to a sympathetic listener in confidence? Steer clear of Mrs Angry then ...

Don't Call Me Dave said...

DCMD salutes your courage, your strength, your indefatigability! However, he knows from his years of trying to deal with Conservative Central Office in his former life as Chipping Barnet Conservative Association Chairman, that nothing is going to change, however many letters you write to Eric Pickles.

Whilst Uncle Eric can talk the talk, he can't walk the walk. There is no appetite within the party to truly reform local government. It is much easier (and cheaper) just to talk about reform, rather than legislate to make it happen.

Mrs Angry said...

Spasiba,tovarich: greetings to reformed member of the blogging community of Broken Barnet, Don't Call me Dave. DCMD has been re-eductated and rehabilitated and is now @cannylinguist, available on twitter (and no doubt delighting the ladies of New Barnet).

Come back DCMD: all is forgiven.

Mrs Angry said...

PS, I don't doubt you are right re Pickles, but we have had so much fun out of his kicking Barnet up the jaxi, and continue to relish the sense of discomfort it extends to our snivelling Tory councillors.

baarnett said...

News comes of the Friern Barnet Summer Show 2011 ("Banners will be confiscated and sent to a better place"), HERE.

It shows, as you say, the Mayor of Barnet up the jaxi, and Brian Coleman about to be in the taxi.

Mrs Angry said...

something missing from the photo, I think, baarnett: was MetPro/Evolution Emergency Response not available for escort duty this year?