One Barnet Bill Continues to Rise

Reading through the Barnet Council supplier payments for May the usual suspects appear on the payments list. The BarnetGroup which includes Barnet Homes and adult social care received £4.6 million, Greater London Authority also received  £4.6 million, Veolia Water received £1.5 million but these are elements which we have no choice in paying. However, when I look down the list  I see a few suppliers where we do have a choice as to whether we should be paying for their services.

Agilisys, the One Barnet implementation partner clocked up another £180,532.68 in fees in May along with Trowers & Hamlins who are providing legal advice to the council, billing £165,575.69 for the month of May.  Together that is over a third of a million pounds just in May. Not all of Trowers & Hamlins may have been spent directly on One Barnet projects  but I suspect it was a significant proportion. However, due to the secrecy and lack of scrutiny that surrounds the entire One Barnet project we will never know.

Someone kindly left an anonymous comment that the implementation handover for One Barnet outsourcing now looks like is will be May next year, some five months after it was originally scheduled. With fees being clocked up at the rate of £300k per month that could mean another £1.5 million of fees clocked up just because the project is running late. This project was budgeted to cost £9.4 million to implement but with another year to go what will the final bill be? £10 million, £15million, £20 million? The residents of Barnet are not allowed to know, we can't ask questions about it and speaking to some Councillors they just don't know either.

 If I was a Barnet Councillor I would be demanding that senior officers provide a detailed monthly briefing paper on One Barnet, published on line for every council taxpayer to see, to understand just how much money is being poured down this black hole and how much longer this is going to continue.