Barnet's Supplier payments in April

April's supplier payments over £250 saw large lumps sums paid out to the usual suspects.
Capita received £6,173,867.16 for both the CSG and Re contracts and Comensura received  £1,268,593.60 in just one month. Last year Comensura billed over £15 million for interim and agency staff and based on this invoice it looks like they will hit a similar target this financial year.

In addition there were a few of the usual suspect who seem to have been paid rather a lot in April. City Suburban Tree Surgeons were paid £303,266.17 which in one month represents 30% of what they were paid in the whole of 2014/15 (£1,003,311.80). Perhaps this is an area where officers should be looking to make savings.

NSL the Council's parking contractor was paid £292,000.51 in April. I am sure Mr Mustard will be scrutinising their payments in some detail. Again the overriding question is, have they really saved money?

We seem to have paid out £32,527.96 to Gatenby Sanderson, an executive recruitment agency, for employee expenses. I don't know if this is payments for interims or simply their recruitment fees, but did we really need to spend it?

Old 'friends' Impower who along with Agilisys were paid over £8 million to implement One Barnet are back advising the council and in April were paid £32,743, a modest sum based on past experience but are they really needed?


I am still waiting for Barnet to take up the challenge of showing where the savings are buried because to date I haven't found them.