Barnet and 2e2: when outsourcing goes wrong - a joint post

2e2: creating business advantage. For Crapita.

Here is a joint statement by the Barnet bloggers in regard to the news that Barnet Councils' IT suppliers have gone into administration, and that our new friends at Capita have kindly stepped in to take over the contract.

2e2  - When Outsourcing Goes Wrong

Barnet Council have been having trouble with their IT infrastructure for some time. Back in 2011 an internal report identified that the Council was having difficulties with their IT Infrastructure Supplier, 2e2, stating that:

“2e2 contract was put in place to transfer the operational management and risk of core infrastructure to a private provider. 2e2 no longer feel responsible for this and have passed all risks back to the council, on the basis that all equipment has reached EOL (End Of Life)”.

The report identified that a key risk was that,  “2e2 will pass all risk back onto the council and not deliver to their contractual arrangements” and that to mitigate that risk the council should, “Improve the relationship with 2e2 and look into terminating the 2e2 contract early and bringing services and staff, under TUPE, in‐house, if necessary”.

 

Unfortunately, Barnet ignored its own advice and continued to engage 2e2 at a cost of over £1 million a year, including an annual up-front payment of £400,000. In January 2013 2e2 went into administration and withdrew its services. This leaves Barnet £220,000 out of pocket for the unused up-front fees and scrabbling around to find someone else to run the IT infrastructure, without which the council would struggle to function.

To get themselves out of a hole quickly, Barnet Council have appointed Capita, without any form of tender, on the basis that it was an emergency and they had already had discussions with Capita to take over the running of this service. This new contract will cost £72,595 per month.

The Council states that they did undertake a risk analysis of 2e2 in January “using Experian reports” and that “the report stated the company was satisfactory”. However a quick check on the internet would have shown that suppliers have not been able to get credit insurance on goods supplied to 2e2 for some time and that 2e2 were handed a number of County Court Judgements in 2012.

If Barnet had simply followed its own risk register advice back in 2011 and brought the service back in house, we would not be in this position. It also shows the massive risk that comes with outsourcing key services and that even large companies can go bust.

Barnet need to stop taking risks with our services and abandon One Barnet now.

Signed
Derek Dishman
John Dix
Vicki Morris
Theresa Musgrove
Roger Tichborne

One Barnet, the One billion pound gamble: it doesn't matter, says Tory leader

Poor Richard Cornelius. 

By day he is a jeweller in Hatton Garden, flogging engagement rings to naive young couples, no doubt the perfect adviser, whispering discreetly to the nervous groom inwardly panicking at the cost of his betrothal, and beguiling the blushing bride to be with a scintillating array of diamonds.

In his other role as Barnet Tory leader, and One Barnet salesman, Cornelius attempts the same obsequious role in persuading the 350,000 residents of Broken Barnet that his £1 billion pound give away to Capita, and possibly one other company, of the profits from our council services is financially prudent, the best choice, the only choice, and not the biggest act of political fraud ever perpetrated on the voters of any local authority.
 
Here he was this morning, on the Politics Show, pink cheeked, a winsome smile at the ready, and keen to explain to the nation why One Barnet is a marvellous idea, offering with his usual unctuous banalities, the assurance that all will be well, that the incessant enfilade of criticisms directed at the concept, organisation and proposed delivery of this mass privatisation amounts to no more than a minor irritation, a few whinging spoilsports determined to wreck a perfectly reasonable strategy.

Tim Donovan's first question wiped the smile off the dear Leader's face, mind you, with a tactless reference to his chum Brian Coleman, and his blasting of the whole One Barnet outsourcing scam, as seen in the film preceding his interview.

Mrs Angry has been aware for some time, of course, that Brian Coleman is, yes - carrying something of a torch for her ... hence the covert glances across a crowded committee table, the jealous blog posts claiming she is in love with David Beckham, and oh dear, Simon Cowell ... the attempts to cover up his real feelings for her by references to old hags, when the girl he loves is up in the gallery, and his shouting at her in desperation in the Town Hall corridor, tormented by the frustrations of unrequited love ... 

