London authority has created 'smokescreen' around consultation over 'easyCouncil' contract with private firm, court told
A Conservative council broke the law by trying to push through a £320m outsourcing contract to a private company without properly consulting the public, it was claimed in the high court on Tuesday.
The London borough of Barnet is being challenged by one of its residents in a case that will determine the fate of a radical reform of public services that has been compared to the creation of a no-frills "easyCouncil".
At the start of a two-day hearing into what the court heard was a "big bang" approach to town hall reform in the face of Whitehall cuts, Barnet was accused of creating a "smokescreen" around its alleged failure to consult residents.
Maria Nash, a 67-year-old disabled former holistic therapist from the north London borough, is challenging the council's decision to outsource services via two contracts which together amount to around £600m over 10 years, accounting for 15.5% of the council's budget. Under the contracts 790 full-time jobs would be transferred to the private sector.
Mr Justice Underhill, reviewing the legality of the moves, said the scale of outsourcing being attempted by Barnet was "unprecedented".
Representing Nash, who attended court in her electric wheelchair along with around 20 supporters, Nigel Griffin said a description of the process of consultation put before the court by Barnet was "all so much smokescreen" and while it purported to explain the steps of a consultation process, analysis showed it did not stack up.
"There is nothing here that comes to an even measurable distance of compliant consultation on letting a contract of this kind," Griffin said.
Nash's case is that Barnet failed to consult before outsourcing; failed to comply with the public sector equality duty and breached its fiduciary duty by failing to properly consider other options.
The customer services and back-office contract with Capita is due to come into effect in April and is set to be followed later this year by a second £290m contract to outsource planning, cemeteries, highways, environmental health and other services.
Griffin told the court that "in all the evidence described and referred to" by Craig Cooper, commercial director of Barnet, "in support of his assertion that Barnet carried out consultation, there is only one reference to outsourcing".
For a long period Underhill and Griffin scoured council documents for references to terminology that could be understood to mean outsourcing, but repeatedly struggled to do so.
The judge commented on the name the council had given to its reform programme, saying: "'One Barnet' doesn't really mean anything. It has no inherent meaning. It is such a general term you have to analyse it each time it is used to understand what it is intended to mean."
Examining the One Barnet framework document, the judge said there was "nothing explicit" about outsourcing, adding that "the language is very opaque".
Griffin said at the root of the case was "whether an outsourcing company which expects to maximise the profits it makes is really going to deliver the same or better quality of service as the in-house provision … These are real concerns especially but not only to those who are in a vulnerable position because of disabilities."
The court heard the deals would "effect radical and comprehensive change in the way in which the council functions. Many of the council's core functions will be put in the hands of a private contractor or contractors for a 10-year period, leading to wholesale transfer of staff from the council to those contractors and to the physical relocation of many of them to other parts of the country."
The hearing continues and counsel for Barnet, Monica Carss-Frisk QC, is expected to begin her case on Wednesday.