Giving it (not very) Large: Barnet's new interim, part-time, temporary Monitoring Officer steps into the breach. Sort of.

Our new, part-time, interim, temporary Monitoring Officer, Peter Large, on loan from Westminster City Council (hours to be negotiated), clearly looking forward to his association with Broken Barnet. Pic courtesy of Nutsville.com.

So ... as our former Monitoring Officer would begin all her remarks ... So: where were we?

Ah yes: our former Monitoring Officer, see? Gone, but not forgotten. Gone where, Mrs Angry, I hear you ask? Not sure, but it is 'by mutual consent'. 

All the best things happen by mutual consent, don't they? In the bedroom, in the boardroom, in the free world, where life continues without the bondage of contractual obligation, or the frisson of fear that comes from that imbalance of power between partners, personal, or corporate.

Between the boundaries of Broken Barnet, however, the ties that bind are usually stretched tight as tight can be, and consent is neither sought, nor granted. When push comes to shove: off you go. 

Bye bye.

Who knows what happened in the case of Ms Maryellen Salter, sometime Monitoring Officer, now replaced by an 'interim' MO, although not replaced, we are told, until Thursday, 9th October, after the most almighty reaction to the events that led to that damning report, by Claer Lloyd-Jones, into the collapse of governance and legal services in this benighted borough. 

Of course we like 'interim' consultants, here in Barnet. 

We like them a lot, and we recruit them as often as possible, for our senior management posts, via the discreet offices of a third party - an agency, so as to confound the investigative zeal of the local blogosphere. 

These interims and consultants blow into town, wafted on a cloud of mystery, landing at NLBP, staying as long as possible, on terms and conditions beyond the scope of public scrutiny, before moving on to pastures new - very often, it seems, to Haringey, to work for former Barnet CEO, Mr Nick Walkley, the real architect of One Barnet, the massive programme that outsourced most of our council services . 

Walkley is of course also the man who oversaw the restructuring of the governance and legal services department here, with a post of Monitoring Officer newly defined, for some reason, with no requirement for any legal qualifications - which is how we ended up with an auditor instead of an experienced lawyer, with predictable and disastrous consequences.

Mrs Angry can guess what you are wondering: will Ms Salter end up in Haringey too ... or is it true she has just accepted a post as the events manager for a local micro-brewery? 

Who knows?

We do know, however that our new Monitoring Officer, or rather the 'interim' MO, comes with an interesting CV: from Westminster Council, tripping with ease from one former Tory 'flagship' authority to another: both fine examples of Tory councils, of course, with many similarities. 

A keen interest in social engineering, for example, from accusations of 'gerrymandering' in Westminster in the eighties, to the social cleansing housing 'regeneration' of Broken Barnet in 2014 -  and an enthusiasm from both Conservative run authorities for milking endless streams of revenue from hapless residents exhibiting the gross impertinence of trying to park their cars on the streets where they live, work, and shop.

Mrs Angry gets an awful lot of blog visits from Westminster City Council these days.

Welcome, new friends. 

Hope you enjoy the new entente cordiale, between your authority and ours. 

The entente between your authority and the Barnet blogosphere, we must warn you, will be strictly limited, on an interim basis, and may be less than cordiale, at times. 

But here is a curious thing. About our new Monitoring Officer.

Our new Monitoring Officer is not our Monitoring Officer, exactly, - and he is not leaving Westminster City Council. 

We are sharing the attentions of Mr Large with his current employers. Despite the claim made in a statement last week that the new MO had been seconded to Barnet, which rather implies that he is working exclusively for us.

Yes: despite all the criticisms levelled at Barnet by Claer Lloyd-Jones' report in regard to our shared legal services, we have now engaged a part time Monitoring Officer - and on a temporary basis only. 

We find ourselves, in short, in the position of, say, an MP's wife who wakes up to find her husband in the papers for further extra-marital misbehaviour, having been told, following an unfortunate incident involving paisley pyjamas, that it will never happen again, darling.

I feel so betrayed, don't you, readers? And as always, yes, as always, the last to know.

Mrs Angry understands that, rather astonishingly, the appointment of Mr Large to his role in Barnet was not divulged to Labour group members in Westminster, until the day after the deal was agreed, and that the news only emerged through other sources, which, if true, would be a pretty extraordinary state of affairs, would it not?

