Chicago, Chicago: it's whose kind of town? A mystery unsolved, in Broken Barnet

Updated Friday: see below, after Old Blue Eyes ...

Ok. Hands up. Project Chicago: what's that all about? 

Is there any significance in the name? wondered Councillor Anthony Finn, Chair of the Performance and Contract (non) scrutiny committee of the London Borough of Crapitaville.

Think St Valentine's Day Massacre, suggested Mrs Angry, helpfully, her head full of images of Al Capone, and Bugsy Malone ... or possibly Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis ...

Nobody's perfect ...

Councillor Finn looked puzzled. It was the evening after St Valentine's Day, and perhaps his mind was distracted by thoughts of red roses, and soft music, and  ... romance. 

Unlikely, thought Mrs Angry, on further reflection.

My kind of town, Chicago is ...

Well, if you are curious, you could try googling 'Project Chicago". Mrs Angry did just that, but all she could find was this rather interesting website which is, apparently a branch of the 'PUA Seduction Community' - fascinating. PUA? Not Procurement Under Approval. Pick Up Artist. 

Not much about outsourcing, although of course that is another form of seduction, on a rather more ambitious scale. But full of helpful tips, such as 'After the Opener – How to Actually Converse with a Woman', which is something most Tory councillors, (and most men, to be fair) find quite a challenge, especially, it seems, if that woman is Mrs Angry.

So, as we must begin all sentences relating to any matter of corporate business in Broken Barnet now. 

So anyway: 

A few months ago, one of Mrs Angry's network of spies forwarded to her a strange rumour that was circulating the corridors of Capitaville's HQ in Broken Barnet. A mysterious subject, a forbidden secret, whose name was ... Project Chicago.

The rumours persisted, and still no one seemed to be able to explain what it was, or why it was so secret. Fellow blogger Roger Tichborne submitted an FOI request to see what might emerge.

Please provide details on Project Chicago and copies of minutes of the meetings at

which Barnet Council staff were first briefed on Project Chicago.

Simple enough question.

Back came a response:

I am writing to inform you that we have searched our records and some of the

information you requested is not held by London Borough of Barnet.

Project Chicago is an initiative led by Capita Group Plc to update its operating model

to focus on service led work streams that are organised nationally. These relate to

services being managed under a common management structure that looks to

provide strategic leadership and consistency of operational delivery to provide a

better service to clients.

The council does not hold minutes of meetings at which staff were first briefed on

project Chicago as no minutes were taken by the council. The briefings were

informal oral briefings provided by Re to a small number of senior council staff . The

council commissioners of the services were verbally briefed out of courtesy on these

proposals.

That's nice. Work streams. Like a sweetly babbling brook of commerce, and outsourcing.

Briefed out of courtesy, see? No other reason. The men from Crapita are awfully polite, and well mannered, and never eat their peas with a knife, and when they are plotting some major new system of centralised management of services, without informing the elected representatives of the authority with whom are they contractually bonded, for ten years, they always have the courtesy, at least, to tell the senior officers.

In secret. Unminuted. Unaccountable. No audit trail. No name, no kitbag. 

Of course here in Broken Barnet, the men from Crapita have outsourced their communication strategy, to a certain extent at least, to the local blogosphere, and rely on people like Mrs Angry, the Barnet Eye, Mr Reasonable & Mr Mustard, to act as mediators between them and the elected members, and keep them informed of new developments. 

For this service, sadly, no consultancy fee has been paid yet, other than the offer - written into the contract, and look below if you don't believe me - of a discounted (pre-used) grave in the new EasyCrem Crapitorium post life enhancement facility: Mrs Angry's children are grateful for this opportunity, and have already written the epitaph, you know, to go on her gravestone. No, I can't tell you what it says. 

Well, no doubt Crapita will be able to claim some sort of gainshare payment in reward for the corporate savings we so happily identify - if the council listens, and dumps the contracts that have in two and a half years cost us £168.3 million, in pursuit of erm ... savings over ten years of - £126 million.

With this role in mind, therefore, on Monday night Mrs Angry, despite feeling rather indisposed, dutifully dragged herself to the Performance and Contract Management committee, to which she had submitted three questions.

In truth, all three questions were decoys deployed to another purpose, that is to say, one that is central to the art of extracting information, in Broken Barnet: slipping the wrong sort of question under the radar, and retrieving the right sort of response, by catching out the dopey councillors & their crafty officers.

The avuncular Chair of this 'scrutiny' committee is Tory councillor Anthony Finn, who is blessed with the ability to remain in a state of perfect satisfaction with the standard of performance of our contractual partners, whatever the level of performance, or failure.

