Foggy nights at Barnet House

Written by Cllr Jack Cohen and published in Hendon Times on Mon 19th Jan 2009

Barnet's budget process lumbers on. It is now the task of the various scrutiny committees to examine the Budget proposals.

The Liberal Democrat Councillors as usual will be asking questions at Scrutiny.

The start to this process does not augur well, if the feedback of two of my colleagues is anything to go by

Cllr Wayne Casey was on the Supporting the Vulnerable in our Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Here is Wayne's feedback

"Budget headlines are next to useless. The Devil - as usual - is in the detail. We can't hope to comment on the budget strategy without knowing how the headlines were reached.

The Cabinet Member who attended last night appeared to be completely unprepared for answering questions on detail. I probed one line of expenditure to illustrate this point (having done some research beforehand) and I can confirm that the efficiency saving declared is a complete thumb in the air figure.

It could be a great deal more. It could be a great deal less.

I don't know if you've come across the "Fog Index", a formula for measuring the clarity of a piece of prose, but the Fog Index on the item I was asking questions on would have required a PhD to understand on first reading.

Again, from the answers I received to my questions, it is crystal clear that the summary of the research supporting a 35% reduction in the number of Home Care packages is in my view, a gross oversimplification of what appears some very dodgy research.

In the end the it seemed to me as if they added on a "back of a fag packet" contingency sum to the budget for Home Care packages as the final figure appear to me little more than a "guesstimate" based on no objective evidence at all.

The Tories are hopeless - no surprise there. They didn't ask one question. They gleefully expected the meeting to last no more than five minutes as there was nothing to talk about! It went on for an hour and fifteen minutes

The Committee wanted to record that they had no comments to refer back to the Cabinet but I got them to record that effective scrutiny requires more detail than was provided.

I also got it noted in the minutes that that I, personally, was not endorsing this budget and I made it clear that I did not trust the Administration, during the course of the year, not to accuse us of complicity when some fact - which we could not possibly have known about - comes to light"

Cllr Susette Palmer who attended the Housing Overview Committee fared no better

"I put out the Committee Chair by asking for an expansion of the Housing Headlines last night - he seemed amazed that anyone required elucidation of the extremely bald facts. They all appeared in my view to be hopelessly prepared to answer any questions"