Herefordshire Council's near £4m "single year" spend on agency staff

The council has today said the spend reflected its need to “focus resources on priority areas.”

Many of those temporary staff were local to the county and recruited through Hoople, the council’s “arm’s length” company.

Eighty council staff were made redundant over 2012/13 at a cost of more than £1 million.

The previous year (2011/12) over 200 employees were made redundant, including 130 on a compulsory basis, costing just over £3 million.

A further £800,000 was earmarked for redundancy payments in 2013/14, taking the total to around £5 million in three years.

The full staff spend of  the council’s Directorates for 2012/13 was £102,033,000.

Over same period temporary staff cost the council cost of £3,700,000 or 3.6% of the budget.

Responding to the Hereford Times in a statement, the council said a mix of permanent and temporary staff was normal and allowed the authority to focus resources towards priority areas such as children’s services and adult social care. 

That statement also refers to the council competing against a national skills shortage in these priority areas, which meant its recruitment system had to be flexible.

The council’s policy is not to re-employ redundant staff within six months.  If “exceptional circumstances” meant their re-employment earlier, a pro-rated amount of their redundancy settlement has to be re-paid.

A large majority of temporary staff hired were are local to Herefordshire and are recruited through Hoople.

Hoople’s own future faces a reckoning with the “arm’s length” company set up to save spending on support services  likely to be split in two, with one entity delivering specific services directly to the council and the other delivering a range of commercial services to the market.

Cabinet has already agreed to drawing up a business case and implementation plan with Hoople and its board that allows for the split ahead of the company’s contract with the council ending in 2016.