After asking a question about the mythical 'savings' promised by the Crapita contracts - and receiving an evasive reply, as expected, Mrs Angry was asked by Cllr Finn if she had a supplementary question to follow. 

Yes, said Mrs Angry, I do. And this is for you, Councillor Finn. Are you listening? He wasn't, but woke up, sat up and said he was, yes.

What, asked Mrs Angry, with an expression of studied innocence, is Project Chicago, and to what extent do you estimate will be the impact it will have in terms of an increase, or decrease, in the level of savings from the Capita contracts?

For once he was lost for words. And then before he could stop himself, he had muttered that ... he did not know what it was.

Thank you, said Mrs Angry, scribbling on her notebook with her red pen, in big letters ,and underlining the observation: 'DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS ...'  

That was all I wanted to know, she said, closing her notebook, and smiling smugly.

John Hooton, the Chief Operating Officer, and Director of Finance, sitting at the table, whispered frantically in the ear of the Chair.

Oh, said Cllr Finn ... I understand ... who? Bill Murphy ...  is in the public gallery, he said, and can answer your question.

No need, said Mrs Angry. I've got the response I wanted. I can go home now.

But she was obliged, out of politeness, to remain in her seat, and listen to the explanation of Mr  Bill Murphy.

Who is he, you may wonder? Well, according to his Linkedin profile, he is currently "Service Director Capita Property & Infrastructure" ...  for the London  Borough of Broken Barnet.

We say currently, because of course Mr Murphy has graced the corridors of Barnet Council in a variety of roles, in house, outsourced, interim and otherwise. He is also, at the same time - go on, you'll never guess ... a consultant with something called "Murphy's Solutions". 

Presumably this is run on the principle of attending to the consequences of Murphy's Law, ie anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, or at least it is likely to do so here in Broken Barnet. It must go wrong, in Broken Barnet, in fact, so that it can be fixed, see: by private consultants. 

Here he was now, sitting at the right of Mrs Angry at the committee table, smiling the sort of smile a man in a Capita suit generally wears, when called to sit at the right of Mrs Angry at the committee table: as if approaching a barking dog - vaguely amused, and yet slightly worried that she might bite.

As councillors of both parties fixed their beady eyes on Mr Murphy, he adopted the tone of a consultant anaesthetist, rather than a consultant outsourcerer, and spoke very soothingly, in reassurance of the dreadful operation ahead, which was not a dreadful operation at all, but a small procedure:  a cosmetic enhancement. 

Open wide.

Is it safe? 

Project Chicago? Nothing to worry your little councillor heads about. Largely an internal issue ... 

Go back to sleep for another hundred years, Anthony Finn. You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy.

We heard that Project Chicago, which wasn't really anything of interest to Barnet, was about helping Capita to 'better deploy resources to support contracts'. Hmm. And creating 'centres of excellence', which of course will be a welcome departure for Crapita.

Mrs Angry pointed out, unasked, that this was in fact an important subject, with direct relevance to Barnet, if only by implication, and why had they not told the councillors? 

Ah. 

Awkward. 

So we now know, what we know: that Project Chicago exists, and has been for some time the subject of 'briefings' between Capita-Barnet's 'Re" joint venture, and some senior officers, but not, apparently, with the knowledge of members.

We also know what we do not know: who, exactly, took part in these briefings, and when, and what was discussed and how that is compatible with a view that this is 'largely' a matter of internal significance only to Capita.

Was the Tory leader aware of the discussions?

If so, why were other members not informed?

If he was not, why not? 

Why were the meetings not minuted?

Why have members not been allowed to debate the potential impact of contract management that may be centralised out of the direct control of Barnet? 

Would such a move not represent a major change in the contract anyway, and necessitate a new agreement? 

As we are already handing over bucket loads of cash to Capita, will the proposed changes increase our level of payments?

It is possible, although unlikely, that Project Chicago will not have any impact on service delivery in Barnet: but the real point here is the secrecy with which this issue is being discussed.

The history of Broken Barnet has many secrets, we know: some of them have been accidentally revealed, such as the way in which much of the original outsourcing process was discussed and designed by senior officers, in unminuted meetings, or in meetings whose minutes the council would not release, until obliged to by the ICO. (Warning for readers from Capita: contains more barking and non barking dogs ...)

Worse still, as well as discussions and proposals, some decisions were made by senior officers, as you may recall when the onetime 'Director of Place', Pam Wharfe, grandly announced to staff in a newsletter, while the Tory leader was at his holiday home in France, that 'we have decided to form a joint venture organisation with the successful bidder' ... 'We' turned out to be not the elected 'we' allegedly headed by the Tory leader and his elected administration, but the cabal of senior officers who really run everything in this borough. 

