Barnet's 'easyCouncil' plan unravels as more Tories oppose cuts and privatising

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/15/barnet-services-outsourcing-tories-row

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Fresh cracks have appeared in the Conservatives' resolve to drive through one of Britain's most controversial programmes of local authority cuts.

Leaked emails have revealed a bitter internal dispute about whether the party has any mandate to drive through outsourcing for more than £500m in contracts under the "easyCouncil" programme to provide no-frills council services. Barnet's programme has been seen as a testbed for wholesale cuts in the provision of public services by councils but this week the local Conservative MP Matthew Offord and the Conservative councillor Sury Khatri engaged in an angry row over the party's right to push through cuts.

"The Conservative party did not campaign on this basis and we do not have a mandate," Khatri told Offord, according to leaked emails seen by the Guardian. "None of the literature we distributed prior to the election mentioned one iota of this. The local people do not want this and have not been consulted, hence the vociferous reaction by residents. As councillors, we still have no details on this so how can we have campaigned that this was the best thing since slice bread."

Offord had drafted a letter to mollify residents who had complained about the cuts, insisting the council was elected on a mandate to push through the imminent outsourcing of contracts to private firms such as BT, Capita and EC Harris.

A £275m contract is due to be outsourced on 6 December and another estimated to be worth up to £750m will be awarded early next year. They will hand over responsibility to the private sector for the running of building control, planning, highways and transport, the crematorium and cemetery, trading standards, licensing and environmental health.

Khatri insisted Offord's claim that voters knew what was coming was "misleading".

"Am sorry to say I disagree," Khatri wrote, adding: "WE DO NOT HAVE MANDATE."

"What details were available then so how can a resident say he agrees with when they voted for the Conservatives?" wrote Khatri. "Can you tell me how we had publicised this fact? As I did not come across any material on this when we were campaigning for election. As of today we still do not have any details."

A fellow Tory councillor, Anthony Finn, intervened, saying: "Enough. Please can we concentrate our efforts on fighting our opponents not ourselves."

The exchange comes as the council's outsourcing programme faces a series of crises.

John Sullivan and his disabled daughter, Susan, have begun judicial review proceedings against the council over concerns at what the privatisation means for the care of adults with disabilities. Their claim is on the grounds that the process has not given due regard to the needs of disabled people living in the borough.

Brian Coleman, the councillor responsible for privatising parking, had the Tory whip withdrawn after he was charged with assault by beating and careless driving. He then turned on the plan, writing in an article urging the council "to dump One Barnet and return to core local government values and make sure this particular turkey does not see Christmas!".

He demanded "a proper strategy which assesses where services belong, whether that is the private sector, shared services with other boroughs, the voluntary sector or indeed occasionally in-house – a mixed economy is what is needed. For example, I don't know any councillors who agree we should privatise the planning department."

Earlier this month, the council leader, Richard Cornelius, survived a no-confidence vote at an extraordinary council meeting and in October, the chief executive, Nick Walkley, who was responsible for devising and developing the programme, resigned unexpectedly to join the neighbouring Labour-controlled Haringey council.

Alison Moore, Labour leader at the council, said: "Those councillors whose conscience is telling them privately that the One Barnet programme is a disaster need to be open and honest with local residents.""The cabinet meeting on 6 December is a key opportunity for them to show their opposition, and they should vote in public as they say in private.

"We've maintained from the outset that the One Barnet programme is under-scrutinised, highly risky and, with the inevitable loss of democratic accountability, wrong on balance for Barnet. We have one last chance to stop this."