Supplier payments for May - Interim & Agency staff costs rising again

Just a short post today about Barnet's supplier payments for May.

Not much in terms of payments for Capita and Re this month as they tend to be paid quarterly so just £802,823.71 for Capita and £1,094,439.69 for Re. Comensura spend is on the up, with a total of £1,925,781.97 for may alone. Although it is to early to be certain, based on the first two months of this year the forecast looks like it might get back to the 2016/17 level of £20 million.

A few of interesting invoices that I did note were as follows:

• PA Consulting billed £685,804. The majority was for "IT & Comms". Given that I thought IT & Comms was the responsibility of  Capita, it is surprising we have such a large bill from another consultancy.
• We paid £13,940 to Comer Business & Innovation Centre. It may not sound like much but it is for space at NLBP. This tell me there isn't enough space in Building 2 at NLBP which make me worry about what is going to happen when Barnet relocate to a much smaller building at Colindale. I would also point out that although we were supposed to have vacated Building 4 at NLBP we are still paying for Capita to rent some of that space. Surely we should have looked to see if there was any spare space in Building 4 which we are already paying for first?
• We paid Saracens £28,398 for "rent". I am guessing this relates to the use of their stadium for the election count but it does seem rather a lot of money to pay for one night's usage.
• Assurance spent £308.33 at Pinks florists; that's quite a lot of flowers.

Coming up in the next week will be details of the year end audit and my findings from the inspection of the accounts. Keep reading and I will keep blogging.