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.