Let's strut! Pensioners Staying Alive with a bus pass

Let's strut!  Pensioners Staying Alive with a bus pass

You know what we want to do?  We who are getting on a bit? We want to strut. We need the surge of excitement that shoots through your veins putting a smile on your face because you're out there, staying alive.

OK, so some pensioners strut better than others. The ones who haven't done their knees or hips in, that is. So we have a wrinkle or two or three.  So the joints are a bit stiffer, the breath a bit shorter.  But you're never too old to want to strut.  All the way to the bus stop.  But we need our bus passes or we can go nowhere. 

We are now in receipt of the scandalous revelation that successive governments have Robert Maxwelled the National Insurance state pension fund. The government's uk.gov website explains the use and purpose of National Insurance:

 "You pay National Insurance contributions to build up your entitlement to certain state benefits, including the State Pension."

We are told that the NI surplus (predicted by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to be £38 billion at the end of March 2012) is being hijacked by the government to pay off its debts interest free!! How dare they?

The Mature Times writes: 

"It is quite clear that millions of pensioners, workers and their employers have no idea that the money being paid in National Insurance every month is not being used to pay higher pensions and benefits – but is instead being used to balance the government’s books. As a direct result, the state pension is being kept unacceptably low and millions of older people are facing financial difficulties."  

 

Don't stop bus passes from being a universal benefit. Don't complicate things by means testing, by setting up a costly, chaotic administrative process that channels money away from the bus passes themselves with no guaranteed savings. The system is self-regulating. Nick Clegg has claimed that tax payers shouldn't be paying for travel passes for the "well off" pensioners.  I point out once again that pensioners are tax payers who pay tax at the same rate as everyone else whether they work or not. The richer the pensioner the more tax they pay and have paid. And pensioners save the government billions of pounds in the care they give to their families and to each other. Getting a bus pass is not automatic. It has to be applied for and many better off pensioners never apply.  Then there are the many pensioners who don't use a pass because their mobility prevents them ever travelling on public transport. So although all pensioners are eligible to claim a bus pass, a large number do not.  And if a better-off pensioner, who is in any case in a minority, decides to apply, then why not? They pay their high rate of tax, always have, and are entitled to a pass.

Only those who are getting on a bit will remember the tough US western TV series "Have Gun - Will Travel" that seemed to run and rerun for ever at the end of the '50s and into the '60s.  I only stayed up to watch when my parents were too absorbed in something else to notice I was there, but I remember the title would trip off many an adult tongue in the best cowboy accent they could muster when they were about to travel just about anywhere, to great amusement.  Today, for those of us for whom the joke still echoes in our ears, our gun is the travel pass. It enables us to fight against those baddies in black: the loneliness, aloneness, isolation, disengagement, depression, all a result of being holed up at home day after day. Don't cut pensioners off from the world.  There is an intended use for NI. We paid in in good faith. We woz conned. Put things right Political Big Brother, or face the vote!

Meanwhile click here....................

STOP DEMONIZING PENSIONERS!

My guest blog on Gransnet: December 2012

Will everyone please stop demonizing pensioners. Nowadays staying alive has become a crime against society. But why should we apologise or feel guilty? What would society do without us?

Only recently Lord Bichard claimed that older people are a "negative burden on society" - that the elderly should do community work or lose their pensions. He has no grip on reality. We support the economy free of charge. We care for grandchildren to allow their parents to work and pay tax. We care for very elderly parents whose community care has been withdrawn or become unaffordable. And we have the true "big society" ethic giving our time to charities and communal projects. It is because we don't have jobs that we can do all this, and what is more we are tax payers. Whether we work or not we pay tax at the same rate as everyone else. We pay tax on our pensions. We have paid all our working lives towards our old age and to helping others and continue to do so. Only the poorest pensioners, like the poorest wage earners, are exempt from tax because they are below the tax threshold. 

