Every single penny of that money is discretionary spend. It didn't have to be spent. There was a clear Officer/Cabinet decision to spend that money. Last month I thought their spend was slowing down as it was 'only' £165,575, but in June it is back to the levels we saw in January and February.
Cllr Cornelius, how much longer are you going to let the senior officers and your young but entirely inexperience cabinet colleague pull the wool over your eyes. This is a budget that is out of control and someone needs to get a grip. If you don't take any action a quarter of a million pounds every month is going to continue to be squandered on just one firm of consultants to give you a solution which 70% of local authority Chief Executives and senior officers believe reduces control and increases risk.
Who are the consultants who are doing all this work and what are they paid per day? The information is so top secret that on the invoices supplied as part of our audit visit the names, daily rates and days worked have been removed.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to hear the words "open and transparent" from a cabinet councillor ever again.
Nicky Cox
DeleteManaging Partner Projects & Propositions
Nicky is responsible for the Projects & Propositions business unit who deliver professional services across the business. He is also Partnership Director of Agilisys’ partnership with the London Borough of Barnet.
Nicky joined Agilisys in 2010 after 5 years as independent consultant delivering projects for clients such as Tube Lines, University of Southampton and Hyde Housing. Prior to that Nicky has held consulting roles at PA Consulting Group and the Forum Concept working for private sector clients including First Group, Esselte and BP.
Exactly: what could be less surprising than the need of Barnet Council to hide from residents the real cost of implementing One Barnet? How can you possibly justify spending £250K a month on consultancy fees for this harebrained scheme? How many day care centres could that fund, or transport for the disabled, or library staff, or museums? The Tory administration and its senior management scheme might as well blow the same amount on lottery tickets every month: the chances of winning are bound to be much better than making any savings for local taxpayers through the One Barnet scam.
ReplyDelete