Barnet Council insists it is trying to be more efficient in the way it runs the Council. However the evidence suggests otherwise. The Council publishes a series of performance targets including the cost per head of population for "back office support". These are not frontline service posts but administrative support. Last year it spent £61.88 per head of the population on this function and set a target for this year of £62.00 per head. However, according to the latest figures published in February 2010, this cost is now running at £64.91 per head of the population. That might not seem like much, but given we have a population in Barnet or around 331,000, that means the over spend was around £1 million. At the same time Barnet are also looking to recruit new posts including one for a "Change and Innovation Manager" in the Environment Department at a salary of around £50,000 plus on costs. With so many other priorities it seems crazy to be recruiting this sort of "non job".