Oh, and let us not forget the very interesting case of the recent depot purchase, for £13.5 million, which officers knew had changed hands for only £750,000 to a company owned by the council's landlords, the Comer Brothers -  a transaction they had apparently forgotten to tell the councillors about ...

There has just been another example of decisions apparently taken by senior officers, rather than elected members: this is the recent decision, actioned by delegated powers by the CEO, Andrew Travers, to move the management of Barnet's Street Scene services to the Barnet Group, the council's own Local Trading Company. 

As you will see from the extract below, courtesy of Tory blogger Barnet Bugle, there are three high risks acknowledged in the DPR - including, most tellingly, that of 'political sensitivity'. 

The Barnet Bugle, aka former councillor Dan Hope, as you will note from his comments on twitter, views this step as most questionable. Why, he asks, quite rightly, was the sudden decision taken by officers, rather than referred to the council's 'Urgency' committee?

The truth is that as in all things, where there is a vacuum of scrutiny, the democratic process inevitably shrinks to the size of something disposable, and irrelevant. The sidelining of the administration's Tory councillors affects their sense of amour propre, but the wider implications of their disengagement seems to pass them by.

A test then, for the Labour opposition now, under the new leadership of Barry Rawlings: if the Tories won't challenge their senior officers, and reclaim control of the process of democracy in this borough, will you step up, and hold them to account?

                             

Updated, Friday 19th January

Well, well. Project Chicago: after debate with his fellow bloggers, the Barnet Eye submitted more questions, which have produced some very interesting responses ... 

Please provide the following

1) Details of dates of all briefings for councillors on Project Chicago

2) Details of invitees for all briefings for councillors on Project Chicago

3) Copies of all briefing packs for councillors on Project Chicago

4) Details of any impacts on Barnet Council identified as part of project Chicago

We have processed this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

I am writing to inform you that we have searched our records and the information you requested is not held by London Borough of Barnet.


As this is a Capita initiative there is no requirement to consult with councillors or brief them. The project interfaces with Re as it is in the Capita family. 

'The project interfaces with Re ... ' Mrs Angry has been in this game too long, clearly, because now she thinks she can identify exactly which grammatical hoodlum is responsible for mangling the English language here - and she doesn't mean the FOI officers.

'... as it is in the Capita family' ... I likes the sound of that, though, don't you, readers? 
Heartwarming, and makes one realise that this outsourcing business is not really about screwing profit from the delivery of public services, but an act of love - like one big corporate hug.

Looking beyond the corporate claptrap, however, we see the fatal flaw in this response. 

If the changes that will result in the centralised management of services are of no relevance to our elected representatives, who are currently reviewing, in theory at least, the three year state of the contractual agreements with Crapita, why then are Crapita secretly discussing Project Chicago with the senior officers with responsibility for commissioning?

A Ghostlier Heritage, or: the Forgotten History of West Hendon

There is so much that could be written about the history of West Hendon, that has gone virtually unrecorded, or at least - unacknowledged, and that may now be passing out of memory, destined to become at best a footnote in a forgotten book, a faded photograph, or a few lines in a yellowing piece of newspaper. 

Does it matter, you may wonder? The world moves on, and we should move on with it, looking to the future, not the past. 

But it is always true to say that the future depends upon that past, and unless we remember what has gone before, what happens next may be the creation of something other than we deserve, or want: it may even sow the very seeds of our own destruction.

Here in Broken Barnet, integral to an understanding of the present story of the 'regeneration' of the West Hendon housing estate is a proper knowledge of the history of that site: of the very earth which is being churned up, and gouged out, in the pursuit of profit for the developers who now own it, in a literal, if not metaphorical sense. 

And the story of West Hendon is the story of London, as it was, and as it will be soon: a capital city of the future, from which ordinary Londoners will be excluded, and forgotten.

A memorial service in West Hendon, February 1941

History safely locked away in the basement stacks of local archives, unread: that is the preference of property developers, and their friends in the Town Hall. Less risk then, of intervention in the process of approval for their plans: proposals drawn on a special sort of map, which measures distance but not the value, in human terms, of the spaces in between, or the layers of time that lie beneath the ground they want to lay waste, and build upon.

And when inconvenient history threatens to impede the progress of development, as in the case of West Hendon, it is simply set aside, and not acknowledged. It does not exist. 

When residents objected to the plans imposed upon them here, to demolish their homes, evict them, and build a private, luxury development in their place, they were ignored. They had no part in the decision making process that had set the plans in motion: or rather they were tricked into believing they had been, when promised new homes in the new development.

