Barnet Supplier Payments - yet another reason why we need to start planning for change

This has been an eventful week in Barnet. Capita's share price has crashed, with Barnet having to draw up contingency plans in the event of its failure. The same day as the crash, the Audit Committee heard a catalogue of Capita failures.

Today I have published the supplier payments for December 2017. As you can see from the chart below, we are still paying Capita/Re a fortune even though we have made huge advance payments to them on both contracts.

The monthly bill for agency and interim staff is declining slightly but it is still forecast to hit £17.2 million by the year end. With a commissioning council and so many services outsourced it is beyond belief that we are spending more on agency staff now than we were when no services were outsourced. Below are the charts showing the payments to Capita and Re as well as for Interim and Agency staff.

I have had a number of discussions today with people asking whether the contract with Capita can be terminated. I have referred them to the contract (page 167) on the Barnet Council website which seemingly makes it clear that, yes, we can terminate the contract. We would have to pay a fee (which Capita do not want me to see as explained in an earlier blog) but given the massive cost of the current contract that may well be a price worth paying.

What is important now is to start discussing what a redesigned Council could look like and how it could be structured. I had a great discussion with someone who has great experience of the council. They identified what services should be working much more closely together to make them more effective at delivering services (and which would save a significant number of managers). That made me even more convinced than we need to start the process of creating a masterplan for the council and then start bringing service back in house to fit within the new structure.

The message to Barnet residents should be one of hope and the genuine belief that without Capita we can have a better, more efficient council that can deliver the best possible services, cost effectively.

Another month another £6.7 million for Capita in Barnet

 September supplier payments have been published here showing that Capita were paid a whopping £6,691,280.30. The bill would have been just over £7 million but there is a credit of £313,479 I will have to see why so much was previously over paid.

Other large payments include Comensura who received £1,166,913.31, This is for a contract which is supposed to be reducing but which so far has cost Barnet £6.9 million in the first six months of the year.

The Barnet Group covering both Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet were paid £6.2 million in September. I would suggest anyone who is interested should read the papers for the forthcoming Audit Committee which has a limited assurance report on Your Choice Barnet.

Barnet Lighting, the hugely expensive streetlighting contract cost £704,141,41 in September and continues to represent a badly thought through contract.

City Suburban Tree Surgeons were paid £245,195.49. Given that last year they were paid a total of £593k this does seem a particularly high bill for just one month.

There was one interesting supplier, a company called Crowd Technologies who received a modest £2,040 for 5 software licences when looking a little further at this company I found that they provide amongst other thing social media monitoring. Perhaps they are monitoring this blog.

Transparency Downgrade - Barnet's Rotten Website

On Friday evening, after work, I was going through Barnet's website as a vigilant resident when I noticed that the open data page had changed. This is where you can usually find important data about the council's performance. It includes things like the supplier payments and freedom of information requests.

Below is a screen shot of what you used to see on the FOI page:

A clear summary with a button you could click on to see more information.

What you get now is this:

You can't click for more information and the downloadable file simply down loads the summary as shown on the screen. There was also a disclosure log where you could sort through previous FOI requests but now all you get is:

Moving on to supplier payments this has also changed. In addition to being buried away it is now only downloadable in CSV format whereas previously it was also downloadable in excel and PDF format which are more familiar to most people.

Interestingly the supplier payments for August 2014 which were previously published have now disappeared and it is very difficult to find previous years' supplier payments as there are no links on the current year's page. 

Some may say I am paranoid but I do get a feeling that the changes are being made so that it is much harder for residents like me, the other bloggers and engaged residents to challenge the council on their spending, especially under the Capita contract. 

I have contacted the council so time will tell if they actually do something about restoring the limited transparency we previously received.

Barnet supplier payments - another £675k for Capita

This month the overall supplier payments were £35.5 million. Aside from the usual suspects such as TFL, Barnet Group and Barnet Lighting there were a few payments which deserve a little more examination

Capita  billed £675,137.58 the majority of which related to the CSG contract. Discovering specifically what it is for shall have to wait until the inspection of accounts next year and even then I don't hold out much hope of getting any real detail on the figures.

Councillor Shooter asked at a council meeting back in July about agency staff cost with  the response that the costs are falling. This month the bill from Comensura, the council's agency and interim staff provider was   £1,268, 836.97, down slightly on June but still higher than May. Given the council has spent many millions on redundancy costs it seems ridiculous to be spending an average of £1.3 million per month temporary staff. A few others were as follows:

Paul Winter & Co billed £112,469 for what I suspect is legal advice on Brent Cross
NSL  billed £561,943.35 which looks like two payments instead of one.
Hags Play Ltd  billed £387,858.28 they are suppliers of playground equipment
Facultatieve Technologies Ltd who have been installing new Cremators at Hendon billed £185,288.