I lay in bed the other night tossing and turning. Hope that's not too much information. I was angry. I fantasized about a new political party: The Grey Party.  Statistics based on the 2011 census shows 9.2 million people in England and Wales of pensionable age. One in six people in the UK are over 65. For the first time there are more people of pensionable age than there are people under the age of 16. Many older people are not on line. They do not have contact with social networks to widely express and share their views. But what older people do is vote. We are a massive and powerful lobby. Our voices should be heard loud and clear. 

Ha! Now for the pensioners!

HA! NOW FOR THE PENSIONERS!

Pensioners are hitting the front pages as the government points its finger of fate at its next vulnerable victims.  They've had their fun with the disabled and the jobless who have been suitably bullied and harassed for the time being, and as IDS explained, are being "helped to move on".  Now to well and truly turn the country against the pensioners before doing the dirty on them.

Immediately after winning the vote to take the Welfare Reform Bill to a second reading, the government insisted that pensioners are protected against their proposed legislation.  But by the late-night Sky Press Preview the question was raised about who are the 'givers' and who are the 'takers' in our society, a variation on the 'strivers' and 'scroungers' theme so beloved by the government. Back in the Autumn, the coalition's allegedly 'caring' regulator Nick Clegg may have hoped he could claw back a point or two in the opinion polls if he came down hard on the universal nature of the pension system:

"I cannot stress enough that what I mean is people, who are very wealthy indeed, receive off millions of ordinary taxpayers across this country free bus passes, TV licences and winter fuel support; even though they frankly don’t need it."

He cites Sir Alan Sugar and Peter Stringfellow as examples of very-wealthy-indeeds who receive these benefits. 

 

Somehow, even the most avid supporters of universal benefits and of pensioners constantly fail to mention that pensioners ARE taxpayers.  Whether they work or not they pay tax at the same rate as everyone else. They pay tax on their pensions. They have paid all their working lives towards their old age and towards the public purse and they continue to do so. Only the poorest pensioners, like the poorest wage earners, are exempt from tax, because they are below the tax threshold. The richer the pensioners, the more tax they pay, and have paid, and the "millions of ordinary taxpayers" of whom Clegg speaks include millions of pensioners. 

 

Pensioners do not automatically "receive", for example, their bus passes, as Clegg wrongly claims.  These have to be applied for, forms have to be filled in and submitted. So when the likes of Matthew Paris and Polly Toynbee complain ad nauseum about how ridiculous it is that they and other well-off pensioners receive bus passes that they don't need, they can stop fretting, because they need never apply. It is often mentioned with great hilarity that the Queen is entitled to a bus pass, but there is a difference between being entitled to one and actually applying for and using one. And there are many pensioners, who, as they get older, are unable ever to use a bus pass because of mobility problems which prevent them from travelling on public transport.  So many pensioners neither have, nor use, nor are able to use a bus pass.

But even if the small number of "very wealthy" pensioners did decide to apply, the passes and other pension benefits are not "freebies" and "handouts" as The Sun provocatively claims.  Alan Sugar was quick to point out to Clegg in disgust and not surprisingly, that he doesn't have a bus pass, but "even if I did have a bus pass, I’ve personally paid tens of millions in tax, my companies hundreds of millions in the past 45 years."  He and other rich pensioners are entitled to one taking into account the contribution they have made and continue to make to the Treasury. Though most of them wouldn't be seen dead with one, and pay their fare if and when they travel by public transport.

Clegg also seems unaware that free TV licenses are only available to the over-75s, and as Lord Sugar and Peter Stringfellow are 65 and 72 respectively, neither is eligible.  Clegg should get his facts right. The current average life expectancy of a male in the UK  is 78 and a female 82 so this can be a very short-term benefit, and even then only if you are lucky enough to live long enough to receive it.  

The majority of our current pensioners are not wealthy. Far from it. They struggle to make ends meet as they watch their benefits already being cut while their savings, if they have any, dwindle away, accruing no interest of which to speak. Retail prices have risen to unaffordable topped by increased VAT and the 'heating or eating' option is very real. Running a car is pricing itself out of the market. 

