Temporary overload

Mr Mustard took too many clothes for his 4 day trip in the Ardennes

Barnet Council is over-burdened with consultants, interims, town hall tax dodgers, agency staff (largely through Hays) and temporary staff of every description. Managing an organisation of 3,000 when a third of them are not part of permanent teams is a ridiculous way of going on. When you start a new job it takes weeks or months to find your way around, get to know who is who in the organisation, where everything is, what procedures are, even what the council does, never mind becoming part of a team that gells together.

Mr Mustard is not a football fan (although he has been to a Barnet FC game) but he thought he would compare Barnet Council as a team to whoever was top of the premiership when he started this posting which turned out to be Chelsea (Mr Mustard had no idea). Their squad of 25 has averaged 90 games apiece. Not got nine players on temporary loan have they? (if they have Mr Mustard wouldn't know).

Now let us look at Barnet Council squad numbers which Mr Mustard obtained under the FOI legislation and very useful it is too. As it happens the council now publish staff numbers in the quarterly performance reviews of each directorate.

Directorate	Hays	Casual	Both	Estab.	%
Adult Social Care	70	10	80	318	25%
Children's Service	100	330	430	996	43%
Chief Executives Service	35	4	39	401	10%
Commercial Service	41	0	41	138	30%
Corporate Governance	19	2	21	81	26%
Deputy Chief Executive Service	38	8	46	210	22%
Environment Planning and Regeneration	162	85	247	869	28%
Totals	465	439	904	3,013	30%

That is an awful lot of temporary help. Some departments are almost exclusively run by temps. Blue badges is one of them where Mr Mustard is informed that there is only one permanent employee who isn't even full time and so one isn't too surprised when you hear of the delays in renewing a blue badge. It takes months for a new employee to become comfortable in a new role and for a team of workers to gel. Wheover designed this policy which is intended to minimise redundancy pay when the huge One Barnet changes occur has not factored into the equation the lower productivity that the average temp will have compared to an average employee, the extra cost of employing temps and the lack of team spirit which, although hard to measure, makes all the difference when a department is under pressure.

Contrast this with Chelsea FC

Squad member	Position	Nationality	Played
1. Petr Cech	Goalkeeper	Czech	260
2. Branislav Ivanovic	Defender	Serbian	111
3. Ashley Cole	Defender	English	185
4. David Luiz	Defender	Brazilian	35
5. Michael Essien	Midfielder	Ghanaian	163
7. Ramires	Midfielder	Brazilian	62
8. Frank Lampard	Midfielder	English	378
9. Fernando Torres	Forward	Spanish	50
10. Juan Mata	Forward	Spanish	37
11. Emboaba Oscar	Midfielder	Brazilian	2
12. Mikel	Midfielder	Nigerian	164
15. Florent Malouda	Midfielder	French	149
16. Raul Meireles	Midfielder	Portuguese	31
17. Eden Hazard	Midfielder	Belgian	4
19. Paulo Ferreira	Defender	Portuguese	134
21. Marko Marin	Midfielder	German	0
22. Ross Turnbull	Goalkeeper	English	4
23. Daniel Sturridge	Forward	English	58
24. Gary Cahill	Defender	English	12
26. John Terry	Defender	English	374
28. Cesar Azpilicueta	Defender	Spanish	0
30. Yossi Benayoun	Midfielder	Israeli	8
34. Ryan Bertrand	Defender	English	11
35. Lucas Piazon	Midfielder	Brazilian	0
40. Henrique Hilario	Goalkeeper	Portuguese	20
Total matches played			2,252
Average			90

Now stop and think. Chelsea are (or at least were) top of the league and have a fairly stable workforce (that is what players are)  and they score goals.

Barnet Council chop and change their team all of the time and couldn't hit a barn door most of the time.

Perhaps the Barnet Council high percentage of temporary help policy is the wrong one?

The other strange point is the use of 439 casuals who are on the Barnet Council payroll. The Hays contract becomes a contract with Comensura next month and so is coming to an end but when it was signed up for in February 2008 some of the justification was the following:

The contract will enable the council to achieve better control and value for money in the recruitment of temporary staff

The Hays Temp Desk arrangement, operating for 3 years has achieved savings of more than £2.5m. They complete all the recruitment, saving Barnet staff across all service areas, considerable time and enabling the Council to achieve temp staff rates 20-25% less than if we purchased on the open market.

Through the existence of a centralised agency temp desk, the Council can control and monitor its use of temporary workers and the agencies that supply temporary workers to London Borough of Barnet, thereby achieving better control of temporary staff costs and visibility to reduce expenditure and improve performance from suppliers.

They were words, just words, empty words, space filling words and then many parts of the council carried on with their own local open amrket arrangements with individuals and didn't maximise the savings or management information which would have come from fully using the contract.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard