Council's agency staff bill tops £3m

West Berkshire Council spends huge sum on temporary workers

WEST Berkshire Council spent more than £3m on agency staff in the 16 months between January 2012 and April 2013.

New figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, show that the district council shelled out £3,183,774.15 during that period.

That equates to an average of £198,895 a month – or £49,746 every week or £7,106 a day – on temporary staff and consultants recruited through agencies.

More than £1.1m was spent on temporary staff in adult social care in that time, while £760,000 went on recruiting agency workers in children’s services.

The council’s executive member for finance, Roger Croft (Con, Thatcham South and Crookham), admitted the cost was a “concern”, but said it was a national problem that was affecting many other councils across the country.

In total the district council paid out more than £300,000 on agency workers in the education field and a further £315,000 was spent on recruiting temporary staff to work on the Adult Social Care change programme.

The council paid out £212,000 on temporary staff in care, commissioning, housing and safeguarding, which works to stop abuse and neglect and prevent harm to the most vulnerable people.

Temporary staff in ICT and corporate support cost the council £97,000, with a total of £136,000 spent on employing agency workers to help out in customer services.

Another £270,000 was spent on recruiting temporary workers across culture and environmental protection (£120,000), planning and countryside (£48,000), finance (£31,000), highways and transport (£8,500), human resources (£11,500), legal (£31,000) and strategic support (almost £7,000).

Earlier this year West Berkshire Council’s children’s services were deemed ‘inadequate’ in a damning Ofsted report.

The report, published in May, noted that the council “does not have a stable workforce”, saying that a “significant amount of social workers and managers in key social work teams are agency staff and turnover is high”.

It added that this has resulted in children experiencing “unacceptable disruption, uncertainty and inconsistency”.

The council is currently in the process of implementing a £1m ‘social worker academy’ to try and attract more quality social workers on a permanent basis.

It proposes to do this by offering bonuses and sabbaticals to reward long service.

Mr Croft said: “The cost of recruiting agency staff is a concern, definitely.

“It is a national problem affecting just about every other council and is not unique to West Berkshire.

“We are using too many agency staff.

“They are qualified and very capable but we would much rather be employing them on a permanent basis.

“We are trying to work out how to attract and keep quality social workers to bring our agency spend and reliance down – that is one of the key aims of the social worker academy.

“It seems at the moment that these skilled workers are finding the temporary agency route works better for them.”

The figures relate to agency staff, short-term contracts, contractors, locums and consultants.

The £3m spend refers to staff employed via an agency and who are therefore on a temporary contract.