Lib Dem, Paul Burstow, has proposed this week that the winter fuel allowance be means tested. You might think this would be aimed at weeding out the richest or perhaps the ex-pats living in hot climates, but that isn't the case. Burstow recommends that 3/4 of all pensioners lose the allowance, that is all those who do not receive pension credit.  It would hit most pensioners very hard at a time when energy bills are soaring.

The government may advocate means testing when it comes to giving, but they have no problem with it when it comes to taking.  Every pensioner whatever their financial situation was targeted in the 2011 Budget, when George Osborne decided to cut the winter fuel allowance without notice from £250 to £200 for those aged 60-79, and from £400 to £300 for those 80 and over, cuts of a fifth and a third. The cuts did not appear in the 100+ page Budget document and came as a shock to pensioners, especially as it happened weeks after the big six power firms hiked the price of gas and electricity and have continued to do so.

The proposed introduction in 2015 of a flat rate pension of £140 for all new pensioners will disadvantage all existing pensioners whose basic pension of £107.45 will fall substantially short even with the expected annual increments. And it is not  yet clear if the £140 is a cap amount or if it will increase each year in line with inflation.

As well as hitting current pensioners with cuts, savings are already in place for the future before any further adjustments. By raising the age of retirement incrementally from 60 and 65 for women and men respectively to 67 for everyone (and it has been suggested that this could rise to 74) the government's commitment to pensioners has been massively reduced.

We all know too well that steps must be taken to fix the deficit which the government claims is the necessity for benefit cuts.  People are living longer and are expected to continue to do so in the years to come. The pension system has to be reviewed, and I'm not making a case for "very wealthy" pensioners, as they really can look after themselves, though they do make a large contribution to the Treasury, and at the same time as Nick Clegg woos the electorate with promises of cutting universal benefits to the wealthy, his government has given the richest a very generous, means-tested 5% tax cut while universally abolishing tax relief for all pensioners over 65.  But I am making a case for keeping the pension benefits universal for existing pensioners, as they are self-regulating.

When it comes to a choice between means testing or self-regulation, the latter might well be the most financially and administratively sound way to go.  Means testing would be an expensive and an administrative nightmare and if outsourced millions of pounds would be diverted from the national pension pot into private coffers.  As we've seen with the ATOS work capability assessment, Child Benefit, the Welfare Reform Bill, the winter fuel allowance cuts, to name but a few, the government just can't be trusted with the concept of 'fairness'. How would a "better-off pensioner" be defined? If assets are taken into account to determine wealth, which has been suggested, no home-owning pensioner would be eligible for any benefits, however little money they have to spend each week. Given the example of the government's pride and satisfaction with ATOS's target-driven assessments, there is no reason to suppose that pensioners' means testing will not turn out to be the same ruthless method of getting rid of as many dependents as possible without a thought for the consequences.

And there is the wider picture. It shouldn't be overlooked that pensioners support the economy free of charge. They care for grandchildren to enable their children to work and pay tax. They care for very elderly parents whose community care has been withdrawn or become unaffordable. And many have the true "big society" ethic giving their time to charities and communal projects. It is because they don't have jobs that they can do all this, and of course, I must say it again as no-one else ever does, they are tax payers. Pensioners are an undervalued asset.

I lay in bed the other night tossing and turning. Hope that's not too much information. I was angry. I fantasized about a new political party: The Grey Party. The Green Party has only around 12,500 members in England and Wales. Statistics based on the 2011 census show that there are 9.2 million people in England and Wales of pensionable age. One in six people in the UK are over 65. There are more people of pensionable age than there are people under the age of 16. Many older people live alone and are not on line. They do not generally have contact with social networks and so are unable to express their views widely. But what older people do is vote. They are a massive and powerful lobby. No politician can afford to forget this. By all means let us find a better and more sustainable way for the future, but stop persecuting today's pensioners at the end of their lives.  Look at the numbers. It isn't worth it.

Divide and rule: Is the govt guilty of hate crime?

Divide and rule: Is the government guilty of hate crime?

