Today sees the publication of March 2015 supplier payments and marks the end of the financial year. Unsurprisingly Capita have picked up a large chunk of revenue. In total in 2014-15 Capita have been paid £51,787,011.34. According to my reckoning we shouldn't be paying more than £36.56 million plus inflation which as we know at the minute is zero %.
The other beneficiary is Comensura who supply interim and agency staff to Barnet. In March they billed the council a whopping £1.9 million bringing their grand total for the year to £15,538,090.25. This is without a doubt a contract entirely out of control rising inexorably at a time when agency costs should be plummeting. Not one Conservative councillor has done anything to rein this contract in. Indeed Cllr Shooter foolishly planted a question back in July last year about how the Comensura contract was declining. Sadly he was told a whopping great lie.
In 2012/13 Comensura billed £12.5 million, In 2013/14 it rose to £13.8 million and this year, 2014/15 it has jumped again to £15.5 million. Instead of cutting libraries Barnet should get a grip of this contract and start saving money.
More updates on the financial year end to follow.
Standing up for common sense in New Barnet
