LABOUR councillors have called for outsourcing firm Capita to be fined, after it emerged it was not providing Barnet Council with the IT disaster recovery system it was paid to.

During an audit committee on Thursday July 26, Labour councillors established Barnet council was not paying for the I.T service it expected.

In discussions with Brett Holtom, who works with Capita, it emerged that the IT Disaster Recovery service, where data lost after one hour should be recovered within 48 hours with a maximum one hour's data loss, is not being delivered.

But it found that some would not be recovered at all, while others would be restored within 96 hours, with up to a day’s data loss.

The report revealed Capita’s technical provision would not cover the council’s contractual requirements - and that the system had not taken into account the fact that some IT applications relied on others to function.

Cllr Arjun Mittra, who represents East Finchley, said he was “appalled” that Capita had not and did not intend to deliver this service.

He said: “The council taxpayers' money that has been wasted on this must be refunded, and the council should consider whether they could fine Capita for breach of contract.

“This is yet more evidence that the Tories running the council signed us up to a really duff contract, and after the April Audit report these new revelations do not inspire confidence that things will get any better. As we've already established, the Tories couldn't run a whelk stall, much less a local authority. “

"Capita signed up to a contract and haven’t delivered. They failed to tell this to Barnet council and Barnet councillors.

“We think the council should be fining Capita fining over this.”

In August 2013, Barnet Council signed over almost £450m worth of public services to Capita.

Capita was primed to take over the authority’s back office functions and customer services in two contracts worth £320million and £126million respectively.

They were based on improving and developing the borough’s services over the next ten years.

Cllr Richard Cornelius, Leader of the Council, said: “Barnet council will work with Capita to ensure the “most important systems are categorised in the highest level of disaster recovery.”

He said: “What Labour don’t mention is that for the critical systems that residents and staff rely upon, the data recovery performance now exceeds the standards set out in the contract – delivering near instantaneous data recovery. For all systems, performance is at least in line with industry standards and benchmarking shows that, in the event of a failure, Barnet should now receive a better recovery service than most similar organisations.

“We are of course keen to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. It is the Conservatives with the record of delivering £105m per year in savings from the council’s budget over the last five years.”