Agenda item

The following public questions were received and the answers given as set out below. Those members of the public who had asked the questions and who were present asked supplementary questions, to which the answers were given.

 

FROM MS THERESA MUSGROVE

Re. Item 5: Former Church Farmhouse Museum

 

1. In my view, and the view of many residents, the closure and ransacking of the Church Farmhouse Museum was an act of cultural vandalism, and a shameful indictment of the present Tory administration's disregard for the heritage of this borough.
The library was closed in order to sell the building and land for capital profit: it has not sold, and it is now being leased to Middlesex University: my question therefore is do the councillors not agree that the closure of the Museum was unjustifiable, and that the building should be given back to the use of the community for the purpose it was intended to serve?

 

RESPONSE:
Members of this committee do not agree that the closure of the museum was unjustifiable given the cuts to the Council's funding.  The lease to Middlesex University allows an element of community use.  Interested community groups include HADAS, the Hendon and District Archaeological Society whose volunteers also run community educational courses. 

2. Over a year ago, there was a rather muted consultation with residents regarding the use of the grounds surrounding the Museum. Despite two requests I have not received any information about the result of this consultation: please provide a response now as to the number of residents' replies, and the data that was provided by this consultation.

RESPONSE:

Following the S123 (A) advertising in January and February 2012, the Council received  8 responses which involved some 83 residents. Many of the points raised were in relation to future concerns over development and loss of amenity land, which is strongly protected under planning law, or could be protected by a covenant on the land.  

Under the current proposal which is for 4 years only, the surrounding grounds will be available to the public as an amenity area, but the cost to manage this land will be covered by the University.

3. Point 9.6 of this item is of concern to anyone who worries about the fragile condition of this beautiful listed building: references to 'improvements' would appear to be completely inappropriate in this context. What consultation has the council taken with English Heritage over the proposed improvements?

 

RESPONSE:

None as of yet, however, any improvements will require planning permission which will bring the opportunity of public consultation. At this stage the University has indicated it will improve the heating, utility connections and other health and safety matters, for example, safer floor loadings. These will need to go through the planning process, including Listed Building Consent which will include consultation with the public and English Heritage.  English Heritage will not permit changes which may be detrimental or not in character of this heritage building.

 

 

FROM MR. GERRARD ROOTS

Re. Item 5; Former Church Farmhouse Museum

 

1. Church Farmhouse Museum has been offered for sale, with singular lack of success, since January 2012. If Middlesex University had had a strong interest in the building it would surely have been expressed before now. Barnet council admits that the deal with the University 'represents less than best consideration'. Is it not the case that Middlesex University is taking on a building that it can do little with, merely to spare Barnet council the embarrassment of keeping the Museum building, which the Council closed against the wishes of its constituents, empty and rotting, in the run-up to next year's elections?

 

RESPONSE:

Middlesex University as reported is a Strategic Partner working with the Council in this location and was given the opportunity to express an interest in this property. Expensive professional survey work to assess the building was carried out by them and as a result a formal proposal was submitted. The potential letting put forward is a practical  solution to ensure the building is maintained at a time grant funding is unlikely to be available due to the economic recession. This matter has been brought forward irrespective of political elections, due to the need to protect this building.

 

2.   At 9.6 the Report states that Middlesex University 'has a strong record of working well with English Heritage and of achieving improvements to heritage buildings'. However, the University's experience is only with Grade II Listed buildings (Trent Park, Hendon Town Hall, the Barn at the Model Farm House) where, providing the exteriors were untouched, some leeway was allowed on alterations to the interiors. Church Farmhouse is not only considerably older, and architecturally more distinguished, than the buildings that the Univerisity has dealt with before, but is also listed Grade II*, with all the strictures on changes to the interior of the building that that implies. Has Barnet made the University fully aware of  the constraints it will be working under?

 

RESPONSE:

Yes, the University has full appreciation over the historic status of this property and what is required to work through any internal changes to the building. The University will be instructing specialists who will have the necessary expertise, these specialists have experience of all types of Heritage Property and improvements will have to go through the planning process in consultation with English Heritage.

 

3.  At 8 in the 'Heads of Terms' it is stated that 'the hiring of the premises for community, fundraising and recreational purposes will be permitted from 7pm- 10pm and on Saturday 9am- 10pm'. Has the University given Barnet assurances that English Heritage will be consulted on the suitability of each activity before it takes place? Furthermore, it is unclear whether this permission extends to cover the use of the Museum garden. If it does, will the Committee confirm that, whatever activities may take place, the Museum garden will remain open to the public at all times, as is presently the case?

