The Government will spend $11 million on consultants and $10 million on internal costs before they start building a new prison in Auckland.

Department of Corrections documents released under the Official Information Act show it is already employing 18 companies, including accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and British lawyers Allen & Overy, to help oversee the deal.

The 960-bed prison will be a public private partnership (PPP), in which a private company pays for, builds and runs the facility.

The Corrections Department’s own analysis say this may cost more than a publicly owned prison.

Corrections deputy chief executive Christine Stevenson said costs were high because it was New Zealand’s first PPP prison.

The consultants would provide “specialist technical advice” and outside scrutiny.

But the Corrections Association, which represents prison officers, said the consultants were “hired guns” who offered little value.

“They quickly work out what the payer wants them to say and they research to that,” said the union’s president, Beven Hanlon.

Ms Stevenson refused to say how much a public prison would have cost to set up, or put a figure on the prison’s total construction cost. Internal Corrections documents suggest it could be about $300 million.

PPP schemes overseas have been criticised for employing large numbers of lawyers, accountants and consultants.

The Haringey local council in London spent £24 million ($46 million) on consultants before it started its school-building programme.

Conservative MP Richard Bacon told the Financial Times this year: “It is clear that [PPP] has spawned an entire industry of advisers who have done extremely well out of it.”

Corrections’ business case says the costs of a PPP “will be higher” than those of a public prison, because private companies pay more to borrow money and need to make “commercial returns”.

The deal will be cheaper only if the company can run the prison 10 to 15 per cent cheaper than the department.

The Corrections Association said a private firm would “most definitely” make savings by cutting staff and wages, putting prison safety at risk.

Three consortiums, all headed by Australian security firms, have been shortlisted for the contract, expected to be signed by July.

The numbers:

• $11 million sum the Government will spend on consultants for the new men’s prison at Wiri
• $10 million sum spent on internal costs before the prison is built
• 18 companies employed by Department of Corrections on the project
• 960 number of beds proposed new prison will have

First published in The New Zealand Herald

A pioneering project in north London shows the value of getting public agencies to work together. But having one person ‘go into bat’ for vulnerable families is just as important.

Angela, a cute one-year-old with tight pigtails, plays placidly amongst the scattered toys in the Packington Estate’s children’s centre in north London. A year ago she was “crying all the time”, her mother, Evelyne, says.

Evelyne, isolated from her family and struggling with her English, had no support: “In the beginning, I didn’t know anybody.”

Help came in the form of the families project run by Hyde, the estate’s housing association. Now in its second year, it brings together 17 public agencies that deal with families, including local schools, health visitors and Islington council.

Vulnerable families on the estate, which is among the most deprived 5% in the country, sit down with representatives from some or all of the agencies to talk about everything they need from public services. A ‘lead professional’ from one of the agencies then works closely with the family, acting as a bridge to other bodies.

For Evelyne, the project has opened up services she didn’t even know existed: a children’s support worker to help her with Angela, a trip to the citizens advice bureau to look at fighting an unfair dismissal from work, and help chasing up a lost tax credit application.

Being able to call up her lead professional, who can “introduce” her to other agencies, has been life changing.

Cassandra Favager, Hyde’s regeneration manager, says the project is helping 40 families who aren’t being looked after by social services but may have up to a dozen major problems. Closer working by public agencies, a key aim, hasn’t been easily achieved.

It was “a real struggle convincing housing officers [the project] was worth their time”, she says; even now the culture change has happened “better with some than others”.

The project’s first year threw up some difficulties. Teachers often wouldn’t show up for daytime meetings, something the project may tackle by meeting more at schools. Some families found the group meetings “overwhelming”, and will need to be better briefed beforehand and have their lead professional on board earlier.

But overall the project transformed families’ lives, Favager says, and “opened doors between services that knew each other existed but only went to each other in times of crisis”.

The children’s centre now houses mental health services, while parenting and stop smoking surgeries take place elsewhere on the estate. Workers learn new skills: for example, housing officers are trained to identify potential domestic violence.

And the cost? Not much, Favager says: one full-time coordinator (funded by central government) and a part-time project manager.

