If you want to get a flavour of one of the most enraging and frustrating council committees' meetings that active residents from CADDSS (the Campaign Against Destruction of Disabled Support Services) and BAPS, along with other disabled residents who use Your Choice services and their family carers had to endure – read Mrs Angry's Broken Barnet blog.         It was so frustrating because it became clearer than ever that Barnet's

In Barnet Capita have taken control, They now control the residents body and soul For many of us it's been a bitter pill, To be forced out of Barnet into Capitaville Chorus They hand over 16mil an what do you get. Silence from Tories and deeper in debt St Peter don't you call us cos we can't go They sold our soul to the Capita Store.   Before the contract signing Capita had to pay But after the signing its gone the other way. Capita were supposed

The below was intended to be sent by Mike Freer MP to an unknown addressee, but instead hit the mail box of the occupiers of his front yard surgery. Enjoy! From: FREER, Mike <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 7:20 AM Subject: Re: Invitation for direct democratic To: Bohemian <[email protected]> err no email told them to phone and we would follow our usual procedures. which they seem unable to do. I am

  Your Choice Barnet (YCB), formerly a Barnet Council service for adults with disabilities, and now a Local Authority Trading Company, has accumulated losses since it was formed as a profit-making provider, resulting in detrimental changes to service users and staff alike. We have been working with the parent/carer campaign group CADDSS (Campaign Against Destruction of Disability Support Services) to bring this failing service back under the

On Thursday, 14 November, Barnet residents gathered at the Greek-Cypriot Centre in North Finchley for a rousing public meeting about austerity and privatization, organised by the Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS). In short but emphatic addresses, the panel of national and local campaigners detailed not only what was wrong with the Government’s policies but what people could and needed to do about them, and received an enthusiastic response

Apparently, Your Choice Barnet, to whom Barnet council outsourced the services for severely disabled people, is charging disabled service users VAT if they receive direct payment. Janet Leifer of CADDSS was puzzled by this and followed it up. Janet also asked who regulates the day care services and as you will see below Mr. D’Costa told her these are carried out by “our Integrated Quality in Care Homes Team.” This team is made up in part from

  Dear Cllr Cornelius,   As residents and business taxpayers of the London Borough of Barnet we feel we must write to you as Leader of Barnet Council to express our deep concern about what appear to have been deliberately misleading statements about the outsourcing contract with Capita. We were told that Capita would be providing an up-front investment of several million pounds in order to fund new IT systems and other expenditure. The

This is the summary of Mrs. Angry expose of how Barnet Council mislead  the public. This is just the first example of how dearly WE pay TO Capita for the One Barnet programme. The full blog is here. The leader and Cabinet members of the Conservative group have maintained that the One Barnet programme of privatisation is necessary because of the need to make savings - and because we cannot achieve these savings without a level of investment from

  The North London People’s Assembly met at the Haringey Cypriot Centre in Wood Green on 26 October. The main room was packed: all seats occupied and people standing around the edges, which is always a good sign. The opening session started on time, with a welcome from Elaine Graham-Leigh, who outlined the plan for the day. The speakers in the opening session were Andy Bain of Islington Hands Off Our Public Services (IHOOPS); Owen Jones, the

Last Thursday saw the first bedroom tax court cases in Barnet. We learned about it by a chance the night before, and sent out a call out to support those threatened with eviction. Our members who attended the court came out with a sense of urgency and a clear need for a campaign to tackle this horribly unjust new tax. Similar campaigns in other boroughs resulted in councils deciding not to evict social housing tenants for rent arrears stemming from