Apologies to readers for my prolonged absence from blogging but I will pull my finger out and get back into the swing of things now the summer holidays are over.

Supplier payments and the missing £8.4 million - good job they have armchair auditors in Barnet

On 27th May Barnet Council published their supplier payments for April, a few days before the deadline. Now you have to know your way around the Council website to find these payments but I always schedule in time at the end of every month to review them. Initially I was a bit wary as the file size was enormous 56MB when it is typically around 100 KB. Downloading the file caused my computer to go into a flat spin but eventually I opened the file only to find a rather modest £22.489 million of payments significantly less than I would have expected.

I immediately emailed the council on the 27th May to ask them what the problem was, why was the file size so immense and where were the missing payments.

On 30 May this was the response I received.

Thanks for the query – I’ve set out the explanation below.

The guidance from the DCLG advises that we should be disclosing payments made by the authority during the period greater than £500. Up until March 2014 the Council had been disclosing all payments and their various posting details (directorate, service area etc.) where the payment was made during the period and the individual posting line was greater than £500. This was slightly different in approach to the guidance provided by the DCLG which refers to invoices over £500 rather than ledger postings over £500.

For example, in the April 2014 disclosure we have disclosed three invoices paid to Comensura Limited for the net amount of £788,192.47 (£354,22.65, £219,437.08 and £214,442.74). During the period we have only paid three invoices to Comensura Limited, each of which has been coded in the Council’s general ledger accounts over multiple codes. Some of these individuals lines will be less than £500 and some over. Previously the Council hasn’t disclosed the total invoice value paid, however the individual lines within the invoice greater than £500. This isn’t in line with the guidance and explains the variance in the number of lines on the April disclosure, rather than the fact that we have missed some invoices. Those marked with various are therefore where the invoices have been charged to more than general ledger account.

Comensura is probably the most significant example, but there are a number of others, care providers predominantly.

If it would help, I am happy to ask a colleague to send you the general ledger account breakdown for the invoices marked with ‘various’ and we shall look at including this in future periods either within the disclosure or as a separate attachment. At the same time I shall ask for a colleague to see if there is a reason why the file size is so different.

Now it is a good job I am not easily fobbed off because I knew that irrespective of the consolidation of suppliers payments into a few larger invoices there were still a significant number of payments missing so again I immediately emailed back the following:

Thank you for your response. I think you are saying that rather than listing individual entries you are only listing actual invoices paid which may cover a number of entries and that means there are fewer payments listed. I could accept that if there weren’t a large number of companies missing who you typically pay every single month without fail. For example starting at the beginning: Affinity Water are consistently paid every month. In April no payment. Same for Agudas Israel Housing Association Ltd; Anchor Foster Care Services Ltd; Barnet Lighting Services; Baytree Community Care; Blue 9 Security; Brent Couriers; NSL; the list goes on and on. I am sorry but I simply do not believe this suppliers list. The fact that the total payments in April is only £22.5 million when I would typically expect it to be at least £31-32 million (the average for 2013/14 was £39.4 million but it did have all those advance payments to Capita) and in April 2013 was £31.3 million suggests that a large number of invoices have been omitted.

I therefore would ask to look into this again and to send me a full and complete list of payments next time.  I also look forward to understanding why it is such a huge file size.

And then I waited until the 4th June and having found the person dealing with it was now on holiday I chased someone more senior. A couple of days later I got a response acknowledging that there was a problem and that they would let me know when the problem was sorted. That was a week ago. Today I checked again and saw that the file was now showing as being much smaller (only 99KB). However clicking on the link it downloaded the massive old file crashing my computer again. Eventually at 4pm I checked again and this time it downloaded the new file.

So what are the differences? The original file had payments of £22.5 million. The new file has payments with a value of £30.9 million from an additional 514 invoices including all the missing names I had mentioned plus two invoices from Capita Business Services Ltd for a total of £248,203.82. 

So what you may say? Well the issue is the supplier payments are suppose to help with transparency and are a requirement of central government. If I had simply accepted the payments on the face of it there would be a massive gap of £8.5 million in just one month. Also if I had been prepared to be fobbed off with a supposedly informed response from a senior officer those payments would still be missing. But here is the cruncher - who prepares these figures - Is it CAPITA? I think it is since they took over the finance function last September.

