“No stone left unturned” Number 1: Update of Barnet Council Agency Spend.

After a delay by Barnet Council in publishing the figures online, Barnet UNISON is now able to see the latest Agency Spend up to 30 September 2024.

This data represents six months of agency spend.

First the good news.

As our members will know the last time we looked at the agency spend up to 31 August, Barnet Council had spent £11,950,348 million on agency workers. UNISON forecasted that if Barnet Council continued this rate of spend for the rest of the year the Council will have spent £28,680,836 million, which would be a record breaking spend when compared with the last 15 years of agency spend. The good news is that our forecast is down by £1,411,295 million which demonstrates that the brakes have been applied to agency spend.

The bad news is that even with this reduction the Council is still heading for a massive record breaking spend of £27,269,541 million which would be a record breaking spend when compared with the last 15 years of agency spend.

UNISON comment.

We are waiting. UNISON has been waiting for two and half months to be provided with a breakdown of agency worker spend across the Council workforce. 20 years ago UNISON used to be provided by Barnet Council with a breakdown of the staffing establishment including vacant posts and agency workers by directorate. It is concerning that we are approaching a timetable of potential redundancy consultations and UNISON still has no insight as to where there are vacancies and where agency workers are being deployed.

We understand that the report going to Cabinet Committee on Thursday 5 December 2024 will provide some insight as to where there will be possible redundancies. Once statutory redundancy consultation begins Barnet Council has a lawful duty to provide this staffing/agency information to UNISON.

End.