Nor is it a drain on time. Lead professionals may have to make a few phone calls around other agencies, but the time saved by being able to refer individuals on makes participation “a no-brainer”, she says.

An independent evaluation of the project’s first year found it had achieved its aims, helping families receive more grants and resolve problems with their children more quickly. Favager admits she can’t yet prove it saves money, but insists the project has “demonstrated its worth” and shouldn’t fear public sector cuts.

Evelyne, meanwhile, has no doubts. In an era when the government expects individuals to do more, she is clear that, in fact, greater one-to-one support is vital. “If I need help, I just call Mary [her lead professional],” she says. “The project is good for me. It can’t stop.”

First published in The Guardian

Chris Paling, novelist, has worked in our city for 30 years. The capital is the setting of two of his novels, including the latest, Nimrod’s Shadow, published this month. And yet, he says, “I don’t know London very well.”

The city is “a place I tend to travel through on the way to work”, which in his case means the BBC’s Broadcasting House, where he is a radio producer. Paling lives in Brighton, and has commuted for years by train and (latterly) scooter, two days a week.

So why set novels in London? Writing begins, he says, as “a strange sensory thing. It’s almost like you get a taste or smell of the place.” Thus it was that Nimrod’s Shadow began life with a vision of Riley, a struggling artist, and his dog, the Nimrod of the title, wandering the streets of Edwardian London and (in Nimrod’s case) sniffing at fruit stalls.

From there he built up a picture of Riley’s neighbourhood, Old Cross, a grimy but vibrant olden day version of Camden. Paling is no great lover of that modern-day suburb, but conjuring up its antecedent was, he says, “almost like creating a version of Camden you want to live in or want to know.”

But just because the book is based in London – modern day Soho as well as the imagined old Cross – doesn’t mean the fictional is overlaid with the real. “When you are writing a book, you are living a parallel life, living a piece of fiction in your head,” Paling says. “It doesn’t necessarily anchor into the real world in any particular way. When I walk down Lexington Street, although I know it’s the setting of the novel, it’s a different Lexington Street.”

Research is enormously important, he says. Even fiction must have a basis in truth, to appear convincing and to give an honest account of the period. Novels are “a very partial version” at best; thorough research can help mitigate that.

When writing a previous novel set in Fitzrovia, The Repentant Morning, Paling wrote the first 15 pages in an afternoon and then realised he’d have to spend the next year doing the research. Thus he works: writing until he feels he needs more information, going away to consult archives and reference works, then coming back to the novel.

What he can’t stand is novels that flaunt their research. “I discard 99% of what I find,” he says. “What I hate about some novels is you can see the research on the page. It really pisses me off. You don’t want to know that. You want to know one factor that will give you a taste of the area.”

Paling used to do most of his writing on the train to and from Brighton. “What I tended to do was, on the journey up [to London], I’d revise what I’d written the day before. On the journey down I’d write an hour and a quarter of new material.” But that was in the days when carriages were “fairly silent. Since mobile phones, it has been more difficult. I find it very difficult to write on the train now.”

He now commutes by scooter, in any case, which gives him a chance to see London at perhaps its most beautiful. “I like it as a place to scoot up at 6am in the morning, crossing over Westminster Bridge. I like to see the city [then]. I like what it does to your soul.”

Among his other London loves are its hostelry – “I like pubs, I like writing about pubs. All my books have got pubs in them” – and a previous office in Broadcasting House. “Every night, especially in autumn and winter, you could turn around, put your feet up, and watch the sunset over Fitzrovia … I like Fitzrovia and I like Soho.”

In the end, he says, “It doesn’t feel like my city. Because I have never lived here, I don’t have that sense of ownership. It’s the sort of city that it’s quite hard to feel ownership of.” Luckily he owns his fiction.

First published on Londonist

As the heavy wooden disk loops through the air and crashes into the pins, flattening most of them, the cry goes up: “Good cheese!”. Both crash and cry echo around a small room, under the Freemasons Arms pub in Hampstead. This is London’s last functioning skittles alley.

