Wokingham Borough Council has spent more than £2 million on agency staff, it has been revealed.
A report written by the council shows that it spent £2,261,599 on 95 agency staff by the end of Quarter 2 of the 2022/23 financial year.
There were also 11 consultants working for the local authority at a cost of £257,135.
In full, six per cent of people who work for the council are agency staff, and 0.7 per cent are consultants.
The figures have been revealed in the council’s temporary worker report, which states that some work is ‘interim by nature’ such as contractors for highway workers.
The report states: “Within Place and Growth, Highways is a national sector that is underpinned by an agile, contracting labour force.
“Across the sector, due to the nature of national schemes and projects, specialists are interim in nature – contracting when and where schemes are financed and as such, there are nationally very few specialists who undertake permanent placements.”
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A significant number of agency staff work in the council’s adult and social care ‘directorate’ with the 15 per cent vacancy rate within the directorate being covered by agency workers.
The report was discussed at a community & corporate overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, January 23.
Councillor Pauline Jorgensen (Conservative, Hillside) noted that some ‘temporary’ staff had been with the council for over three years, and questioned whether using agency staff was cost effective when compared with hiring staff directly.
In reply, cllr Imogen Shepherd-DuBey (Liberal Democrats, Emmbrook), executive member for finance, said: “I think very clearly most of these positions are public statutory roles, things that we absolutely have to be doing, and the fact that they can’t be filled by permanent staff which would be the ideal, they are using agencies for social work positions.
“Largely they are covering roles we can’t fill otherwise.”
A number of agency staff work in the council’s childen’s services, which 35 of the 95 staff work within.
Most of the agency staff are social workers, with a total of 41 working with the council according to the data from October 2022.
Of those, 21 are adult social care workers and 20 are children’s social workers.
You can view the breakdown of the agency staff the council uses below:
Of the 11 consultants and interim workers, four work in children’s services, three each in Place & Growth and the chief executive’s office, and one works in Resources and Assets.
According to cllr Jorgensen the report on agency staff was also discussed at the council’s personnel board on Friday, January 13, where more details were provided about the agency staff that have been working for the council for three years or more.
However, that part of the discussion was held in private due to commercial sensitivity.
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