"In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group" 1

Throughout history, in times of crisis, whether war, plague or financial hardship, scapegoats have been identified and persecuted. Religion or race has been the major identifier, and still is. In his 2012 Christmas address, a concerned King Albert II of Belgium warns against "trying to find scapegoats for the current financial crisis, whether foreigners or compatriots".  In the UK today, however, it is the most vulnerable groups in society who are being targeted: the elderly, the disabled and the jobless. 
   
As 2013 begins, instead of my usual blank-page-on-which-anything-can-be-written excitement, optimism is hard to muster as society becomes more and more divisive. And the perpetrators of this divisiveness are the self-proclaimed champions of fairness, the Big Society and Localism, namely the government. 

We're facing a year of massive cuts from the welfare budget and the government seems determined to put the blame on those who will experience these cuts, to make it appear as if they deserve it. The newly-identified social group of 'strivers', ie the good people, are portrayed as the victims. The country would be so much better off if all the cheats and scroungers who are draining the economy dry, have their ill-gotten benefits whipped away. And the flames of hatred and mistrust are being fanned by The Sun writing of "freebies" and "handouts".

So is the government guilty of hate crime under the Criminal Justice Act of 2003? Their blanket bullying, harrassment and victimisation of these vulnerable groups suggest there could well be a case against them. There is even an element of physical abuse in the brutal, unfair, inaccurate way the chronically sick and disabled who are obviously unfit for work are forced by ATOS to take up some form of employment that has led tragically to a series of seemingly-related suicides. 

George Osborne's now famous portrayal of the jobless as work shy “with their curtains closed, sleeping off a life on benefits” is juxtaposed with the behaviour of the approved 'strivers' who walk past these drawn curtains on their way to work. Grant Schapps, the new Co-chair of the Conservative party, recently started up a campaign entitled “Time to end Labour’s something for nothing culture”. And in answer to Labour MP, Ian Lavery's PMQs plea for change prompted by a suicide note from one of his sick constituents who had been told he must work or lose his benefits, David Cameron grabbed the opportunity to tell-tale in Violet Elizabeth style that "some people have been stuck on these benefits and not been reviewed for year after year after year."  This is just not true. The people I personally know who are suffering through the ATOS system were previously checked every two years with medical back up from their doctors and consultants. 

There can be no objection to people being properly assessed. That is how it should be. But it is the target-driven decisions to intimidate someone chronically sick, either mentally or physically and/or disabled into a job that they obviously cannot do, by assessors who are bullying, medically unqualified and ignore the reports of medical experts, that are objectionable.

The system isn't working, as around 40% of people who appeal against ATOS decisions, and of those who go to tribunal, around 38%, have the decision overturned in their favour. However, it is expensive to take action.

One chronically sick and disabled friend of mine who bravely deals with severe pain as well as paralysis and blurred vision and more every day, has been deemed fit for work and advised to take up her old profession of hospital carer. She is also advised to apply for a grant for a carer to accompany her to work to carry out the "physical side" of the job. Your way is not working IDS. It makes no sense and it is causing human misery.

Yet there is no recognition by the government that anything is wrong. In fact, in today's divide and rule Britain, those at the very top of government including the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Works and Pensions and the Deputy Prime Minister are justifying it. IDS claimed in November that "There is no evidence at this stage for a further period of radical reform".[2] In other words, the government doesn't feel that anything needs to be changed.

Job Centres are now places of security guards and CCTV cameras and stern interviewers whose aim is to catch you out and make it so difficult to fulfill the rules that as many claimants as possible can be relieved of their benefits or have them drastically cut for not trying hard enough to find a job that isn't there to find. And it is in the open, public, policed areas of these Job Centres that ATOS interviews the sick and disabled, overheard by anyone who happens to be there.