The game thrived in the 1930s, when hundreds of alleys could be found in Edwardian London; but tonight just six players represent the core of the capital’s only active team.

“It’s one of those things that has almost died out, but no-one’s even noticed, have they,” says Paul Robinson, a software developer. Not that he’s downcast: in the three decades he’s been playing, “it’s always seemed like it’s dying out.” And yet it hasn’t, not quite.

The hard core who keep it going play by lobbing a wooden disk, the size of a dinner plate but much heavier and known as a cheese (hence the cry), onto a rough diamond (wooden, again) bearing nine pins made, predictably enough, from wood.

Skittles is like ten pin bowling, but more intricate, more immersed in ritual – more English. Names abound for the arrangements of pins left standing: a novice, a double novice, etc. Clearing all nine in one go is a floorer; missing them entirely prompts a shout of “bollocks”.

It is trickier than ten pin, too, which helps explain both its appeal to the hard core and its diminishing public profile. Paul, a self-professed “skittles tart” (he used to play elsewhere, in the days when there was an elsewhere), confesses: “I’ve been playing for 30 years, and I still haven’t mastered it.” But, he adds: “If you get hooked, you get hooked, really.”

To this we can testify. Our initial game results in only a narrow defeat. “You’ve got a good natural shape to the cheese,” says Steve, a pub owner, “which is unusual.” The second is heading for defeat as some good throws by our opponent Ian, a Post Office worker, leave us needing to clear three pins just to tie. We lob the cheese, the pins clear, the floor is bare. The feeling of exultation is almost ridiculous.

After that, it is time to go. The ‘stickers’ collecting the pins are ritually thanked, the cheeses are put away, and the room is left to the memories of lost glory – shields, silver trophies and old photos – that hang along the walls. But the room remains alive: the Skittles World Championships (named with tongue firmly in cheek) are held there on Saturday 24 April, and are open to all. You can find out more about participating here.

First published on Londonist

Haringey council “squandered” the equivalent of 700 social workers’ salaries on private consultants while overstretched staff failed to save Baby P, the Standard can reveal.

Sharon Shoesmith’s department for children spent £23.8 million on external advisers for the borough’s school renovation programme between 2005 and 2008.

The money – four times the recommended level – would have been enough to build one new school from scratch, or fund the salaries of 740 social workers for a year.

MPs condemned the “shocking” consultancy bill, which mounted during Ms Shoesmith’s tenure. At the same time, Baby Peter was suffering months of abuse from which he eventually died, despite being on Haringey’s at-risk register.

The figures led to fresh questions over Ms Shoesmith’s management of Haringey’s children’s services department and marked another blow for Gordon Brown’s flagship Building Schools for the Future programme.

Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said the consultancy bill – far higher than for other boroughs – was “shocking”.

“This looks like an unbelievable sum to be spent on consultants,” she said. “Haringey have got a lot of explaining to do as to where exactly that money has gone. It looks like they did not know what they were doing.

“We need to be sure that they haven’t simply squandered this money. We are desperately short of things like social workers and housing.

“If this happened on Sharon Shoesmith’s watch and is found to be gross incompetence with public money then we need to know what her role was,” she said.

Baby P, now known by his name, Peter Connelly, was abused and neglected at the home occupied by his mother, Tracey Connelly, 28, her boyfriend Steven Barker, 33, and Barker’s brother, Jason Owen. He was found dead in August 2007 after suffering injuries including a broken back. All three adults have been jailed over the case.

Social workers, police, doctors and health visitors saw Peter more than 60 times but failed to take him into care. The inquiry into his death found that extra money for social services on its own would not have saved him. But Haringey was told it must undergo a further investigation into whether it allocated enough resources to children’s services between 2005 and 2008.

Separate reports by Government inspectors found a shortage of social workers and “high vacancy rates” undermined child protection in the borough.

Ms Featherstone said Haringey’s consultancy bill raised questions over whether a borough council was competent enough to manage complicated building contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Official advice states that councils should expect to spend about 3 per cent of the value of their secondary school rebuilding plans on all external consultants and internal staff costs.

Haringey spent more than 11 per cent of the value of its £214 million programme on outside consultancy alone, a total of £23,817,067.91 over the four-year period.