Since he has been suspended by the Tory party, Brian has been liberated from all restraint, and is free to express his real opinions, more and more confident in supporting Mrs Angry's views in public. His recent conversion to the campaign against One Barnet is the prime example, and in the Politics Show he repeated her warning that the Tory council's replacement of a 'monolithic' local authority with the even greater monolithic stranglehold of a private company like Capita is clearly idiotic, and dangerous.

When Mrs Angry used the phrase 'monolithic', she was alluding to the original cockeyed 'vision' of Mike Freer's easycouncil 'concept', which was the genesis of One Barnet, (although politically Freer is now trying to distance himself from the awkward problem of the bastard child he left on our doorstep). Freer had admired easyjet's business model, measured against the 'monolithic' traditional model of airlines, claiming the same approach in local government offered more choice and - ha - more transparency to the resident - but clearly he had not thought his brilliant idea through to its logical conclusion.

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'.

Ah, yes: the faceless bureaucracy of democratic local government, one of those touchstones of  the retro-Tory, Daily Mail blinkered obsession which passes for policy here in Broken Barnet. 

Thank God, we will soon be paying instead for the faceless bureaucracy of unaccountable private enterprise.More choice? More transparency? Meh. Maybe not, eh, Mike?

Think of the greater fun to be had, citizens, of subsidising the close attentions of Capita, Agilisys and iMPOWER. Well - in fact, this has already begun.

As Mr Reasonable revealed yesterday here , last month, while we listened to our Tory masters lecture us on the need for austerity, we paid the obscene amount of more than £780,000 to Agilisys/iMPOWER for unknown 'services' as the One Barnet implementation partners, and a staggering £318,000 to Trowers & Hamlin for their work on the project. More than a million pounds in one month to One Barnet consultants: this represents £47,800 of your council tax to these companies, for each working day in October.

Richard Cornelius thinks that no one will notice when 70% of council services are outsourced.

* Here is a list of services transferring from council control, a list which exposes the blatant misinformation now being presented by our panicking Barnet Tories: 

1.Residential/ Supporting Living/ Day care services for adults with disabilities 
2. Council Housing Services 
3. Parking Service 
4. Legal Services Department 
5. Audit Service – the majority of the service is provided by the consultancy Pricewaterhouse & Cooper 
6. Information Technology 
7. Human Resources & Payroll 
8. Pensions 
9. Health & Safety 
10. Financial Services 
11. Customer Services (Call Centre) which includes Social Care Direct Team based in Adult Social Care. 
12. Estates, 
13. Property Services 
14. ·Revenues & Benefits 
15. Corporate Programmes (Project management)  
16. Procurement 
17. Electoral Registration 
18. Trading Standards & Licensing, 
19. Land Charges, 
20. Planning & Development, 
21. Building Control &Structures, 
22. Environmental Health, 
23. Highways Strategy 
24. Highways Network Management, 
25. Highways Traffic & Development, 
26. Highways Transport & Regeneration, 
27. Strategic Planning & Regeneration, 
28. Hendon Cemetery & Crematoria. 
29. Priority Intervention Team 
30. Music Service 
31. Public Health Service

Small things that no one will notice, of course.


He thinks no one will care when every call to Barnet Council by residents is answered in Blackburn, Lancashire. 

He thinks that planning, one of the hugely important services included as the major feature of the next massive One Barnet giveaway, 'may' be privatised. 

Has he told Capita that this inclusion is not certain, now, in Richard's view, anyway? 

And yes, now Capita has the £750 million bid in the bag, it is clearly going to get the DRS bundle too. £1 billion handed on a plate to one monolithic company, by our Tory council and their senior management team, without permission from a single resident.

In the Politics Show film, the observation was made that what is happening in Barnet is a national story because it has such significance for all other local authorities - and other public sector bodies, including the NHS - throughout the UK. 

One Barnet is, as the programme stated, the ultimate test case.

This is undoubtedly true, as we shall now see. 

In the meanwhile, here is the Politics Show footage: