Wednesday 29 March 2023 – Rotten Borough
On the first Monday of
the month, I got my weekly reminder to do my Manual Handling Training.
“Clarke, Paul has a requirement to complete Induction- Manual Handling Training (H&F_H&S_ELG_REQ_0003b), for Curriculum Induction Curriculum due on 19/1/2022 23:59 Europe/London”
This was my 111th weekly reminder and I’ve missed my deadline for completion by nearly 14 months but, as far as I am aware, I’ve passed my induction and since had my job deleted and I have been recruited into a new job for which no induction was seemingly required, and I have yet to find myself faced with a task at work to manually handle anything. But I still get automated reminders to complete training for my induction to a job that they have since deleted, to which I am referred to in the third person despite the email being addressed only to me, with an oblique reference code along with confirmation of which international time zone to which the deadline refers, confusingly referencing two different international time zones. For the 111th time, I didn’t fancy it and, being a bit of a job snob, am determined that manually handling anything is not in my remit. When I first started, I did complete all three interminable hours of the Time Management course, unlike my colleague who left the Personal Resilience workshop early because he couldn’t hack it. However, on this occasion, an online course for How the Council Works caught my eye which I did do. It elegantly lays out in an easy-to-understand format the difference between councillors and officers: the political and the executive arms of the council. The contents were:
· - how the council’s agenda and budget are decided by
Full Council (comparable to Central Government’s Parliament),
· - how policy decisions are made by Cabinet,
· - how the Senior Leadership Team of officers (SLT) has
governance processes to ensure that decisions made in the execution of
delivering policies comply with councillors’ decisions, and
· - how councillors can create and lead subject
scrutiny committees, with the aid of governance officers independent to that
service, to scrutinise individual services to ensure they are being delivered
to the public (comparable to Government’s Public Accounts Committees).
It concludes that
officers don’t make decisions; politicians make decisions and SLT oversees the
execution of them with independent governance.
At the end of the online course, one is set multiple choice questions. I scored 100%; it isn’t difficult to follow the premise. But SLT does seem to struggle with it. The idea of politics as a mendacious trade is a cliché. But what motivates SLT to undermine politicians’ decisions when they are simply paid (very well) to execute them is less understood. On 28 February, for the umpteenth time, the Head of Contract Governance for the Housing and Regeneration service, determined to bypass governance of Social Value policy for housing and regeneration contracts, emailed me a contract award report which included the paragraphs:
“19. The Council’s Social Value policy requires that all contracts greater than £100k in value must require the contractor to deliver Social Value equivalent to 10% of the contract value (as measured by the Council’s TOMs matrix).
“20. A clause will be included in the [supplier’s] contract to cover this requirement.”
Rather than reply for the umpteenth time saying that the social value measures must be required (isn’t that redundant?) to be proposed as part of the proposal, not after the contract is awarded, because he already knows this because I’ve told him umpteen times now, I just added my comments and returned to him the report to stop him wasting his and my time for the umpteenth time:
“31. It is a requirement that all contracts awarded by the council with a value above £100,000 propose social value contributions that are additional to the core services required under the contract. This proposal should be assessed as reasonable and the commitments amount to at least 10% in value of the price of the contract before the contract is awarded.
“32. Paragraph 20 above states that the proposal will be required after the award of the contract. This is not compliant with the policy in paragraph 31.”
Job done and my comments were good enough for him; he had followed the governance process, which is his only role in the council, and had all comments on the implications of this contract award. Now he could send the report to the Contracts Assurance Board (CAB) to consider approval to award the contract to this supplier. That the report explicitly says the award is not compliant with council policy didn’t seem to bother the Head of Contract Governance and he sent it anyway.
Obviously, CAB, which met the following day, was not happy approving, and then publishing, an award report that says the award of a £2,000,000 contract is not compliant. Something had to be done. They could go back to the Head of Contract Governance and get him to govern the procurement of the contract in a way that was compliant with council policy, his only job. No. Instead, they sent the report back to the commenting officer to change the comments to say that the award was compliant.
They sent it to me indirectly. CAB asked my Assistant Director to “correct” it. He called me on Tuesday 7 March, the day before CAB met again, and asked me to email him the report. On review of the original report, he replied,
“Thanks Paul,
“I’m happy with the
content for para. 31.
“If you could please
delete para. 32.
“If you could then send back this amended version to [the Head of Contract Governance] and cc me in.
“Thanks
“[Assistant Director
Economic Development]”
What? No. Why would I? Paragraph 32 is rather the point. If I delete it, all I’m doing is describing what the council’s policy is and not commenting on this contract award. My build-up needs a conclusion or otherwise it is a non-sequitur. But CAB is not worried about my writing style or whether the report even makes much sense, so long as it doesn’t have the words “not compliant” in it when it is published and then can be read by councillors. And rather than get the senior officer who is responsible for the governance of the compliance of contract awards in his directorate to do it compliantly, the AD instead sends it back to me to delete my comment. This is a whole new level of bizarre that I’m struggling to get my head round. I replied to the AD to make sure I understood what he was asking me to do and make sure he understood what he was asking me to do, even if it did seem quite obvious; I had to ask the obvious:
“Hi [AD],
“If I delete paragraph 32, then it won’t make any sense. Para 32 is the commentary.
“Paul.”
He conceded,
“Ok.
“If you can just adjust
original wording in such a way which takes out the phrase that ‘it is not
compliant’
“ – And just reiterate
what is committed in para 20”
That was my one and only comment. Instead he wants me to repeat what the Head of Contract Governance has reported he has done and not comment on it, which would seem to imply I am approving of it. But I am not. And why ask for my comments if CAB then doesn’t want them? And why have a Social Value policy at all if CAB doesn’t want it?
The answer is, it is because councillors want it, and it seems to be that officers on the Contracts Assurance Board (CAB) and councillors are in conflict over this policy. But my online induction course explained that officers don’t make political decisions, they are only supposed to execute the policies of councillors. And there are governance processes in place to ensure that politicians’ policies are executed. And I am employed to be part of that governance process.
But, in our day-to-day work, senior officers do have their own political opinions and feel that they can order their subordinates to do their bidding. And CAB doesn’t want councillors to know they are defying them. The AD emailed me again to add,
“Sorry – meant to add. [The Strategic Director of Economy] asked [the Head of Contract Governance] to send to you the social value spreadsheet [the “TOMs matrix” which is the supplier’s proposed social value measures] by close of play today in relation to this contract.”
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t. So I didn’t delete paragraph 32. My manager spoke to me about this on the Friday. He told me that, because I “failed” to do what my AD had asked me to do, the AD changed my comments himself and resubmitted the report to CAB. I asked him did he put his name to it then? He asked me if I could please change the comments when I am asked to by the AD. Hmmm, he didn’t answer my question. I asked him again, did the AD delete my name from the social value comments and add his own? He replied that he didn’t know but would assume he did since they were his comments. So I answered his question. No. I’m not going to lie to CAB and councillors. I am asked to comment on compliance with policy. If it is not compliant, then that is my comment. I explained my thinking to him and asked him, what’s the point of the exercise otherwise? He replied that CAB cannot publish the report if it says the award is non-compliant. I told him that was rather the point. We compromised that if an award is not compliant, I should send it to him and he will write the comments. Wow, this will save me an awful lot of pointless work and I now just have to cut and paste comments that an award is compliant, by far the minority of all awards.
I still don’t understand why senior managers want to undermine councillors’ policy. “Social value is a childish way of having a whip-round with suppliers to pay for some services”, our AD announced in one meeting, dismissing it as a “red herring” in any economic development strategy. And “all IAG [one-to-one employment Information, Advice and Guidance] does is get people into rubbish jobs. We should be trying to create careers in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] jobs for our residents.” I hope he didn’t say this to our Employment Advice Team who are helping our unemployed residents into “rubbish” jobs like construction, admin and council graduate roles. They may not be engineering and sciencing jobs, but working-class people need jobs too and they shouldn’t be so easily dismissed by middle-class senior managers. And residents need council services for which funding has been cut drastically over the past 13 years despite the number of salaries for ADs and Directors seemingly not being diminished and the suppliers with which they have always worked being awarded valuable contracts while being protected from making any new contributions, dismissed instead as “childish” and hiding these dismissals from democratically-elected councillors. But the senior managers have made up their own minds. They don’t understand what it can be like for those left behind both by the jobs market and the public services that are supposed to support them. I want to say to them, you don’t seem to care what it is like for some residents without this support. You will never understand how it feels to live your life with no meaning or control and with no where left to go. We are amazed that you senior managers exist and you burn so bright whilst we can only wonder why (especially when you show so little talent for the exalted jobs you have been given). You’ll never watch your life slide out of view so you just want to focus the council’s support on more career opportunities for those people like you who will prosper anyway (not that you know how to do this either) at the expense of support for people who feel excluded from the labour market and have little prospects and hope otherwise? But so far there has been no scrutiny from councillors like my How the Council Works course said there can be.
On Monday, Head of Business Development for supplier AJS Ltd, emailed me his report and evidence of social value delivered. It becomes clear from reports that ask for minutiae just how intertwined council officers’ work is with the services they procure, in this case, housing estate management. The line between council-employed officer responsible for asking for social value, and procured, private-sector and profit-orientated supplier responsible for delivering it, becomes blurred. Three local residents were reported to be employed on the contract as Resident Liaison Officers (“RLOs”), a traditional council role supporting residents of council estates (and I’m sure those residents are led to understand that the RLOs are council officers). Has AJS employed them or does AJS just manage a council contract in which these residents are employed? Is there a difference? I didn’t question it. However, an apprentice claimed was specifically a council-employed officer on loan to AJS with his salary and course fees still paid by the council, given away by the fact that AJS didn’t report what apprenticeship course he was on or when he started in the job because they didn’t know. And they reported that a local supplier, CEF, had been contracted to deliver the council’s Electrical, Access Control & Fire Safety contract citing the commissioning organisation as “LBHF”. I replied to the supplier asking for clarification:
“I don’t understand the local procurement claim in the Supply Chain tab (it may be a similar situation to the apprenticeship). If LBHF commissioned CEF, why is AJS claiming the social value for it in its supply chain?”
AJS also claimed two apprentices who are
not local residents or seemingly working on LBHF’s estate, with one from Erith
in Kent and the other from Carshalton in Surrey. I questioned,
“The social value for apprenticeships is only for local residents. Tommy and Ashley are not LBHF residents?”
He replied,
“Hi Paul,
“Thanks for this. To clarify, the criteria for apprentices under SV portal never stated local…
“In terms of supply chain, AJS commissioned CEF as this process would have nothing to do with LBHF – it is our responsibility and function to purchase materials for contract delivery.
“In addition, we wanted to use CEF for the purchase of the Intratone door entry kit for the installation contract but LBHF specified that we use a Hertfordshire based company called Smart Merchants. This was an opportunity missed to increase local spend.”
“Kind regards
“[Head of
Business Development for AJS]”
Ok, I didn’t further question that LBHF, being reported by AJS as the “commissioning organisation”, has “nothing to do with LBHF” and just accepted the social value contribution. After all, local public-money-spend is a contribution to local economic development regardless of who the commissioning organisation is, and I sense already that the replies from AJS are snarky and will have little relationship with making much sense, never mind clarifying matters for me. I remind myself again I must pick my battles. My decision was further reinforced by that barb against the council that they specified a non-local supplier be procured, for whom the procuring manager has just said this has “nothing to do with” the council, telling me that he has no intention of being rational or conceding any deference to his commissioners but, rather, happy to be bellicose about officers’ decision-making on “his” contract.
I didn’t know what “the criteria” from a third party, Social Value Portal, was to which he referred, but, working for a local authority in London, I am unable to claim Home Counties residents as local residents benefitting from the council’s expenditure, so I did have to reply reiterating that social value only refers to local residents employed. He replied saying that he did advertise the apprenticeships with the council’s Employment Advice Team but that no candidates applied and that this was their failing, not his. Maybe, but it’s still not social value. He has another apprenticeship to advertise which I asked him to send to me. I wanted to personally assure that this one would be made available to a local candidate or find out why our residents don’t seem to want to work for AJS. Either our residents are not being selected when they are supposed to be ring-fenced to them, or no local residents are applying.
I found out which yesterday when he emailed me the job description. The apprenticeships pay poverty wages. The council’s policy is we are a London Living Wage (LLW) employer and paying LLW is a requirement for all the council’s contractors if they want to do business with the council. I replied enquiring,
“I note the salary is advertised at £12k. Does your contract require that staff employed on the contract are paid London Living Wage?”
Confused, I also forwarded the email to AJS’s contract manager in the council asking him is paying LLW written into their contract? He replied saying that,
“I have just searched and I can’t find any reference to… London Living Wage in their contract.”
So I emailed the Head of Corporate Procurement asking, “…does the council require its suppliers to pay its staff London Living Wage?”