From this month the jobless must look for work on a "revolutionary" new government website, Universal Jobmatch. Failure to do so could lead to their benefits being slashed. They will be tracked online to ensure that they fulfil requirements. The system, run by a private company, Monster, is known to be insecure but jobseekers must provide details such as national insurance numbers and CVs containing personal details.  IDS calls the system "brilliant" and boasts that "It will be accessible in internet cafes, libraries and on personal computers".  Let's hope for their own sakes that every jobseeker is computer literate, that if they don't own a computer, they can still find a library that hasn't been shut down, or that they can afford the hourly rate each time they need to visit an internet cafe.  

Next Tuesday, there will be a Commons vote to sanction a loss to the unemployed of their weekly £71 jobseeker's allowance for up to three years if they are judged to have serially breached the tough new conditions for the universal credit, including the obligation to attend job interviews, accept job offers or take on unpaid work experience. At the risk of stating the obvious, the government is determined to rid itself of its dependents however needy and deserving they may be.  

The welfare system is an unwieldy, overcomplicated, expensive mess. It is also abused by some, though not by nearly as many as the propaganda suggests. An overhaul is long overdue, but not by this inept government of playground bullies and the nobly intentioned but seriously bonkers IDS. Just look at Child Benefit: unfair, complicated, and already a disaster in its implementation.


The government has entrenched itself until 2015, but Cameron and the Conservative party made a contract with the people in 2010. Vote us out in five years' time if we fail to deliver on promises. There was that bit about protecting the winter fuel allowance, bus passes and free TV licences for over 75s and this week a worried Cameron, mindful of the implications in 2015, vowed to keep his promise on pension benefits. The opportunity will arise to kick the Coalition out on its ear, but what we need to know is if Labour will do it any differently. For the time being we can only dream of a better future and live in fear as Tory Westminster Council threatens to penalise the overweight. Who is next? Never send to know for whom the bell tolls as hate crime reigns.

Demonization of pensioners coming next...............................

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[1] Wikipedia definition

[2] IDS response in November on behalf of the government to Professor Malcolm Harrington's third independent review of ATOS's Work Capacity Assessment

Why the Barnet 10 chose Capita

 

Why the BARNET 10 chose Capita

Why have 10 Tory Councillors (aka the Barnet 10), the only members of the Council to decide Barnet's future, chosen to swell the coffers of massive private company, Capita, rather than look after the interests of the residents and businesses of Barnet? Where does their loyalty lie? 

The Barnet 10, who make up the Council Cabinet, flaunt the fact that none of them have read the lengthy contract which awards the outsourcing of most of the Council's services to Capita for ten years with an extension clause of a further five. Capita would be running these services far from Barnet with contact through a call centre in Blackburn, Lancs, that could end up being anywhere in the world together with our "local" services. Capita's motivation: financial profit.

But we are assured there is no need for concern. Tory Leader of the Council, and one of the 10, Richard Cornelius, explained that just like the transaction of buying or selling a home, neither party needs to know all the details of the contract as they are being advised by experts.

Who are these experts on whose judgement the Barnet 10 have put their trust?

There is legal firm Trowers & Hamlin. According to Tory Cllr Hugh Rayner, the contract can be interpreted however you choose, depending on which side you're on. But if this is so, any decent lawyer would advise that ambiguity is certain to cause problems at times of dispute.  

And then there are the madly expensive firms of consultants, 

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Agilisys and iMPOWER, costing taxpayers millions of pounds; one million in October alone. It is clear from the philosophy that appears on iMPOWER's website why the Barnet 10 chose outsourcing and never considered an in-house alternative, or any alternative for that matter.

"If councils can change their relationship with citizens and customers, they have a far bigger chance of delivering to a smaller financial envelope without ‘cutting’ in the conventional way. But citizen behaviour is only one half of the solution – councils and their staff need to change as well. So our approach quite deliberately starts at a service level. We don’t subscribe to the idea that mass consolidation of back office services creates major efficiency – these support services only account for about 10% of a council’s cost. We focus on the 90% that is in services and in winning hearts and minds for change at this level." (iMPOWER website).

