As I blogged about yesterday, I am challenging Richard Cornelius, Andrew Travers and Capita to show me where are the promised massive savings.
One area where it is difficult to pin down savings is the whole subject of interim staff. Comensura supply interim and agency staff to the Council and in March billed the council a whopping £1.9 million bringing their grand total for the year to £15,538,090.25.
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. One major area of concern I have is that former council staff who used to work for a salary have been made redundant or left the council payroll cutting costs for Capita and then coming back as consultants on much higher rates, paid for out of the Comensura contract.
Perhaps part of the £3 million per annum increase in the Comensura costs is a switch between contracts and if that is the case are we, the Barnet residents seeing the benefits?
I risk being taken to task for stating the obvious: these are really important questions that merit full, frank answers, but I don't plan holding my breath.
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