Another Million for Capita - August Supplier Payments

Barnet's supplier payments for August are out and as ever there are some big payments to the usual culprits.

• Barnet Lighting billed £1,186,455.15 for all those new street lights that we actually didn't need.
• The Barnet Group billed £7,245,939.88;
• London Borough of Harrow £7,167,500 Health authorities - Third Party Payment whatever that means;
• Comensura who provide agency staff to the council billed £1,331,152.06. Yet again the bill is very high regardless of what was said at the Council meeting in July. Given that the an Internal Audit report earlier this year said that "There is no requirement for the order of agency staff on the Comensura system to be approved by a more senior officer. There is therefore a risk that agency staff may be appointed without appropriate approval." It is also interesting when looking back to four years ago before outsourcing was forced upon us when in 2010/11 the total annual bill for agency staff was £8.99 million or an average of £750,000 a month, almost £600,000 a month LOWER than under the 'wonderful' efficient commissioning council model.
• Saracens were paid £50,385.50 in rents. I do find this a little surprising given that Mr Mustard uncovered that in July Saracens owed the council £380,000 for parking permits. I hope that £380k has now been paid.
• And so we come to Capita. They billed £1,113,319.01 a sizeable bill  and one for which we have no transparency.

I hope our councillors scrutinise the payments as rigorously as the residents. (Oh yeh!)