One focus of much of the impotent fury felt by residents in West Hendon became a point of huge significance in the fight they are still pursuing against the iron fisted destruction of their community. And that point of focus was the issue of encroachment upon an open area of the estate known as York Memorial Park. 

The fury they felt, and their sense of failure from an inability to protect this piece of land, was both directly related to the issue itself, and the wider impotence and vulnerability of the people in the face of decisions made without their consent. It is a symbolic point of entrenchment: a last defiance. Here we stand: leave us alone.

This area of green space, leading down to the water's edge, fringed by trees, was part of land left undeveloped after the war: land which the older residents knew was the site of something now almost forgotten, part of their own unacknowledged history: their own inconvenient history. 

This was the place where, in February 1941, the Luftwaffe had dropped a massive bomb, destroying outright three entire streets, killing and injuring many residents, as well as making around 1,500 others homeless. Of the dozens who lost their lives, some were never found, and the site of the bombing therefore became a place of commemoration, and left untouched.

The site of the bombing in West Hendon, taken the next day, 14th February 1941

In the early days of what was supposed to be a refurbishment and renewal of the housing estate that was built in the late sixties, to accommodate a new generation of the families of this part of West Hendon, the Tory council had made certain promises to residents: that they would all have new homes here, of course - and that York Memorial Park would not be built upon.

These promises were quietly buried by Barnet Tories, once they had made a deal, in secret, with Barratt London - to turn what had been a plan to renew the housing in the estate, for the benefit of local residents, to one of private development; subsidised by public funding, in the form of land given for free, on the pretext that this was necessary in order to make the deal economically viable. 

Residents were no longer all to be housed on the new development - in fact it became clear that almost certainly none would be so lucky - and then: York Memorial Park was to be built on, after all.

In fact York Memorial Park, as such, they said, did not exist. 

By the time it came to last year's Housing Inquiry into the Compulsory Purchase Orders of properties on the estate, the position of the council and Barratt London, as presented by Capita and their QC led legal team, was that there had never been a Memorial Park, and that anyway the properties in question were not in the area that had been bombed.

This claim was one step too far for me, listening to the case put by the development partners, at the hearing in the Town Hall: and one lunchtime visit to the borough's Archives next door quickly yielded evidence of the memorial services held there, days after the terrible event, and then for years afterwards. 

Equally, a cursory look at the maps provided to the Inquiry, and the use of a ruler, was enough to show that yes - some of the property in question was part of the bombed area, and part of the open green space added on to existing parkland after the terrible incident, and huge loss of life. 

After some consideration, I was 'allowed' to submit this as evidence , with a warning that such a course might make me personally liable for huge costs, for presenting material, at that stage, even if it was to correct misleading information put to the Inquiry. I wasn't held liable, luckily, but the QC cleverly asked me no questions when giving evidence: and then misrepresented what I had said in his summing up, when I was not allowed to contradict him, claiming there was no proof of continuing memorial services, of which there was, in the material deposited. 

I was also sent a typically churlish email, incidentally, from Barnet Council, keen to obscure wider knowledge of the events of 1941, and the implications of the associated evidence, objecting to the use of the only image then available of the bombing, seen below - in response to which I invited them to prove copyright, which they have not. 

History belongs to those who lived it, and those who inherit the legacy of their experience - not to those who try to deny it.

The story of the bombing of West Hendon, of course, was concealed in wartime, in line with restrictions on reporting the extent of loss, for fear of the effect on morale, and in order to confound the strategy of the enemy. And now in Broken Barnet, seventy five years later, this terrible incident still has the power to disrupt, and disturb the narrative of another story, whispered in secret, behind closed doors.

Why had planners not visited the Archives to check for themselves the status of the land, and its history? Or studied their own maps? We don't know.

What we do know is that the whole affair did nothing but bring further bad press to what was gathering momentum as a media story of no little interest. 

Eventually, someone, somewhere, had the sense to see the only direction for the developers to go, in order to redeem something from the self inflicted damage they had created. The weight of protest and opposition from residents, and the level of support and sympathy felt for them, forced valuable, if belated concessions in terms of, for example, the previously low valuation of leaseholders' properties: and some tenants were rehoused in rather better accommodation than had earlier been put before them.

And then came a gesture of conciliation over York Memorial Park. At last, a change of tone. 

The 75th anniversary of the wartime bombing would be on 13th February, this year. One or two residents had wanted to have a service of remembrance. This was now to be authorised, and Barratt's 'media consultants' HardHat liaised with residents' spokesperson Jasmin Parsons, offering at last to pay for a memorial and allocate some part of the green space to be set aside in commemoration of the events of 1941.

Too little, too late, you might think, but still: this was how we found ourselves, on Saturday morning, the 13th February 2016, standing in the rain, in a semi circle on the grassy mound between Marriotts Close and the margin of the Welsh Harp, perhaps a hundred or so, huddled in the shadow of the monstrous tower, the first of three monoliths that will soon be squatting there, in a place of such natural and rare beauty, punching the skyline triumphantly above the metal shuttered flats now emptied of their tenants. In the crowd, Barratt London's representatives looked on, discreetly, battling with their umbrellas.

As well as residents attending the ceremony, there were some invited local figures - no sign of Hendon's Tory MP Matthew Offord, but then he was probably too scared to enter the mythical 'no-go' area of West Hendon he described so eloquently on the BBC Sunday politics show recently - to the surprise of local police. 

In truth, for Matthew Offord, the West Hendon estate may well be a 'no-go' area now. 

He wasn't missed.

Local Assembly member Andrew Dismore and the three Labour councillors for West Hendon all came to pay their respects: Devra Kay, Adam Langleben, and Agnes Slocombe. 

Two of the film makers who have made a documentary for the BBC, due to be shown this month about the story of West Hendon, came too. Also present was the Guardian's Dave Hill, who writes here about the event.

The Deputy Lieutenant of Barnet, Martin Russell, was there, as was the Deputy Mayor, Alison Cornelius, wife of the Barnet Tory leader. Oh, and two other Tory councillors, not from the area, so rather surprising to see in attendance: John Hart from Mill Hill, and former Mayor Hugh Rayner, both of whom decided to be unnecessarily discourteous, when I arrived - for no apparent reason.

Perhaps they were compensating for the sense of shame that any Tory politician attending should have felt, in the circumstances - especially those present who were responsible for the betrayal, misrepresentations, and broken promises served to the current residents of the estate. Rayner at least had the grace to (sort of) apologise after the ceremony, coming up to offer his hand. What a curious lot they are.

The service began and ended in a downfall of persistent rain: it seemed appropriate to the occasion. Reading out an edited version of the chronicle of events of February 13th, 1941, it was hard not to look up at the sky and think of the sound of the 'The Thing', as it is described by the local newspaper report published at the end of the War, falling towards the streets below, bringing a terrible firestorm of destruction upon the people of West Hendon ...

"a fearful rushing, roaring noise, like the sound of an express train passing high up in the air". 

        

Fr Damien from St Mary's church led the prayers and blessing: 

And the Methodist minister for Hendon read from the Book of Psalms:

You turn us back to dust, and say 'Turn back, you mortals',

For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday, when it is past, or like a watch in the night,

You sweep them away: they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;

In the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed ...

Jasmin Parsons, without whom the the memorial service would not have taken place, and the anniversary left in the annals of the forgotten history of West Hendon, read a poem she had written especially for the occasion, paying tribute to the courage of those who had put their own lives at risk and worked to rescue their neighbours from the wreckage of the blast:

Safe homes now the takers of life

Coughing smoke, showered with soot, 

Brick dust and burning embers,

The locals did not flee:

They mustered strength, fuelled by courage, in desperation to find life

They dug with their own bare hands

From a description of the bombing by the Editor of the Hendon & Finchley Times, 1945

Most important of all those attending the service, of course, were family members of some of those who lost their lives in the bombing of 1941, which gave the ceremony a deeply personal, and dark perspective. 

Sally had come with her husband all the way from Norfolk to attend the ceremony, which clearly meant so much to her: as a child she had been brought to York Park, and told why it was a place of memorial. 

She spoke most touchingly of her family's dreadful loss in the bombing: how her father had had to tell his sister, who survived, of the death of her mother, husband and daughter: unimaginable grief for her. Sally commented that as a child, the stories her father told her about his family were about people she had never known, but as she had grown older, she had realised how important it is to remember people, places, and dates. How true, and no less because, as she commented, the people who lost their lives that night, as she observed, were 'just ordinary people, doing ordinary things'. 

Jacqui was a resident displaced by the current development: deeply affected by the service, she struggled to speak the names of her lost relatives, and broke down in tears. Later on, at the gathering in the community centre, she still could not bear to talk about the loss her family had sustained.

Brian was there to represent the Peacock family, members of whom have lived in Hendon for hundreds of years: his grandmother and uncle both lost their lives that night. His grandmother's body, in fact, was never recovered: the fate of at least seven other residents - and yet, he told the gathering, her ten year old son was found several hundreds of yards away, unmarked, delivered by the blast into a tree. At least there was somebody to bury, he observed.

It was of course from a tree damaged in the bombing that the original memorial cross had been made, before another memorial, now lost, was placed somewhere on the site.

