Barnet's "easyCouncil" plan is at one with the principles and practice of Tory government

By Simon Fletcher

The Guardian has exposed to a national audience the radical right wing plans of the Conservative London borough of Barnet, now nicknamed “easyCouncil” for its adoption of a budget airline approach to public services.

“Barnet wants householders to pay extra to jump the queue for planning consents, in the way budget airlines charge extra for priority boarding,” reports the Guardian.  “And as budget airline passengers choose to spend their budget on either flying at peaktime or having an in-flight meal, recipients of adult social care in Barnet will choose to spend a limited budget on whether to have a cleaner or a respite carer or even a holiday to Eastbourne.”

The Guardian leader fears where all this may lead:

“As in the 1980s, there will be new "local discretion" in interpreting social obligations. As in the 1980s, there will also be much talk of choice and of charity. And as in the 1980s, it will soon ring hollow if the upshot is that there is no one around to help an old lady in need.”

The truth is that Barnet is aiming for a radical programme of cuts and privatisation, no different – despite the new ways of explaining it – to the policies that were pursued to such a damaging effect on public services and investment in the 1980s and 1990s.

As the Labour group leader in Barnet, Alison Moore, said today:

“It's fine to offer ‘no-frills’ airline services in a market where there is lots of choice available for those who can pay extra for a better service, as airlines are not delivering critical frontline services.  What we face is residents having to pay extra for everything that is beyond an absolute basic service where only those who can afford it get the quality service.”

Barnet has been pushing its Future Shape plans for some time. Exposed to scrutiny locally by Labour and in the London media it tried to deny that it was pursuing a programme of wholesale privatisation. It has been forced on the defensive over its plans to cut provision for resident wardens in sheltered housing. Last December’s budget proposed saving £950,000 by cutting the warden service, reduced down to £400,000 to retain a small amount of wardens after an effective local campaign.

However, Barnet clearly has no intention of retreating. Barnet recently changed its borough vision to drop "supporting the vulnerable" from the Corporate Plan and replace it with "promoting independence.” Surely it is possible to do both.  The council is proposing to axe the borough’s Welfare Rights Unit, which represents the most vulnerable in the community at benefit tribunals – such as the terminally ill, the severely disabled and those with learning difficulties.

Barnet has about 15,000 families on the housing waiting list - one of the largest waiting lists in London and some of the largest regeneration projects in the country outside the Olympic boroughs but the amount of affordable housing agreed on its regeneration sites so far amounts to a net loss of affordable housing.

And as Robert Booth of the Guardian reports:

“The council plans to make savings of up to £15m a year by outsourcing services and reducing the size of its 3,500-strong directly employed workforce. Private sector organisations and charities could take on contracts for services looking after streets and parking, planning and the environment, residential care, housing, refuse and recycling.”

The Tories’ policy item for the 8 September Barnet council meeting takes its cuts agenda even further forward. It proposes to “commission in-depth reviews into high expenditure areas” and begin a “review of revenue streams.” This walks and talks like a plan for more cuts and higher charges. 

We know where this agenda of privatisation and slashing spending got us under Thatcher and Major - crumbling schools, a decaying health service, poor and unreliable public transport, inadequate levels of support for policing, a degenerating public realm, unaccountable private sector monopolies squeezing profits out of public services at the expense of the public. It led to social conflict and exclusion, lower wages and far-too low levels of investment. It would do so again.

The Conservatives have tried to bat away the controversy over Daniel Hannan’s attacks on the NHS as a ‘mistake’ and ‘Marxist’ by claiming that he is expressing his own view and not that of his leader. But there is no way to spin out of what a Conservative administration really does. How Conservative councils act, and how their council members vote, gives us a clear insight into what the Conservative party is already really like in power.

Conservative Hammersmith and Fulham Council for example is rapidly acquiring a reputation for a hard-line right wing agenda on housing and public services. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed how the borough's leader and officials have worked on a radical policy to turn council housing into a safety net for just the old and disabled. One paper released under FOI also called for rents to be increased to full market levels. Hammersmith and Fulham has consistently tried to evade responsibility to provide new social rented accommodation.

Councils such as these are not rogue boroughs. Barnet is led by one of David Cameron’s parliamentary hopefuls, Mike Freer. By this time next year he aims to be on the government benches in the House of Commons. The mayor of the borough and a leading member of the Barnet Council Tory group, Brian Coleman, is the former Conservative chair of the London Assembly and is now Boris Johnson’s appointee to run London’s fire and emergency services.

It is bound to be tempting for observers to characterise each right wing step of each Conservative administration as at odds with the cuddlier approach of the Conservative party leadership. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such policies fit neatly with the radical plans for public spending cuts that the Conservatives plan for the country as a whole. David Cameron says he would have spent £5 billion less than Labour for this year alone. Nationally the Tories are committed to an inheritance tax cut worth £200,000 for just 3,000 millionaires and say that the new top rate of tax is "in the queue of taxes we want to get rid of" – though they are rather less clear about what is in the queue for cuts to public spending.

The Tory programme of public sector cuts would have the effect of also slowing economic growth by cutting demand and would open a serious attack on many peoples’ quality of life. Barnet’s approach is not new or an aberration, but completely consistent with the principles and past practice of Conservative government.