Where were the quality assurance checks, where was the attention to detail and why wasn't it picked up when I first challenged it. It seems to me that the only people holding the council to account are the few engaged citizen who get paid absolutely nothing unlike Capita and the senior officers who get paid a fortune.

I am logging this as yet another Capita contract failure.

Wot no Agilisys - Barnets Supplier payments for June

Looking through the supplier payments for June, one thing jumped out at me - no payments to Agilisys. Given that their bill has reached more than £7 million and bills have been running at around £250k- £300k per month, the lack of any payments to Agilisys is somewhat of a surprise. Maybe someone has at last pulled the plug on this juggernaut, maybe it is an oversight and we will get a double bill next month.

Other interesting payments were £378,996.49 paid to Trowers & Hamlin, the Councils legal advisors. Perhaps if Barnet had bothered to consult the residents we wouldn't have been landed with such a huge legal bill.

Oh and even though Capita haven't been awarded the NSCSO contract yet - pending the judgement on the Judicial Review Appeal - they have managed to secure a very lucrative short term deal which in June paid them £167,625 for the "NSCSO Management Fee"

NSL were paid £269,537.70 for operating the parking system. I would suggest anyone who is concerned about this should read Mr Mustard's blog on the payments to NSL.

Another Month Another Massive Consultant's Bill for Barnet

Barnet's supplier payments for April are out after having to look for them buried away under last financial year's figures. The usual suspect are present; Agilisys billed £230,822.34 which brings their running total to £6.55 million. Trowers & Hamlins put in a comparatively modest bill of £60,977.09.

The Barnet Group which includes both Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet received just a shade under £7 million but interestingly there was a bill for consultant's fees of £928,003.42 - I will be investigating further.

One unusual recipient of £3,400 in April was The Claddagh Ring - I assume that to be the Pub just down the road from Hendon Town Hall used for a training venue. It seems like quite a significant payment to me.

Another recipient was the Crown Moran Hotel, a very nice venue on Cricklewood Broadway which was paid £3,666.50 for venue hire. I wonder what that was for and was it really necessary to hold it in such an expensive venue.

There was a payment for £54,167 to Parkeon Limited who supply parking meters - I suspect that was for the new credit card parking payment machines which have been introduced and which I used just the other day. It is just a shame that they ripped out perfectly good payment machines in the first place.

Harvest Energy win the prize for the most diverse range of payment headings. They were paid £153,941.39 for services which included: Agency staff, gas, training, equipment and materials, building repairs, printing and software. That will need a bit more digging!

Barnet Council Supplier Payments It's nice to see old friends!

Barnet Council have just released the April supplier payments. A few payments stand out this month as being particularly large.

• The Barnet Group, the local authority trading company for Barnet Council's housing and social care services received £9,631,916.60. Now I am sure all of that money is warranted but it is a great shame that it falls outside the scrutiny of the council.

• Logica submitted only 6 invoices but they amounted to £1,135,786.30. I wonder what that was for, possibly for the continuing work on the wonderfully expensive SAP system.

I also came across a supplier called Hurria. Not recognising this company I looked up the company director on line who was named as one Irene Paterson-Hesford. Formed in September last year this is a very new company which always raises suspicions. Anyway, the power of the internet reveals that Mrs Paterson-Hesford is none other than Irene Findlay, formerly Director of Health Integration and Director of Adult Social Services at London Borough of Barnet. Ms Findlay is an Executive Coach so clearly the senior managers at North London Business Park were missing her. The invoice is for a very modest £4,000 but it would be fascinating to know which of the highly paid Barnet Council executive felt the need to employ her services.

Further analysis of the supplier payments will, I'm sure reveal a few more gems but I will leave that for another day!

Barnet Supplier Payments for September take a quick look

It’s that time of the month again and Barnet Council have published the suppliers payments for September. In total they amount to £28,795,329.82 from over 4,800 separate entries. The usual large payments go to:

GLA: £4,579,494.21
Transport for London: £3,236,734.00
Barnet Homes: £2,243,051.89
Barnet Lighting Services: £1,099,754.61
Catalyst Housing: £1,198,583.77
North London Waste Authority £821,852.00

However there are a few interesting payments which could do with a bit more explanation.

Civica UK Limited who, in the past, have provided services to parking clocked up invoices of £599,725.74 in September. Given that in the whole of last year they billed £353,177.02 then it makes you wonder why Barnet have received such a large bill this month.

Agilisys who are helping the Council to implement One Barnet billed £84,292.00 in September However given the daily rates they charge (£1,350/day for a manager and £995 a day for a consultant) that sum can be clock up quite easily.

