53 temps = over budget - Surely not

I am sure that readers will be familiar with my earlier post about the ridiculous number of temps that were in the Revenue & Benefits department. If not, click here.

News now reaches Mr Mustard of an email sent to staff in Revenues & Benefits some of whom were working to rule and some of whom went on a half day strike and got locked out of work for a whole day and a whole day's pay is to be deducted. That action of deducting an entire day's pay when the strike was planned to start at 1pm upsets Mr Mustard's sense of justice and fair play. Mr Mustard would be ringing the union or his Solicitor if he happened to be an employee in this department. Mr Mustard isn't working these days and has experience of finance so he might just stick an application in with Hays and see if he can get some temp work so he can find out first hand what is going on.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Pay/DG_175878

Anyway, back to the email. What did it say. One element was this :-

due to the need to operate within a balanced budget ...........

there will be no more Saturday or evening overtime working for the forseeable future.

Let's get this right. The management employ 53 temps at a cost of £9,000 a day and then suddenly find that they are over budget. The village idiot would have seen that one coming. 

Have the temps left now?

Are the temps still being offered overtime working?

Why are the staff not being offered overtime as they must know more about the benefits system than a bunch of temps? 

It is of course nothing to do with them working to rule or going on strike. No, absolutely not, how could you even think that Mr Mustard, you naughty man.
How will the query arrears be dealt with?

Stupid, vindictive and incompetent management at Barnet Council. Never.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Permanently temporary !

Where does the money go ?

Well much of it goes on temporary help including some that the permanent staff don't want or need.

Mr Mustard asked, under FOI ( one of his favourite laws ), the following :-

Temporary employees from Hays & other agencies in Revenues & Benefits

Please tell me the number of temps in use today and the total cost for today (to the nearest £1,000)

Here is the staggering answer:

On the 5th of July 2011 there were 53 agency staff working within Revenues and Benefits. Based on the hours worked and the hourly charge rates, the total estimated spend on this specific day was just over £9000.00

Forget the .oo as it is pointless. So that is £9,000 a day or £45,000 a week or £2,340,000 p.a. for temporary help that the department itself says it doesn't need but management says it does. How can the staff possibly get their work done with 53 temps in their way. Who tells them what to do ? 

Please bear in mind that this is only one department with 53 temps. How many are there in use in total?

Just close two libraries, every museum, sack the school crossing patrols, cut grants to voluntary bodies, increase the sums that the disadvantaged have to pay but whatever you do don't get rid of consultants or interims or temps. 

That's One Barnet that is, it will save zillions ( One Barnet - One Day - just not sure which millennium we will be in )

Who believes this One Barnet tosh?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard 

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