Surely there cannot be 55 temps in Revenues & Benefits ?

It appears, unknown sources reveal ( although Barnet Council will find it to be quite hard to hide them in a corner of the office ) that there may be 55 temps in Revenues & Benefits, all sourced from Hays, and the charge for them is over £20 per hour and they are working 9 hour days so that makes about £200,000 a month. 

This staggering amount would be bad enough if the extra staff were needed but Mr Mustard is told that the permanent staff can cope with both the normal workload and the backlog caused by the forced system change. Unusually it isn't the staff who are pushing for the temps to be retained but management and possibly the top paid temp, the £1,000 a day Mr Andrew Travers. There are 162 staff in this department according to the options appraisal so that would be 1 in 3 extra employees who all have to be shown what to do in what is a complicated area. Mr Mustard feels sure that this must be slowing the regular staff down. 

Now the Hays group companies were paid nearly £4million by Barnet Council in the year to 31 March 2011 so £200,000 would not be an unusual amount for a month.

Mr Mustard is now setting his bloodhound on the trail and will let you know anything else that he finds. Now if you happen to have any information don't be afraid to share: email it to Mr Mustard, create yourself a disposable email if you wish, although in any event he keeps confidences.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard