Barnet Council staff mostly not from Barnet

A huge amount of data hits Mr Mustard's desk every day about Barnet Council. He only has so much free time so has to be a little selective about what he spends time blogging about. Years ago Mr Mustard had thought that having, for example, staff (or tax avoiding consultants) with Peterborough or Hampshire addresses was really not necessary as with a population of over 300,000 the council ought to be able to find sufficient home grown talent without going outside the borough except for the occasional specialist role. Clearly someone else is interested in the topic as they asked under the Freedom of Information legislation and here is the answer they received:

You can readily see that exactly 40% of the staff live within the borough of Barnet. It isn't good for staff to have to travel a long way to work (although many people are now working from home, which would be an interesting follow up question) and it is bad for the planet.

What struck Mr Mustard is that none of the really senior management team, 13 staff with grades 1 to 5, live within the Borough. Mr Mustard can't help but think that they would feel the impact of their decisions more, and perhaps not take some of them, if they lived in and experienced what the borough is actually like to live in, they don't know.

Please make your own comments in the box below.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard