By Barnet Unison What is a Joint Venture? A joint venture is usually a company that is part owned by the council and part by a private contractor. There are different kinds of company that can be used for a joint venture but the most common are where each party invests, i.e. takes shares in the company, or where each party guarantees the company’s liabilities up to a fixed amount. These types of company are known respectively as Company Limited

1) Budget challenge = need for One Barnet Programme Barnet Council’s ‘Barnet First’ magazine for September 2012 identifies that £72.5m is required to be saved from the baseline budget over the four year period 2011-12 to 2014-15.  The Council’s budget book identifies £43m of savings to be delivered in the three year period 2012-13 and 2014-15.  This means that the Council has already delivered £29.5m worth of savings or 40% of the required

In-house/public sector comparator Barnet Alliance is campaigning to oppose the One Barnet programme and at the same time asking that Barnet Council commit to developing an in-house comparator. It is important that residents understand what this means and how other councils invest in ensuring that best practice in this field is followed. What have the private sector bidders been doing? For the last 12 months the bidders have had full access to all

Following an impromptu public meeting in Chipping Barnet library during councillors' ward surgeries on 15 September, in which a lively discussion was followed by what seemed like a potential opening for a genuine dialogue between councillors and residents, we are still waiting for a reply from Cllr Cornelius about a joint public meeting to be organised by BAPS and the council. Alternatively, BAPS will be happy to host such a meeting if Cllr Cornelius

The public should know what some members of the public, some of them from Barnet Alliance for Public Services, learned in meetings with councillors in their ward surgeries during August and September: That Cllr Joanna Tambourides of East Barnet, a Cabinet member, did not read any of the reports of the Association for Public Services Excellence offering constructive criticism of the One Barnet Programme of privatisation; nor did she attend any of

How much do you know about Barnet Council's "One Barnet" outsourcing programme, and programmes like it? If only all Barnet residents knew as much as this person... [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wb3QloW7No&w=420&h=315]

Open Letter to all 63 Councillors in the London Borough of Barnet Dear Councillors, It must be a challenging task to make decisions on behalf of all the residents in the London Borough of Barnet. These decisions involve so many areas of our lives – education, social care, health, housing, the environment. It must be even more difficult at a time of austerity when you are forced to make such difficult decisions about how to spend our money wisely