Barnet Council spent £2.11m on three building repair contracts approved for £1.18m. Cabinet is asked on 17 November to sign off the extra £932,000 after the event.
Barnet Council spent £932,000 more than it had approved on three building repair contracts. Councillors are now being asked to sign off the money after it has already gone out.
The council had authorised £1.18 million for the three contractors. By 31 March 2026 it had spent £2.11 million with them. The figures are in a report for Cabinet on Tuesday 17 November. (Barnet Council, Contract compliance report, Cabinet 17 November 2026)
The report does not blame the contractors. It says the spending ran over “due to the volume of statutory compliance works, reactive repairs and associated remedial works required across the estate”. Since the problem was found, it says, the council has brought in “enhanced budget monitoring, contract management controls and expenditure forecasting arrangements”.
What was approved and what was spent
The three firms keep the council’s own buildings safe and working. Two do electrical safety checks and repairs. The third does emergency and routine building repairs.
| Contractor | Approved | Spent by 31 March 2026 | Over by |
|---|---|---|---|
| PTM Electrical Ltd | £190,000 | £314,150 | £124,150 |
| Alpha Tech Group Ltd | £190,000 | £627,954 | £437,954 |
| Riello Property & Construction Services Ltd | £800,000 | £1,169,890 | £369,890 |
| Total | £1,180,000 | £2,111,994 | £931,994 |
Source: Cabinet report, Table 1. The electrical figures cover 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. The Riello figures cover 1 August 2025 to 31 March 2026.
The Riello approval was meant to last 18 months, from August 2025 to February 2027. The council had spent more than the full £800,000 within eight months.
How the contracts came about
In 2022 the council set up a framework of maintenance contractors in 11 lots. It later lost the contractors on Lot 2, the electrical work.
To keep its electrical safety programme going, it appointed PTM Electrical and Alpha Tech Group in March 2025 without a competition, using what the report calls a Single Tender Action. Each was capped at £190,000 and was due to end on 31 August 2026.
Riello was brought in by Cabinet on 22 July 2025. The report says the existing contractors “are not always able to resource the Council’s needs”. It describes Riello as a Barnet-based small business offering “generally more competitive rates”.
What Cabinet is asked to agree
The report asks Cabinet to:
- approve the £931,994 already spent above the limits
- extend all three contracts to 31 August 2027, in line with the rest of the framework
- approve a further £850,000 of forecast spending up to that date
That forecast is £200,000 for PTM Electrical, £150,000 for Alpha Tech Group and £500,000 for Riello. Taken together with the money already over, the authorised value of the three contracts would rise by £1,681,994.
The report says the money is there. Estates maintenance budgets and capital funding “have sufficient funds” for the work done so far, and the forecast spending is “within the budget envelope”. All the term maintenance contracts will be tendered again in 2027.
The report looked at ending the contracts and advises against it. It says the electrical work is “critical for electrical health and safety and statutory building compliance”. It adds that the council would still owe the firms for work already done.
What it means for you
This is not new spending on top of the budget, according to the report. But it is money spent without the approval the council’s own rules require, and it comes in a year when the council expects to need £73.3 million of emergency borrowing to balance its books.
The report says some of the spending was by council departments other than Estates, which also used the firms. It does not say which departments, or how much.
Cabinet meets at 7pm on Tuesday 17 November at Hendon Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public. Papers are on the council’s meetings site.
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