Hays HR Services for temporary and interim staff clocked up £574,537.84 in September, which when compared with the £2,638,561.09 for all of last year, again looks high. Perhaps some of the consultants who are now not appearing on the supplier payments schedule are being put through Hays.

Nabarro LLP who are lawyers, clocked up £49,113.10 in fees. I wonder which One Barnet element that relates to?

Penna PLC, consultants who are providing interim staff in the commercial directorate were paid £44,225.00; not bad for one month.

Randstad who are an employment agency were paid £29,108.00 for supplying interim staff for the Deputy Chief Executives department

Simply Performance Management Limited who charged a rather modest £5,750.00. What is interesting is that they specialise in Executive Coaching and it was charged to the Deputy Chief executives Department. I wonder who was the recipient at Barnet Council and will it make them a better manager? Only time (and possibly a few Freedom of Information requests) will tell.

I would urge everyone if the have a few minutes to take a look at the supplier payments lists. This is what the council is spending your money and you can’t whinge about it if you don’t know where it goes.

Misleading Supplier Payments list for 2010/11 - an Open Letter to Mr Travers

Dear Mr Travers,

I write to you in your role as the Council’s Chief Financial Officer. As you may know, I take a great deal of interest in how the council spends council taxpayers’ money. As part of my scrutiny of the annual audit process I have made a number of requests for further clarification based on the Supplier Payments list posted on the Council’s website. In the past I have found a number of errors with this list but at least I believed that they were drawn from a list of supplier payments (which is only reasonable to do as they are called Supplier Payments).

As part of my review I found a number of duplicate entries on the list which suggested that payments had been made twice and which significantly alarmed me. However, I now find out that the Supplier Payments list for 2010-11 posted on the council’s website is based on a goods receipting system and not on actual payments. Not all credits were shown on this system and as a result the figures shown are unreliable. For example there are two payments for £258,153.96 listed in the Supplier Payments for August 2010 when only one payment has actually been made according to the SAP system.

I have been told that for the financial year 2011/12 all credits are being shown as well, so this should give a more accurate picture. In addition, the council is working with Logica to get a direct automated report from the SAP system (£23 million spent to date) which will show payments on a cash basis rather than an accruals basis.

I hope you understand that I find this a rather unsatisfactory situation. It is now a year since supplier payments have been listed on the website yet at no time has there been a clear statement that this data was not taken from actual payments and that is may not be reliable. It is also surprising that in that year, a suitable report programme from the SAP system has not yet been finalised.

The supplier payments list has serious significance; not only is it meant to provide transparency for council tax payers but it is picked up by a number of other bodies as a way of assessing how much is being spent with a specific supplier. I am now at a loss as to what to believe about the supplier payments list for last year as it has lost all creditability.

I would reiterate my comments made at the recent Audit Committee, that this is yet more evidence that the shift management emphasis to delivering the One Barnet Outsourcing Programme seems to have taken away the focus of getting the day to day operation of the council running properly.

Yours sincerely

John Dix

An audience with the Auditors

For the past couple of weeks I have been going through Barnet council accounts undertaking some sampling of invoices and asking follow up questions. Today was my chance to meet and discuss my concerns with the auditors and I was accompanied by Mrs Angry who also had a number of detailed questions. The meeting was, I believe, rational,constructive and well supported by evidence. At this stage I am not going to discuss the details of the meeting further as I am awaiting the response from Mr Hughes of Grant Thornton.

All I will say at this stage is that I think Mrs Angry and I gave him some serious food for thought.

I have invested a great deal of time freely and with no other objective than to make sure that every ratepayer in Barnet is getting value for money. I do however sometimes wish that councillors (who receive a rather generous allowance) would spend less time playing rather silly political point scoring games and focus a bit more on the day to day way in which the council is run.

Interestingly, back in January when the Pledgebank was launched I did offer my half a day of time time each month, free of charge to review council invoices in order to provide an independent perspective and challenge on spending, an offer which Barnet council chose to ignore even when I followed it up some months later. So much for big society!

April Spending at Barnet Council

Having had a quick scan through the April supplier payments over £500 at Barnet Council, a few things jump out at me. First of all, no invoice this month from Halliford Associates (Mr Travers, Deputy Chief Executive) or a number of other consultants.

Our friends LogicaCMG who have being working on the SAP system for the last 6 years were paid £961,412.57 in April. That pushes the total spent on implementing the SAP system to £22 million on a project that was originally budgeted to cost £2.5 million (see previous post)

As a footnote I see that the Sandbanks Hotel is popular again - £13,550.71. Am I the only one who wonders why there is a need to keep splashing out at this lovely hotel although why it is classified as rent in the payments seems a bit puzzling.