Dear Barnet Alliance for Public Services,
In response to your letter to all Barnet Councillors. It may have escaped your notice, but Barnet Council has major funding issues at present. The government has cut grants and we are committed to keeping council tax as low as possible. We believe this to be the best way to help hard pressed household budgets.
Whilst public service trades unions cleary have a vested interest in achieving the best possible deal from the Barnet taxpayer, it is the responsibility of the council to get the best possible deal for everybody. By making efficiencies, more services can be provided. When services are provided by the private sector, quality of service guarantees can be built in. These guarantee improvements to the quality of services provided and ensure that services improve.
Trades unions in Barnet have singularly failed to acknowledge the level of planning and due diligence which has been spent making sure One Barnet delivers the best possible deal for the Barnet taxpayer. Much has been made, by trades union sympathisers, of the risks associated with outsourcing. They have said nothing of the risks of not making efficiencies and the resulting service cuts. In short, if the council simply adopted the no cuts ever mantra that Barnet trades unions have publicly promoted, then the council would run out of money and be able to provide no services at all.
Whilst some staff may lose their jobs or work for different employers, it is vital that the people who need services from the council continue to receive them. They don't care whether the person who delivers that service is a council employee or works for the private sector. We call on the Barnet Alliance for Public Services to acknowledge the reality of the economic situation and to stop burying their heads in the sand.
The Barnet Alliance for Public Services has failed to produce a single shred of evidence that it has any solutions to the funding crisis facing Barnet Council. Until such time as they can propose a credible alternative, they should stop bothering the hard working councillors of Barnet council with silly emails.
Yours Sincerely
Mrs T
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Dear 'Mrs T',
Here is an open letter from Mrs A in response to your open letter to Barnet Alliance's open letter to our beloved councillors. Are you keeping up? As you have confessed, you find sustained intellectual debate rather challenging, as indeed is the tradition with Barnet Tories, but in this case do try to concentrate.
Let us take your argument at face value, that One Barnet is all about saving money in a time of financial crisis. If you look at the conclusions of all studies on large scale outsourcing projects in fact it has been clearly shown that they do not produce significant levels of savings, and often cause more burden to the tax payer in higher charges, or worse, when many of the schemes fail.
But One Barnet is not about saving residents/ money, it has been promoted by those who are trying to deliver profiteering public sector opportunities to private companies.
You talk about trade unions as if they were some sort of alien species: in fact most members are hard working women with families, and in this case, ordinary people living in Barnet who stand to lose their livelihoods. This will also have a huge impact on the local economy.
It is not true to say that the unions have given no alternative strategy: they have tried very hard to get the Tory leadership to listen to an in house alternative plan which would deliver efficiencies but protect local jobs: unfortunately the leader has refused to engage with any such suggestion for fear of upsetting the senior management team whoa re in fact supposed to be directed by the elected representatives, and not, as the recent Joint Venture fiasco has clearly demonstrated, make all the important decisions and tell the councillors what to do.
It seems the Barnet Tory councillors have forgotten how the democratic process is supposed to work: at the next election they are going to receive a very effective reminder. Oh, and your mate Mike who started the easycouncil nonsense in the first place might like to speculate on the precariousness of his own position too.
Mrs Angry x
Post a Comment