Or should it be
A culture of incompetents - the collective noun for a bunch of Barnet Council officers ?
What is Mr Mustard on about? He is on about the paperwork prepared for tonight's meeting of the Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Mr Mustard has a busy day and isn't meant to be blogging today as he has work to do. However just whilst the potatoes were boiling to go with his lunch time salad so Mr Mustard's blood was boiling at yet another example of duff figures being presented to Councillors. Mr Mustard only had time for a quick glance at the report but whilst turning over page 15 of the Final Outturn and Performance Report it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. Here is the page and the link to the entire report
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| click once to make bigger & then again for full page and then back to return |
Here are the real figures. The ones in blue are the ones which should be in the report.
| Agency Staff Costs | |||||
| Service | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Total £ |
| Adult Social services | 471,086 | 432,085 | 438,876 | 286,927 | 1,628,974 |
| Chief Executive's service | 85,347 | 84,218 | 55,040 | 56,942 | 281,547 |
| Children's Service | 620,824 | 588,781 | 616,518 | 579,272 | 2,405,395 |
| Commercial | 348,093 | 314,808 | 193,322 | 191,143 | 1,047,366 |
| Corporate Governance | 55,134 | 52,007 | 38,175 | 60,215 | 205,531 |
| Deputy Chief Executive | 289,695 | 269,194 | 261,282 | 304,061 | 1,124,232 |
| Environment & Operations | 408,392 | 417,781 | 435,982 | 384,888 | 1,647,043 |
| Planning, Housing & Regen | 181,796 | 160,123 | 131,198 | 118,945 | 592,062 |
| Grand Total | 2,460,367 | 2,318,997 | 2,170,393 | 1,982,393 | 8,932,150 |
Let us leave aside that a total of £9million spent on agency workers is not the way to have a coherent and well-managed organisation and that this table does not include Interims, Contractors, Consultants and so isn't of any real help.
Why didn't the person who wrote the report or the one who checked it ( Mr Mustard presumes cross-checking occurs ? ) spot such an obvious blunder.
It is not up to Councillors to double check the report. They should be able to rely on it. Councillors are presented with a document of 126 pages to hopefully read before a 3 hour meeting so the time for scrutiny is limited. Time to shake a few people up Councillors.
Mr Mustard wonders why he keeps finding glaring errors in Barnet Council's figures.
Are the Officers incompetent ?
Do they not have any pride in their work ?
Is there poor leadership ?
Is OneBarnet causing lack of attention to the basics ?
Yours frugally
I think I need to remind you, Mr Mustard, that the officers who used to deal with this work to the highest levels of competence - ordinary employees on modest salaries, unlike the £1,000 a day rate of Mr Andrew 'Black Hole' Travers - were handed redundancy notices just before Christmas and left Barnet in March. Some of these employees, who have worked for many years for the authority and given loyal service throughout this time, are now without employment. Mr Travers and all his generously rewarded senior colleagues remain in post, despite the appalling mess uncovered by the MetPro scandal.
ReplyDeleteMy exasperation Mrs A is aimed fairly and squarely at Finance who must have produced the figures, not at Democratic Services although they are due a blog or two !
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