Cllr Alison Cornelius, the deputy Mayor of Barnet, lays a wreath

Wreaths were now laid in front of the simple memorial plaque, and then, very poignantly, an elderly man, a local resident, came to leave a little wooden cross, placing it carefully upright in the wet grass. His name was Ron Cripps, and his father had been the local milkman, one of the first to come across one of those injured by the blast, returning home, covered in blood, to find his own house damaged, but his family luckily unhurt. 

After the bombing, Mr Cripps and his wife started up a youth group, to help the community recover from the terrible losses it had endured. He had met his wife there, as had several other local couples. After the memorial ceremony, at the estate's community centre, Ron laid out sepia tinged photographs of his family, and local neighbours inWest Hendon, off on a charabanc trip to Margate, or taking part in a pageant to celebrate the coronation.

As we stood against the backdrop of the water's edge, and the wide expanse of the Welsh Harp, circling seagulls cried, as they moved around the reservoir - and the words of the ceremony were punctuated by the sound of workmen on the new development. Nothing stops the machinery of profit: even the memory of loss, and an act of mourning.

In truth, it was a sombre moment: much more so than I had expected - most of us dressed in black, by chance, rather than agreement, and the depth of emotion, and sense of loss palpable, and deeply moving.

But the sense of loss, and mourning, was not just for those lost in 1941, to some residents, but for their grandchildren, and those who survived, who rebuilt Hendon, and London, and who must leave the homes they have had here, for so long. 

It was for what has been lost, or destroyed: not just by enemy action in wartime, but by elected representatives, in the twenty first century: in indifference to any sense of community, or belonging, and the common bond of generations growing up together, helping each other, in times of trouble.

The People's Mayor, and local resident Mr Shepherd, in attendance

Margaret Thatcher famously claimed there is no such thing as society: and her heirs in Hendon Town Hall continue to create a world in which tenure of property, and the right to a home, belong only to those with private wealth. The creation of stability, and a sense of belonging, a shared history: necessarily of inconsequence now, in Broken Barnet - representing as these things do the enemy of progress, and yes, profit. 

But still: in the words of the wartime Dean of Hendon:

"The last word shall not be with the destroyer. That is the meaning of our service, and of the simple Cross under which we stand ... Such scenes of desolation as this form a terrible monument to the wickedness of those who pursue brute force without reference to the God of Righteousness, and Justice and Love, before Whom they must one day render account for their deeds.

The 'Little People' of London's suburbs, whom they sought to smash, live on, bearing the unquenchable torch of Freedom, and the rough wooden Cross at West Hendon remains as a symbol of the spirit that prevailed against the greatest peril of oppression humanity has ever had to face".

West Hendon Cllr Devra Kay

I came across this poem, just the other week, by chance, courtesy of 'Spitalfields Life', whose 'Gentle Author' writes so eloquently in defence of our built heritage and communities under threat from development, now, rather than from the depredations of the Blitz. This is by Lilian Bowes Lyon, the radical 'rebel' cousin of the Queen Mother, who lived in the East End throughout the war, and the worst of the bombing there: perhaps you will agree these words hold a certain resonance for the history of West Hendon, the story of Broken Barnet - and the future of our capital city.

Evening in Stepney

The circle of greensward evening-lit,

And each house taciturn to its neighbour.

The destruction of a city is not caused by fire;

What many have lost begets a ghostlier heritage

Or hails the unknown horizon; workaday street

A travel-ordained encounter, the breakable family

Fortified in defeat by the soldering air.

The destruction is in the rejection of a common weal;

Agony's open abyss or the fate of an orphanage,

Mass-festering, mass-freezing or mass-burial,

Crime's worm is in ourselves

Who crumble and are the destroyer. 

West Hendon, February 13th, 2016

Open Season: or - the Library without Librarians - tested by Barnet campaigners

A body in the library: who dunnit? Your Tory councillors ...read on ...

A question, for you, dear reader.

What is a library?

Is it perhaps a place where you might go to borrow something to read? 

Or a place where you might sit to study? 

To join in some activity, like a book club, or simply be with other people, in a welcoming environment, safe, and warm?

Or to find a source of information, or advice, from a professional librarian?

All of those things, you might think. If so, and you live in the London Borough of Broken Barnet, you might want to think again.

Because if your Tory councillors get their way, the public library service as you have always known it in this most rotten of Rotten Boroughs, will not exist.

The former library buildings will be handed over to Capita (yes, see previous post for an idea of how well that will go, including, as we know now, the winning of more gainshare payments from us to them for taking on this new responsibility) ...