 

RESPONSE:

The University will be accountable to the Council for the uses in the building. As with any listed building, English Heritage do not need to be consulted in this way over every activity. The grounds are to remain open to the public, the only change is that the University will be covering the costs to manage the land.

 

4. Will Barnet council undertake to resolve the problem of the pond in the Museum garden, which has become a matter of some controversy, before Middlesex University takes up its lease, or does the Council intend to leave this shambles, caused by Barnet's neglect over the past several years, for the University to sort out?

RESPONSE:

The Council will be working with the University to work through a solution for the pond.

FROM MR DEREK DISHMAN

Re. Item 10: CCTV Options 

 

1.      Is the numbering of the appendices all wrong? For example, para 4.2 of the business case which is itself Appendix 1 refers to the options appraisal as Appendix 1 and then further down the page it says that the outcomes from the soft market testing are in appendix 2 but that is the EIA. (I will leave you to check the rest of the document)

Apologies, there are numbering errors in some instances within the report. Specifically:

In the cover report:

6.2 and 6.3 should read Appendix1

 

In CCTV Outline Business Case (which is Appendix 1)

4.2 ‘initial options appraisal’ and ‘the outcomes from the soft market testing’ have not been appended to CRC report.

 

2.      Please can I have copies of any appendices which have not been exhibited including the Initial Options Appraisal.

Initial options appraisal - this was an officer report and has been superseded by the OBC – it should not have been referenced in the CRC report – this was a version control issue.

Soft market testing – full report is commercially confidential but attached is an edited version with commercial information removed.

 

3.      All existing staff are to be TUPE transferred to the new provider (para 6.7). Is there anything to stop the new provider making most of them redundant in the first 12 months as happened to the parking back office staff in the first month of transfer?

At present we do not know who the preferred bidder(s) are and what their intentions might be in future.

Once appointed, the preferred bidder(s) could decide following the transfer that a restructure of the service was needed for an economic, technical or organisational reason.

This would require a consultation of 45 days at least and any staff impacted would also be consulted through a one to one meeting to identify suitable alternative employment and/or training & development opportunities before any redundancies are considered. If anyone were to be made redundant, they would receive contractual notice and redundancy based on LBB terms and conditions. During the consultation they would be allowed time off for interviews, training and Employee Assistance.

 

4.      Please may I have a breakdown of the implementation costs (assuming it is not in the Initial Options Appraisal) as listed for each of the 3 options at para 6.4 of the report.

 

Assumed implementation costs are follows:

 

	Fully Outsourced	Outsource Technical	In House
	Budget (£)	Budget(£)	Budget(£)
Scoping, Soft Market Testing and Business Case Development	56,982	56,982	56,982
Project Management	33,800	33,800	33,800
Consultancy	40,000	40,000	60,000
Legal	65,000	60,000	30,000
HR	28,000	8,000	8,000
Finance	6,000	6,000	9,000
Contingency	17,280	14,780	16,108
TOTAL	247,062	219,562	234,170

 

 

5.      Please can the committee confirm that before the action set out in para 9.8 is implemented the proposed "clear principles" of the sale to private companies of cctv services are placed in front of a committee so that the public can see what exactly is proposed and ask questions before it is too late.

These will be included in the Full Business Case to be brought back to CRC.

 

6.      Will the council abide by the recommendations of the Secretary of State for Transport and only use cctv for parking contraventions (as opposed to moving traffic offences) where the location is sensitive or difficult and not practical to enforce on foot? (which includes by a CEO travelling by scooter )

Parking enforcement is not the purpose of this procurement  and there are no plans to use the cameras for this purpose.

 

7.      Will the control room be located in Barnet?

Options for the location of the control room will be considered during the procurement exercise.

 

8.      If the answer to Q7 is no or unknown will an office be maintained locally for residents to visit, view and obtain a copy of cctv recordings on payment of £10 and provision of proof of identity as at present.

Providing access  for  residents to view or obtain a copy of their image on the CCTV system (as currently described in the CCTV code of practice) will be included in the specification. The means of that access is to be confirmed.

 

9.      The Brighton Argus recently obtained details under FOI of the costs of cctv in East Sussex which revealed that 400 cameras are monitored at a cost of £605,000 a year for the equipment and £670,000 for staffing which makes these tabled proposals look like very poor value indeed. Will an officer talk to or visit Brighton to analyse their costs and see if we could benefit from any of their cost saving ideas.

Yes, we will include East Sussex in the benchmarking exercise. We are already looking at a number of other authorities to identify good practice and value for money. A comparison of costs is not simple though given the requirement in Barnet for replacement equipment. One of advantages of an outsource is to bring expertise and best practice from the market to bring down cost.