Judicial review of £320m outsourcing plan at Barnet kicks off

The keenly-anticipated judicial review of Barnet Council’s £320m outsourcing contract has begun at the High Court this week.

The claimant in the case is a disabled local resident, Maria Nash, who is being advised by law firm Steel & Shamash.

Nash is seeking to challenge the approval by Barnet’s Cabinet in December 2012 of the appointment of Capita as preferred bidder for the ten-year contract.

The New Support and Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) project has been designed to cover a range of services, including estates, human resources, IT infrastructure and support, corporate procurement, revenues and benefits, finance and payroll, and customer and support services.

It was claimed at the time that the project would make a significant contribution to the council’s corporate priorities, and lead to better services with less money.

The pre-action protocol letter sent by Steel & Shamash on Nash’s behalf had suggested there were a number of grounds for the judicial review. These were:

• Breach of the council's duty to consult Barnet residents, businesses and community organisations about its plans;
• Breach of councillors' duty to the residents in their area, “to make sure that their decisions represent the best available value for public money”;
• Breach of the public sector equality duty: “The ‘equalities impact assessment’ done in the One Barnet case was a pure paper exercise, which took no account of the views of people who would be affected by the changes”;
• Breach of public procurement law: This "requires that this contract be awarded to the company submitting the 'most economically advantageous tender from the point of view fo the public body'....Lack of consultation with local people, lack of consideration of equalities and lack of in-house services comparator means the council cannot state that Capita gives the best value for money"; and
• Breach of councillors’ duty to make up their own minds.

Nash has received the backing of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services, a coalition of residents, trade unionists and community campaigners. The alliance was set to hold a ‘vigil’ at the Royal Courts of Justice this week on the first day of the hearing, which is expected to last three days.

A second threatened judicial review challenge to Barnet's plans – from another local resident, Susan Sullivan – was not issued as it covered substantially the same grounds and sought substantially the same relief as the Nash claim.

Sullivan's solicitor, Daniel Carey of Public Interest Lawyers, told Local Government Lawyer that the firm's own interrogatories with Barnet had yielded important information and these were provided to the parties and the High Court in the Nash judicial review. 

He said a witness statement was provided from John Sullivan, Susan's father. Carey also provided two witness statements, focusing on the alleged equalities failings of the draft contract and the decision-making process.