In those buildings, a shrunken, nominal library service will be run, by coincidence, largely in traditional Tory wards, by a paltry level of staffing that will have been culled by nearly 50%: and the rest ... will be libraries in name only, a parody of a library service, with a massive 70% reduction in staffed hours, so to be run - if possible, or closed if not - by 'volunteers', or worst of all, become so called 'open' libraries - an innocuous sounding phrase for something really terrible: a library that is not, in fact a library, but a roomful of books, with no staff at all, professional, or unpaid, qualified, or voluntary. A space devoid of human contact, in short. 

And into this space residents will have to gain entry by electronically operated doors, activated by an entry system requiring a pin number. They may then enjoy, if that is the word, the complete sense of alienation from community, social interaction, and professional support that is the hallmark of the 'open', unstaffed library: the perfect library model for a hollowed out council authority, whose easynomic approach to public service is one of unswerving antagonism to the very idea of, well: anything that serves the public, without earning someone a private profit.

Open Libraries: a user's guide: Don't Panic! Or rather: no  - do panic ...

Your Tory councillors, including the deputy leader and aspiring Assembly Member Dan Thomas, who sits on the committee dealing with library matters, warmly welcomed the current proposed cuts and changes to the library service, and the use of the so called 'open' system, even though they had not seen the risk assessment for the pilot scheme which had then been running only a short time, at Edgware Library, and even though they were told by officers, wrongly, that this system was 'the standard approach' in 'Scandinavia' and successful elsewhere. 

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/at-risk-or-welcome-to-open-library.html 

The truth is that this system has not been used long term in any context comparable to the one in which it is now proposed to be implemented, and the risks highlighted in the council's own, discreetly hidden assessment are, although potentially catastrophic, being conveniently sidelined.

Library campaigners in the borough have already begun a process of legal challenge to the proposed destruction of our library service: and now some of those campaigners have taken another approach, and decided to visit the pilot scheme 'open library' at Edgware - the same branch, incidentally, that was Mrs Angry's refuge as a child, and the source of all her reading material: a place of infinite pleasures, and possibilities. How unspeakably sad it is that children in Edgware, in the future, will not be allowed to visit the unstaffed library, unaccompanied, to borrow books, or to study.

Local activist Barbara Jacobson and a group of residents from 'Save Barnet Libraries' went to visit Edgware library one night last week, to test the new system, and try to assess what would happen, in an emergency. Conclusion: nothing would happen. 

There is a report of this visit now online in the local Times, see here.


And as Barbara told Mrs Angry: 

"Outside of our group, only two men came in the entire time we were there. Someone who went on another night said there were only three people there; she was the only woman, felt uncomfortable, left and said she would not return on her own ...

There was a woman present before the end of staffed hours. She said she would leave and not re-enter on her own. She is a homeless person, so the accommodation the library would afford is tempting but she said she wouldn't stay because the council took no responsibility if anything happened to her on the premises.

Very little on the leaflet is accurate. Look at the 'Safety and security': it doesn't mention that the CCTV is not live monitored, thus providing nothing more than a record of what the cameras might have picked up. Filming or taking photos is not allowed – no reason given, no explanation of what this has to do with safety or security – but the fact is we did take photos. I didn't see the leaflet until we were leaving, so I didn't know it wasn't permitted and there was, of course, no one there to tell us or stop us.

One of the two men mentioned above was very upset when he saw a group of us walking in without using the keypad: you're not supposed to do that. He's right, but who will stop you?" 

"There would be no way to stop people who wanted to remove books or equipment either. It would be interesting to see whether CCTV picked up this stack of books being placed on the floor or being returned to the shelves. There are some places that may not be within sight of the CCTV cameras.

Look at what to do in an emergency. Well, I guess everyone entering the library will read the leaflet first. Sure they will. But what if they don't notice the two people lying prone behind the stacks? Have they fallen over? been overcome by a noxious substance? had a heart attack? Will CCTV have even seen them? And so what, since no one will look at the films until … gee, until when? 'Monitored' does tell us with what frequency, but we know it's not live.

All I can tell you is that we lay on the floor unseen by the two men who were in the library minding their own business. Theoretically, someone alone in the library could simply die there. 

The security guard was located outside the library by four of our group when they were leaving ... There won't be security guards if this dimwitted plan goes ahead, but this one was no use anyway ..." 

"If we had checked the opening hours, we would have seen that the unstaffed period began at 8.15pm. However, then we might not have learned that people cannot use the Internet for 15 minutes before the staffed hours end at 8pm, when everyone is made to leave the premises. 

There is then a delay in using the Internet when the unstaffed hours begin, so students studying or jobseekers searching for jobs or anyone filling in forms online will have a minimum 20-minute hiatus in their ability to continue whatever they are doing. 

