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News and Comment July 2024

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14 July (Part 1) - Debate and dither

Just one more bit of Finance and Corporate Services to cover. A Committee had made four recommendations about the Financial Monitoring Processes (PDF). They were to challenge any underperforming revenue generation, scrutinise deviation from expected outcomes, the Council to train Councillors in capital monitoring and to ensure that any new software introduced next year is efficiently introduced. It will sound like a statement of the obvious to most people but Councils are not most people.

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) referred to the final recommendation, the proposed new software system and it was the only one of the four recommendations to see any comment.

He presumed the current system is not good enough. (Long term readers will recall how a system called Axiom was brought to Bexley by the Finance Director recruited from oneSource and widely criticised at the time. As soon as he left oneSource, they ditched Axiom because it wasn’t good enough. The same FD had used Axiom in Barnet too where it was also found lacking.)

The former FD’s protégé from Barnet said that the Axiom software contract comes to an end next February but “we are not so much looking for something as ensuring we have the right package or we move to something better. If we have a tool that works for us, or say to 80%, financially one would want to limit the cost of something brand new. We are looking at what the tool we have can do and what we could do better with it or looking for what is out there on the market.”

So as a software tool comes to the end of its contracted life, only then does Bexley Council look into how it might be used better? Are all the senior managers clowns?

Later it was said that if the support issues can be resolved Axiom might be “continued for another few years because when it is working users find it easy to use and they understand it which is a benefit. If there is not another package out there which is better we will probably continue with Axiom but we are still looking at the options and some integrated solutions are extremely costly. Things we could do differently [with Axiom] would support it for another few years.” Confidence inspiring as always and nothing learned from Barnet or oneSource.

Councillor Borella (Labour, Slade Green) referred to the 30% car parking charge increases of a couple of years ago some of which proved to be counter-productive and implied a better modelling tool was needed.

Cabinet Member David Leaf thought a decision on what package is to be selected will be reached by October. He continued in more general terms while admitting to still reeling from the election defeat.

Councillor Borella reacted to that defeat by rubbing salt into his wounds. Two Labour MPs in Bexley he gloated while acknowledging a third former Bexley Councillor occupying the Old Bexley seat.

Strong and StableWe now have “Strong and Stable Government” he said which is hardly a ringing endorsement given what happened when we last had one of those. He is feeling “happy and really good”.

Continuing his theme he said “we have a Labour Mayor, a Labour Government and in twenty six we want to see a Labour Council”.

I was inclined to think that the one good thing that came out of the election result is that two years is more than enough to make a colossal mess of everything they touch, thus ensuring another four years of relative sanity in Bexley. By God they are awful at times but not nearly as awful as neighbouring Labour boroughs.

Make the most of your happiness Stef because it is not going to last.

The Chairman asked if Councillor Francis was going to stand down from his Councillor position now that he is an MP but there was nothing more than the mildest hint that he might do so. Labour wouldn’t want to be seen as hypocrites would they? They created something of a fuss when Councillor Bacon clung on to his position after being elected to Parliament in December 2019. Councillor Bacon’s situation was complicated by the decision to delay the GLA election until 2021 because of Covid.

 

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