The payments included £9.6million to architects, £687,000 on “consultancy (general)”, £5million labelled “consultant”, £812,000 on “agency staff” and £42,000 on “planning consultancy”.

The figures were released to trade magazine PPP Bulletin under freedom of information laws. They showed that Haringey’s consultancy bill was far higher than any of the 15 other London boroughs that released information.

At least £100 million pounds has been spent or earmarked for procurement costs across the 16 councils – Waltham Forest, Southwark, Westminster, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Lewisham, Newham, Lambeth, Islington, Barking and Dagenham,Kensington and Chelsea, Ealing, Camden, Hillingdon and Hammersmith and Fulham.

The Prime Minister has promised to rebuild or renovate every secondary school in the country at an estimated cost of £55 billion. The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) plan has been hit by delays although 87 new schools are now open with six more opening in London this month.

A Haringey council spokeswoman claimed the £23.8million figure, which the borough itself provided in a file marked “BSF consultancy costs”, was “misleading”. She said the bill was paid from the Government’s school building grant, and was not diverted from other council services.

“£18million of that figure represents the overall costs of project design and development, such as architects, quantity surveyors, project managers and other professionals involved in a large-scale building project,” she said.

“Around £6million represents external BSF programme management costs over a five-year period. This is well within the expected consultancy costs for a programme of this size. Haringey’s BSF programme has been carefully, independently audited and is on track to deliver significant school modernisation on budget.”

A spokeswoman for Partnerships for Schools, the Government agency that runs the BSF programme, said: “It is important to not get confused between government capital investment and how much local authorities spend on their costs such as on direct staffing and external advisers.

“Councils should expect to spend around 3 per cent of the total value of their BSF scheme to ensure successful delivery, but it is not for us to dictate the precise amount that each authority should spend.”

 Written with Tom Ross and first published in The London Evening Standard

The costs of planning and setting up new schools have soared by 50% under the government’s rebuilding programme, with one council paying consultants £24m before a single building had even been constructed.

The massive rises in the cost of new privately financed schools – obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – have contributed to the bill for the government’s flagship school rebuilding programme spiralling from £45bn to £55bn.

A pledge made five years ago by ministers, to be fulfilled by 2020, promised the “biggest school-building programme for generations”. The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme would see the rebuilding or refurbishing of almost every secondary school in England.

However, new research reveals that authorities in the later stages of the scheme have seen costs rise by an average of 50% just to set up a school building deal. The costs include spending on outside consultants to develop building plans and draw up contracts before any deal is signed with a construction firm.

The 31 councils surveyed had originally expected to spend £122m on setting up their schemes, covering the period from advertising it in the European Union’s official journal to reaching financial close with a private consortium. However, they now anticipate spending £161m, or 32% more. Half of all councils admitted that they had already seen costs rise, with councils more than 18 months into the programme expecting to spend £36m more than the £78m they first budgeted, an increase of 46%.

Haringey council in north London spent £23.8m – the cost of a new school and nearly four times the government’s recommended amount – on consultants before any schools had been built. A spokeswoman for the council said the figure was so high because it was accounting for its costs “upfront”, while other authorities “hid” them by spreading them out over a longer period.

Critics have long claimed that BSF is too complex and imposes unnecessary delays and costs on councils. The programme began in 2004 with the aim of rebuilding half of all secondary schools, remodeling just over a third and refurbishing the rest. But just 42 of the planned 200 schools were rebuilt in the first four years of the scheme, putting it three years behind schedule.

The research by the PPP Bulletin reveals the extent of councils’ problems and raises fresh concerns over BSF. Ty Goddard, head of the British Council for School Environments, said the figures were “an important contribution to the debate about how we can sharpen up the process of investing in our schools.

“In fragile economic times, it is vital that we match this present government’s commitment to schools capital with an honesty and frankness about how the money is invested and some of the big challenges on the ground,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Partnerships for Schools, the agency in charge of BSF, said it was “looking at the issue of capacity within local government” and continued to share best practice and lessons learned.

Written with Amelia Hill and first published in The Observer