It is a case of asking the advice of someone you know will give you the answer you want to hear, and paying whatever it costs to get it. And third are the home-grown Council officers. On the advice of these three sources, the Barnet 10 have made their decision to approve the first stage of the privatization scheme and to award it to Capita.

You might think that an essential way to assess the merits of the Capita deal which will move jobs and services out of Barnet to distant locations with no realistic guarantee of the savings "promised" in the contract, is to compare it with an in-house option to see which is more advantageous. But no comparison of any kind has ever been made.

With the future of Barnet at stake, you'd expect advice to be based on evidence of Capita's conduct and performance records. It has to be assumed that the advisers did their research. Capita's history is well-documented on public record. So it is hard to understand how Capita's performance could possibly be regarded as acceptable, let alone desirable. Barnet is about to be tied into ten years of privatization without an exit clause, without a safety net, and alarmingly without a mandate. If anything goes wrong it will be the residents and businesses of Barnet who will suffer when they are left without services, Council staff and a massive hole in their finances. The Barnet 10 has received their advice and has acted upon it, so the following information must have been available to them when they decided to choose Capita as their preferred contractor.

1. Capita's record of running local government services, e.g. Birmingham,  Southampton, Sefton, Lambeth and Harrow.

• Lambeth: "Capita was in charge of housing and council tax services in Lambeth between 1997 and 2001, but Capita was sacked by Lambeth Council after bringing the south London Borough's housing benefit service to near collapse, with tens of thousands of unprocessed claims leaving many families in danger of eviction.
  "Lambeth Council dumped Capita following a scathing Benefit Fraud Inspectorate three years into a seven year contract. The council's threat to sue Capita for up to £18 million has been dropped so the service can be brought back in-house more quickly".[1]

• Birmingham controversies include the relocation of skilled local jobs to India,[2] [3]complaints of "unfair" choice of Capita for library contract[4] and this year £1 billion outsourcing "falling short".[5]

• Southampton: Just substitute the word 'Barnet' for 'Southampton' in this link.[6] The Council's initial euphoria is followed by a condemning report of the failure of Capita to run Southampton's services.

• Sefton Council were obliged to take back services from Capita after a failure to produce the savings promised.

• Harrow Council, which outsourced it’s IT to Capita, has had a couple of significant IT failures, with “thousands of emails delayed or seemingly lost in the ether” – according to Cllr Susan Hall, Leader of Harrow Conservative Group. One piece of correspondence took the Council 89 days to respond to. And that was just to acknowledge it, not to answer any questions.[8]

2.  Capita has been ditched by various government  departments.

• Home Office: On October 2012 'The Times' reported that the Home Office had terminated Capita's services after ten years: "Capita has lost a flagship contract to manage the Criminal Records Bureau — and some analysts believe the reason is that the company has had it too good for too long." Kevin Lapwood, at the brokers Seymour Pierce, said: “There’s a suspicion that Capita has been earning too high a margin on certain central government contracts.”[9]

• Ministry of Justice: Only yesterday (14.12.12): "A Capita-run database offering interpretation services for cases run by the Ministry of Justice has been described as "chaos" by the Committee of Public Accounts (CPA). The criticism comes as the CPA launched an investigation into the interpretation system, which was built to provide the Ministry of Justice with a system for supplying interpreters to the justice sector. However, Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the CPA, said "almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong" [10]

• Department of Work and Pensions. Capita lost the running of back office services for the Benefits Agency.

3. London Congestion Charge: In 2009 Capita's management of call centres for the London Congestion Charge was transferred to IBM after its first stage.[11]

4.  IT: (See Harrow above). Computer Weekly has criticized Capita's 10-year proposal for the running of Barnet's IT service as outdated, inappropriate and expensive and suggests that there are more up-to-date methods that are far better and cheaper. [12]

5. Financial misconduct. Capita has been fined for financial misconduct but claims that it doesn't have the money to pay.[13] [14]