It seems Westminster's MO has been helping Barnet, 'assisting' us, for a period of two weeks before an 'urgent' situation arose, ie on the 9th October, which suddenly required the immediate appointment of Mr Large to a formal, if rather limited, role in Barnet. 

Oh. Why was it sudden? Did they not foresee the outcome of a report that delivered such a damning indictment of our legal services and governance? Or did they really not predict the level of censure and criticism that the report has provoked? Clearly, by sitting on the report and sneaking it into tomorrow night's committee, they had hoped to keep it quiet for as long as possible, but still ...

And then: it seems Westminster opposition members have been reassured that their Monitoring Officer's Saturday job in Barnet will not 'impact' his duties at Westminster City Council. 

Really?  

So ... either Mr Large is:

a. not exactly rushed off his feet at WCC, or:

b. has no intention of working up a sweat on our behalf, here in Broken Barnet.

What on earth is going on? 

Does anyone actually know? 

Questions that must be asked:

• When, exactly, did Maryellen Salter leave her role as Monitoring Officer?

• How long has  she been absent?

• In her absence, who was the nominated deputy, as required by the law? Or were we just bumbling along, taking informal advice and 'assistance' from Mr Large? What was HBPublic Law's role during this period?

• Is the truth that Barnet, criticised by Ms Lloyd-Jones for being in a position now where it does not know what it does not know, has been operating without anyone formerly confirmed in what is a statutory role?

• Does such a possibility not raise the risk that further legal and governance decisions have been wrongly actioned?

• How can a failure in competence on the scale identified by Ms Lloyd-Jones' investigation be addressed by an authority relying on a part time Monitoring Officer?

• Why was the appointment of Mr Large only made at the end of last week, a week of intense media speculation, but apparently little political reaction from the Tory leader and his group?

• If members of Westminster City Council was not aware of the arrangement, why not, and why were such negotiations kept secret? 

• Was Richard Cornelius aware of the appointment and involved in the decision, or was he - yet again - presented by a fait accompli by his senior management team?

• How much longer can the Chief Executive remain in post?.

• Ditto the Barnet Tory 'leader'?

• Who wants to start a sweepstake?

As Mr Reasonable explains here: 

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-critical-week-in-barnet.html

... there are tonight two council meetings during the course of which a restructuring of senior management will be discussed, supposedly to make savings, but actually creating more pointless and costly senior posts, with the usual self aggrandising job titles. 

As Mr R suggests, there is a better case, now, for deleting the post of Chief Executive, and merging his functions with that of the Chief Operating Officer (sorry, Mr Naylor: without any unwarranted increase in salary). Will this happen? Probably not. But that is not to say that the current CEO is safe in his post.

Tomorrow night sees the Policy and Resources Committee to which Claer Lloyd-Jones' devastating report will be submitted. 

So, yes: another interesting week ahead, in Broken Barnet ...

Mrs Angry's job application

A new job opportunity in Broken Barnet

Mrs Angry has some very exciting news.

As readers will know, over the last three years or so she has been very busy running Barnet Council on a long term interim consultancy basis, at a daily rate of £1,000, just like the former deputy CEO, now long term interim temporary CEO (are you keeping up?) Mr Andrew 'Black Hole' Travers. 

Unfortunately, thanks to the troublemaking of certain so called investigative, award winning journalists, and the resultant and frankly uncalled for hoohah over the tax dodging arrangements of senior civil servants, and public sector executives, Mrs Angry's payments, via the Broken Barnet Consultancy PLC, and an offshore account in the British Virgin Islands, have abruptly  ended, and it has been necessary to advertise her post on a full time basis, and a rather more modest level of pay. 

See here, if you are interested, https://jobs.barnet.gov.uk/job/Chief_Executive/102046 although this post will be ringfenced to Mrs Angry, Mr Reasonable, and Mr Mustard.

As Mr Mustard is too busy these days collecting parking tickets, and Mr Reasonable spends a lot of his time lying down in a dark room crying and shouting out random obscenities about One Barnet, this will clearly be a shoe-in for Mrs Angry. 

Let's see: the details, then ... full time post - ah, already we have a problem. 

Might need to negotiate some flexibility around this, as Mrs Angry is also a consultant on long term interim secondment to iMPOWER, in charge of a project aimed at capitalisation of title assets, a work still in pROGRESS .... oh,  and she is of course, a full time non executive contracts advisor to CRAPita. 

