Is Councillor Shooter Getting a Straight Answer - or are Barnet Fudging the Figures?

At tomorrow's Council meeting there is a section for questions to the Leader which you can read in full here.
Question 5 is asked by Councillor Mark Shooter and says:
What was the trend in the last quarter of 2013/14 with regards to the council’s spend on agency
workers?
Answer by the Leader
There was a 12% reduction in agency staffing expenditure. Agency staff costs incurred during
2013/14 was £3.276m lower than in 2012/13.

As I take a great interest in how much things cost at Barnet Council - because it is our money being spent - I knew this did not seem correct. Set out below is the email I have sent to Cllr Shooter and I genuinely hope he bothers to ask some more probing follow up questions. We will have to wait and see tomorrow. If not it will demonstrate that these questions are simply about showboating and not about genuine scrutiny.

Dear Cllr Shooter,

I see that you have asked a question at the Council meeting tomorrow regarding the trend in use of agency staff. I am however puzzled at the response you have received as these figures do not appear to concur with the figures produced in the supplier payments system.

The response you received states that agency staff costs fell by 12% in the last quarter. I am not clear what they are judging that against and I have set out the figures as stated in the supplier payments below:

Agency & Interim Staff – October, November, December 2013 -                 £2,933,778.80

Agency & Interim Staff – January, February, March 2014 -                          £3,061,789.21

That represents a rise in the last quarter of approximately 4.3%

There may be anomalies in those figures relating to the designation of interim staff so I also looked at the amount paid to Comensura who are the Council’s main agency staff provider. Their figures are slightly lower but are as follows:

Payments to Comensura – October, November, December 2013 -                £2,801,445.26

Payments to Comensura – January, February, March 2014 -                         £2,799,054.12

This represents a decline of £2,391.14  or 0.08% and definitely not 12%

In addition I would point out that whilst the response says that agency staff costs fell by £3.276 million in 2013/14, the supplier payments system suggests that agency and interim staff costs in fact rose by £1.249 million compared to 2012/13 (2012/13 £12,526,942.66 versus 2013/14 £13,775,545.95).

Perhaps someone will be able to explain why there are such massive anomalies between what you have been told and what the supplier payments system states. Either way there is a major error. I would also point out that I did discover an £8.4 million error in Supplier Payments in April 2014 which led to the figures being re-issued. I would also point out that since April 2014 it is no longer possible to make comparisons of activity type for payments as many are now simply classified as “various” significantly reducing the transparency of the supplier payments system.

If you wish me to provide the evidence supporting my figures I would be more than happy to do so.

Kind regards

Mr Reasonable