The system might require a 15-minute break between staffed and unstaffed hours, but for the people wanting to use the library, it's an inconvenience – loss of concentration, perhaps loss of a form only partially completed – and a big waste of time.

The point of turfing people out is to ensure that only those with a library card and an activated PIN can get in. It's nonsense. There is a device outside the library door for users to insert their library card and a keypad to tap in their PIN ... 

Several of our group had problems: one had trouble with the keypad itself, others found that although they had PINs, they had not been activated, and one whose PIN had been activated by staff at the library that evening found it did not work. It didn't matter: I entered my (activated) PIN, the doors opened and several of us walked through, because automatic doors stay open as long as the electronic beam is broken. 

A few people remained outside to try the keypad. When their efforts proved fruitless, someone inside pressed the device to open the automatic doors, which is there to allow people to exit. This means there is no control over who enters the library: people of any age, with or without library cards, with or without PINs." 

As you can see here, the upstairs study area was shut off: not that it would stop anyone gaining access, if they wanted to: perhaps if they were 'caught short', due to the loo being shut? More unspeakable unpleasantness of the sort that makes Cllr Helena Hart quiver in indignation ...

Naughty Mrs Jacobson and her companions also sat down and pretended to smoke what look to Mrs Angry suspiciously like ... no, no, surely not ... right there, in the middle of a public library. What happened? Again: nothing. (Mrs Jacobson informs Mrs Angry they were really posing with rolled up paper, and no, she didn't inhale).

In the local Times' article, the ineffable Tory library shutter in chief, Reuben Thompstone, offers a typically humourless response to reports of the campaigners' trial of his pilot scheme: 

"It’s disappointing that some residents claim to have disrupted a session in this way. We are using the pilot at Edgware to trial a range of security measures which will inform any future adoption of the scheme."

Again, quite typically, Thompstone ignores the real issues at stake: the inherent and untested dangers of this system, the loss of access, the exclusion of children, the danger for lone women, and the elderly, the difficulties for disabled users who want to visit their local library. 

What does he mean, when claiming to 'trial' security measures? What security measures? A cctv camera that records and does not inform of any live mugging, or theft, or accident or illness? A use of security guards, however pointless, that, unlike in this pilot scheme, will NOT be in place if and when these unstaffed libraries are imposed on us? 

One worrying fact that we should all remember, and that means anyone in the UK who cares about the future of public libraries, is that this carefully managed 'pilot scheme' has already been visited by the government's Libraries Taskforce, last August, when the 'trial' had only been in place a short while. 

Be afraid: be very afraid. The use of Broken Barnet as a laboratory of Tory policy has demonstrated over and over again that any crackpot scheme, no matter how flawed, will be presented by our shameless Tory councillors and their aspirational senior management team as the most wonderful success, and ready to be adopted on a national scale. 

Thompstone and his colleagues claim that the destruction of our library service is necessary in order to make, yes, 'savings', just as they told us the Capita contracts were necessary for the same reason. Look at the previous post, and gauge for yourself how much reliance to put on any such assurance.

The truth is that the massive cut in staffing and opening hours, the shrinking of library space, and the handing over to Capita of our library building management is part of another story altogether, in line with the underlying motif of everything that happens in Broken Barnet. That is to say, creating a business opportunity for someone, a commercial partner, by appealing to the dogmatic opposition of our neo-Thatcherite Tory councillors to the very principle of locally run, accountable public sector services.

The library savings of £2.8 million are to be made with the capital expenditure of £6 million, directed at modifying the buildings. Cost effective, we are informed, in the long run. Really? 

No, not really, because here is another example of easynomics: calculations based on assumptions lacking any evidence or credibility, intended to persuade our dopey councillors that this is the only option for them to approve. 

If only a tiny fraction of the money we are throwing at Capita now, over and above the core cost of the contract, were to be reclaimed - we could save our libraries, and even invest in them, as they should be, so they can become central once more to our society, as the Carnegie foundation has recently been reminding us, for example:

As cultural centres, learning hubs, social centres, a resource for self empowerment: yes, a value for money service that is of immense and wide ranging benefit to society as a whole.

We will never see the short or long term benefits of these budget savings, not just because the damage they will cause will be incalculable, and profound, but in financial terms, because the next stage in the process will be the outsourcing of the library service, which is the real object of these swingeing cuts and changes. 

Don't be fooled, readers, as your Tory representatives already have been. 

Time to tell them to look again - and if not, to remember this, in May, when you are walking to the polling station, and Dan Thomas and Zac Goldsmith are asking for your vote. 

Before you get there, ask Cllr Thomas & Mr Goldsmith what they did to save your local library. 

And make sure you do something too, before it is too late.