There is absolutely  no conflict of interest, of course, in holding all these positions, as confirmed by Mrs Angry herself,  in her other capacity as senior partner with responsibility for armchair audit with Grant Thornton.

So, full time - pah. 

And salary ...  £177,613 to £187,613. Well, which is it? Make your mind up. that ten grand difference - is that, ha ha - performance related? Anyway, quite correctly, substantially more than the Prime Minister, who only takes home £142,500, poor old love. 

Job information: oh dear - be warned, if you are easily offended by corporate illiteracy ...

"London Borough of Barnet is implementing on its dynamic vision to become an exemplar authority through the development of radically different approaches to serving the needs of its community which are based on the principles of citizen empowerment, a genuinely local focus and long-term economic sustainability."

... is implementing on its dynamic vision? Really?

... an exemplar authority? Do you mean exemplary: or is exemplar an executive type of templar? Sorry: we have enough masons and rotarians on Barnet Council, as it is: and knights templars are so last millenium, anyway.

... dum di dum, radically different approaches to serving the needs of its community ... based on - oh yes - the principles of citizen empowerment.

Do they really believe this shite? 

No, Mrs Angry, they do not.  

Principles of citizen empowerment? 

How does this council, squirming under the boot of Barnet Toryism, in any way, shape or form abide by the principles of citizen empowerment? 

By savaging its own constitution to censor its own citizens, and forbidding them from raising issues with their elected representatives, and failing to consult residents over the adoption of a £1 billion programme of mass privatisation?

And what qualities does this job require?

"this role requires energy, grit, determination and the capacity to inspire, motivate and drive forward the transformation agenda. Commercial acumen is also essential, in order to deliver the substantial efficiency savings required by the fundamental changes in public service funding prompted by the economic downturn ..." 

Oh. Commercial acumen? Since when has that been a requirement of any senior officer's post in Broken Barnet? 

Energy, grit and determination. Hmm. 

they was nice boys, really, and good to their old mum ...but then, sadly, there was a tragic avalanche

Well, we have plenty of grit, in this borough, stashes of it up at Mill Hill Depot. We know that because everyday on twitter the council advises us it has sent gritting lorries out, sometimes in tropical heatwaves. Distributing grit, in fact, is one of the functions of the council that our Tory councillors really love, because it is visible, deals with a tactile commodity, can be quantified, measured, and distributed in the form of largesse to the undeserving residents. It is not one of those amorphous, abstract things like culture, or heritage, that are so hard to understand, and have no material value.

You will note, of course, that the job advert does not dare to refer to - you know, that thing. The bad thing. The toxic brand. The love that dare not speak its name, and so has become a non thing, a dead thing, a former policy. Shh. One Barnet. 

This name is now taboo. You must call it 'the change programme', or 'the transformation agenda' - just in case it frightens any voters, and reminds people that their Tory councillors are trying to sell their public services into fifteen year bondage with Crapita.

The job application, interestingly, is being arranged through the good services of Penna, who have been awfully helpful in the supply of senior officers to the London Borough of Broken Barnet. 

But look: there is more - a link to an encouraging message for applicants from Barnet Tory leader Richard Cornelius: http://www.barnetchiefexecutive.co.uk/... The message, says Richard, is simple: 'if it works for our residents, it works for us'. 

Yes, Mrs Angry is laughing out loud.  

What does that mean? 'If it works for our residents, it works for us?'

Mrs Angry thinks it means:   

We wanted to close things down, like Friern Barnet library, but our residents made friends with some squatters and occupied the library and said f+ck off out of it, this is ours, not yours, and we intend to run it ourselves, and we had to give in because they kept writing about it in the Guardian, and upsetting Eric Pickles, and so we surrendered to the will of the proletariat, but maintained our aspiration to an image of benevolent dictatorship by pretending it was our idea all along, and that we were only trying to create a Big Society enterprise, and now we can claim we listen to our residents and have begun a dangerous flirtation with the principles, or at least the pretence, of democracy, here in Broken Barnet.

We do not rest on our laurels, says Richard. 

Hold on: what laurels are these? Ah: you're sitting on them, so you are: stand up, man, let's see ... nope, thought so, nothing there. 

Mind your back, Caesar, by the way.