6. Staff: Capita's treatment of staff includes terminating the employment of established Council staff in favour of cheaper staff outside of the borough, moves to relocate skilled local jobs overseas and paying many employees the minimum wage of £6.11 an hour while Capita Boss Paul Pinder recently complained that he was called a "fat cat" as he "only earns £14,500 per week.  [15]

So this is why the Barnet 10 chose Capita! Just a selection of Capita's abysmal record of outsourcing which the Barnet 10 must have known about if their advisers have done their job. So why would anyone want to touch Capita with a bargepole?  Well the Barnet 10 cannot wait. They are content to deliver the people they are there to serve into the greedy, untrustworthy, incompetent clutches of Capita. What irresistible web does Capita weave that entraps all comers so willingly?  Whatever it is, we may never know as parts of the contract are too "commercially sensitive" ever to be revealed.

There has been no full Council vote on this, so there can be no opposition. Both Labour and Liberal Democrats oppose the scheme. The right to vote has been denied them and their objections have been ignored. But in any case, the Tories have an unbeatable majority.

We have not been consulted and our objections have not been heard, but we can exercise the only democratic right left to us and let the Barnet 10 know whether or not we are happy with their choice of handing over Barnet's services and jobs to Capita by using our vote in 2014. 

If you don't know the identity of the Barnet 10, there is a list below that gives their names and the wards they represent.  

The Barnet 10 have already started making excuses. They claim that benefits of privatization will not be apparent at first but will be incremental over the years.  

But at least we now know that they chose Capita in full knowledge that their decision could ruin Barnet for the foreseeable future with no care for the consequences to us, its people.

THE BARNET 10

aka BARNET COUNCIL CABINET

Richard Cornelius

Totteridge

Daniel Thomas Finchley Church End	Andrew  Harper Garden Suburb
David Longstaff High Barnet	Sachin Rajput Oakleigh
Joanna Tambourides former East Barnet	Dean Cohen Golders Green
Tom Davey Hale	Helena Hart Edgware

Robert Rams

former East Barnet

Advisers

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·       Consultants: 
iMpower, 14  Clerkenwell Close, Clerkenwell,London, EC1R 0AN Tel: 020 7017 8030;
Agilisys, 6-28 Hammersmith Grove, London W6 7AW Tel: 0845 450 1131

·       Legal advisers:
Trowers & Hamlins, London Head Office: 3 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8YZ Tel: 020 7423 8000;

·       Officers of Barnet Council

·      Initiator of 'One Barnet' (Easy Council): Mike Freer, MP

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[1] http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/lambeth-writes-off-%C2%A318m-as-it-ditches-capita/111665.articlehttp://www.insidehousing.co.uk/lambeth-writes-off-%C2%A318m-as-it-ditches-capita/111665.article

[2] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240105087/Backlash-leads-Birmingham-City-Council-to-reconsider-Capita-plan-to-offshore-IT-jobs

[3] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280096000/Birmingham-Councils-offshore-move-could-trigger-public-sector-outsourcing-exodus

[4] http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2011/08/25/probe-launched-into-how-birmingham-library-contract-was-won-by-capita-65233-29296221

[5] m.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2229738/capitas-gbp1bn-service-birmingham-venture-falls-short …

[6] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240082217/Southampton-council-awards-ten-year-contract-to-Capita

[7] http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/1078

[8] http://www.iharrow.com/council/email-disaster-at-harrow-council

[9] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/supportservices/article3557977.ece

[10] http://news.techeye.net/business/capitas-dog-eared-ministry-of-justice-database-slammed#ixzz2FEgMFWgk

[11] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/26/environment.congestioncharging

[12] computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2012/12/barnet-fire-sale-neglects-real.html#.UMJhkL7OpL9.twitter …

[13] http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/regulation/adviser-anger-as-capita-fm-escapes-4m-fsa-fine-over-arch-cru/1062221.article

[14] ^{http://m.citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/capita-faces-fresh-attack-over-arch-cru-scandal/a644411?ref=new-model-adviser-latest-news-list}

[15] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334377/Capita-boss-Paul-Pindar-14k-week-How-dare-fat-cat.html