Staying in character, when he replies at all, he replied as usual with nonsense:
“Paul,
“Good question – normally I would say yes.
“But for Apprentices this is not always the case – the Living Wage Foundation web site gives good information.
“I’m note [sic] sure what the exact Council Policy is – GLA [Greater London Authority] policy is we pay the LLW.
“I think this is one for… HR.
“[Head of Corporate Procurement]”
The Head of Corporate Procurement doesn’t know whether it is a policy to require all procured contractors to pay their staff LLW and he has no intention of finding out. What the council’s HR team has got to do with the HR management of private companies is left somewhat hanging to say the least. Just to be clear he understood my query, I replied,
“Thanks [Head of Corporate Procurement],
“My question was more around do we require suppliers pay LLW rather than should we require it [I wasn’t asking for his political opinion].
“[…]
“I’ll ask [my Head of Service] where we stand with this in terms of advertising these to our residents.
“Thanks,
“Paul.”
He didn’t reply.
I emailed my Head of Service, the council’s Head of Employment & Skills, responsible for managing the service that only includes me and the Employment Advice Team, a rare matter that pertains to both elements of his service, copying in the manager of the Employment Advice Team, “Can you provide some guidance on what we are supposed to do with job vacancies like these?”
He didn’t reply.
The AJS manager did:
“Paul, [the “Hi Paul” and “Thanks Paul” niceties have been dropped which is not a good sign of what is to follow]
“I have search [sic] through the tender documents for with contracts [sic] and also searched through the [Social Value Portal (SVP) used to give a structure to bidders’ social value proposals] for the access control contract on SVP. I cannot find any reference to the apprentices having to be local, only local [employees]. [It doesn’t say this and does specify local contributions only]. Please send me the evidence as such and I will be satisfied and accept your assertion. If you are not happy with this, then just pull the figure for apprentices from the total – that is up to you.
“Please bear in mind that AJS has stepped up to the plate and been more than generous when asked to contribute to council initiatives such as the £5k we have last year [sic] after being asked to make a contribution to your cost of living initiatives [which he claimed in his social value report without providing any evidence of having made this donation despite being prompted to do so], and the £12.5k for the Grenfell commemoration we were asked to contribute [which isn’t a social value contribution (see For the Betterment of the People), and for which he provided no evidence of paying despite being prompted to do so]. These were not part of our commitments [it was part of their commitments to deliver 10% social value and were otherwise vague at the time of submitting their bid what exactly they would deliver]. It does feel that we are being punished here and not recognised for what we have done which is more than other contractors.
“The Apprenticeship rates are set by the Joint Industry Tribunal (JIB) and those advertised by AJS also have the London weighting. See the below extract from the London Living Wage Foundation website:
“Statutory apprentice wages are lower than the minimum wage as a contribution to the cost of training, particularly in the earlier stages where apprentices may spend more time training than working. [He didn’t say whether the apprentice in question spends more time training than working]. For the same reason we do not require apprentices to be paid the Living Wage.”
“I will consult in-house with HR and will pull the apprentice advert now as you feel it does not comply with LBHF policy on the Living Wage.
“[…]
“Kind regards
“[Head of Business Development for AJS]”
Yikes. If my intention was to not pick this battle with AJS, then my seeming Parent tone has still triggered his Child alter-ego. According to his temper tantrum, it’s clearly unfair, no other child has to do it, and his unrivalled generosity is not appreciated. And appreciate it I must because he’s going to put his foot down otherwise and I am going to get nothing more.
This reproachful approach is not going to work on me, though, and nor should it. We are not haggling here. This is not a Middle-Eastern bazaar. He is not being generous and I’m not being mean; it is simply what he is contracted to do. This is a publicly-funded contract for which council officers are accountable (not that you could tell from both the objectivity and antipathy in the email replies (and non-replies) to me from my colleagues, including my own manager, the Head of Employment & Skills). I neither know nor care what the JIB is, never mind what its justification is for paying poverty wages. And I shouldn’t mind what the Living Wage Foundation says either because, as a council officer, I am bound to what the council’s policy is only and it is not for me to look up what other organisations think despite the Head of Corporate Procurement thinking this is the thing to do. Despite what the AJS manager suggests, I don’t “feel” anything; it is council policy and I am doing my best to execute it, with little and no help or interest from my colleagues and manager. But he is right about one thing: AJS is still by far one of the most generous contributors of social value that Hammersmith and Fulham has ever had.
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