Laurels for Barnet leader Richard Cornelius

Hold on - here comes a reference to ... One Barnet. Oh. The One Barnet change programme. So yes,  it is officially now just a change programme, a transformation, not a mass privatisation of almost every major council service. 

Good idea, and of course the first action of the change programme is to change or transform the name of the change programme itself - or rather to remove it. 

Mrs Angry had advised Barnet Council on this very issue, as it happens, on behalf of iMPOWER, (our implementation partners with Agilisys, who together, as revealed yesterday here by Mr Reasonable ...

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-one-barnet-consultants-bill-hits-63.html  

... cost you, the Barnet tax payer, a cool £6,324,366.68 since the start of the One Barnet implementation contract. A contract that was supposed to cost 'only' £2 million.

Agilisys, you may recall, is the consultancy now favoured with the presence of Barnet's One Barnet lead officer, Mr Ed Gowan.

After a lot of consideration,  Mrs Angry had suggested to her colleagues at iMPOWER that the name should be changed to oNE BARNET, but this has been turned down by the Directors Group, and Richard of course felt bound to obey their decision. 

Hopefully the £3 million invoice for Mrs Angry's consultation fee for her work on the renaming project will still be honoured. And before you ask, Mr Reasonable, the invoice will be heavily redacted, should you want to check it out ...

Oh, yes - and by the way: on Monday, the change programme formerly known as One Barnet may discover that painting a turd does nothing to disguise the affrontery of its excremental odour.

Judge Underhill will at last hand down his judgement in the case of the Judicial Review at the High Court. Will Maria Nash and the stirling efforts of her legal team prove victorious, and save this borough from the private sector exploitation of our council services? Or will Crapita emerge triumphant, rubbing its hands with glee? 

Mrs Angry will report the decision as soon as it is known.

 

The Library that Lived: Victory for the people of Friern Barnet

The tale of Friern Barnet Library: what can you say that has not already been said? 

Perhaps today we'll let the pictures speak first. 

Arriving at the Library today: proof that direct action works - a stunning victory for and by the people of Friern Barnet, acheived by a partnership of local campaigners and the occupy movement.

Inside the library it was packed with residents, activists, occupiers, campaigners, camera crews, journalists - and one solitary representative from Barnet Council: Bill Murphy, another of our interim consultants, working as Assistant Director of Customer Services.

Where was Councillor Robert Rams, who has responsibilty for libraries? Or Leader Richard Cornelius?

TV news crew filming Barnet officer Bill Murphy as he was explaining that the council had found a new source of money from One Barnet 'savings' and could now manage without selling the library. (Mrs Angry making impertinent faces behind his back, and observing loudly that this was 'RUBBISH' ... )

 

 Residents made a ritual tour of the village green and cherry tree outside the library

Rabbi Jeffrey Newman,  trustee of the new community library

                                                         and we did, didn't we?

 

Occupier Phoenix addresses the crowd 

In his address to the gathering, Phoenix spoke passionately about the wider issue of the threat to libraries, and the need to preserve our public library service. He has always urged everyone to continue to fight for the retention of professional library support from Barnet, and this is a crucial point for many of us who celebrate the saving of the library building, but furiously condemn the actions of Barnet Council in their assault on our library service, and the removal of professional posts from the library structure. 

At the moment, after a humiliating and protracted restructuring process, Barnet librarians are facing the loss of their jobs in what amounts to the most savage cull of professional staff, and a degradation of the standard of service provision. This policy is an act of cultural obscenity, and it is a mark of the sheer philistinism of the Tory administration in Barnet that for a negligible amount of money they are prepared to sanction an act that will destroy what has been,  until now, one of the best value and highest standards of library service in the country. 

As Maureen Ivens, campaigner and Chair of the local library campaign group observed later, in a world beset by recession, only in Britain are we destroying our public library system: all part of an assault on the principle of easy and fair access to education.

Phoenix also reminded everyone of the fact that squatting is a survival mechanism for the poor and dispossessed members of our society: criminalising such action has had a brutal impact on those who otherwise have no access to housing. 

In his own speech, Rabbi Jeffrey Newman, one of the new trustees of the library, also commented on the neat irony that this successful occupation by community squatters should have taken place in the borough which is part of the constituency of MP Mike Freer, the instigator of the new anti squatting legislation. 

He looked forward to the time when these new laws were overturned. He mentioned this, he said, not to be party political, but to broadcast on behalf of humanity. Earlier, in fact, he had commented that a result of the experience of the library campaign was a recognition of our humanity, that we can learn from one another. 

