Barnet residents resist privatisation
On Thursday 6 December around 50 Barnet residents took over a committee room in Hendon Town Hall for an hour, and ran an impromptu residents’ forum. The Tory Cabinet members were forced to adjourn to another room to do their work. We were protesting at their decision to grant a contract to outsourcing giant Capita to run a large chunk of services for 10-15 years, under the Council’s “One Barnet” privatisation programme. The contract, worth £320-750 million, will entail around 500 staff, currently delivering services such as revenues and benefits, transfering to Capita employment. Around 200...