Looking on at the diverse collection of new friends which this story has brought together, one can only conclude that he is absolutely right.

Friern Barnet Library: closed by the Tory council in 2012, reopened by a Labour councillor, Pauline Coakley Webb, in 2013

Barrister Sarah Sackman, who acted for residents and occupiers in the court case, spoke about the campaign: what has happened here, she said, is extraordinary - it demonstrates the value ordinary citizens place on shared and public spaces, and a willingness to fight for them. Together, we saved this library: it was a perfect illustration of what grassroots politics can achieve.

A resident and local mother who has two children who are regular users of the library read a really touching poem she had written, 'The Book Thief' ... when you steal a book, she said, you steal it again and again from every child, from his children, and his children's children.

Mrs Angry looked around the room at the ten thousand books placed on the library shelves by residents, in lieu of those stolen by our Tory councillors. It is a magnificent sight.

                      Maryla Persak-Enefer and a special cake by Emily

                    
                Reema Patel blows out the candles on the bookworm cake

  
Residents and campaigners Keith Martin and Fiona Brickwood


Will Self came to the occupied library late last year to give a reading from his book 'Umbrella', which is set in the former Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, just across the road from the library. 

He explained that he had been shown round the building, now converted into luxury housing, by a woman from the site developers. As she took him around the former asylum, she had expressed the hope that he was not one of those people who believe in pyschic phenonema, and the presence of spirits ... 

In fact, he told us, he thinks everything has a pyschic presence, even crumbs ... Mrs Angry thought to herself that he was right, and the idea of the asylum being cleansed of all its history, and emptied of the full significance of its history, might well be one which the developers might want to believe in, but is unlikely to be the truth.

And surely, as Mrs Angry has observed before, there would appear at times to be some indefinable, pyschogeographical explanation for the curious events which occur in parts of our borough. And the retaking of Friern Barnet Library has been one of those events. 

It is curious to reflect upon the thought that the library was closed on the 5th of April, occupied five months later on the 5th of September, and officially reclaimed for the people of Friern Barnet, after another five month interval, on the 5th of February. And the new licence for the library was agreed on the palindromically notable date of 31/1/13.
  
In an attempt to deny the power of place and time, of course, here in Broken Barnet our Tory councillors have tried to expunge the mark of history from our borough. 

They closed our Church Farmhouse museum, and sold the contents in a village hall auction in the midlands, far away. They would love to have been able to shut Barnet Museum too, but can't find proof of ownership. 

The museum, with its collection and model displays of the Battle of Barnet survives, fiercely defended by its supporters. Elsewhere in the borough, the battle continues.

They shut Friern Barnet library, our Tory councillors - no, not shut it, stole it, like the book thief taking the book from countless generations of children -stole a library built with money from the Carnegie Foundation in an age where philanthropy was a duty, and a privilege, torn away and lined up for development as a mini supermarket or block of flats.

 They tried, but they were stopped in their tracks by the sheer force of will of local residents, campaigners and occupiers, who took back into their possession something which was theirs all along. 

Our libraries, our public places, our public services, these things belong to us already: our elected representatives have no right to take them away, or give them to others to make profit from, at our expense.

Today's ceremonial reclamation was a triumph for the people of Friern Barnet, but not just for the people of Friern Barnet. 

As campaigner Maureen Ivens suggested, this story bears a message for the world beyond: libraries provide a way of bringing people together, and empowering them. People must be encouraged to fight for their public services: scrutinise the actions of your local councillors and hold them to account.
 
And as another speaker commented wrily today, local MP Margaret Thatcher famously remarked that there was no such thing as society: this campaign proves that that was a fallacious statement. 

Or, Mrs Angry thought to herself, perhaps the truth is this: the Tories would like to convince us that what has been created here in Friern Barnet is part of the Big Society. The Big Society, of course is one big lie, a cover for Coalition cuts. 

Here in Broken Barnet, temporarily at least, we lost a library. By default, and in the process of our resistence, we have discovered a community.

Stuck on one of the shelves at the back of the library, there is a small, hand written notice which reads: 

'Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone'.

The great strength, and the great joy, of the Barnet insurgency is this: we do not stand alone.

Friern Barnet People's Library, February 5th 2013.

This is what community looks like.