Agency staff cost council millions
Slough: Temporary staff cost £3.5m over three months
Slough Borough Council has been urged to have less reliance on agency workers after figures revealed it spent more than £3million on temporary staff in three months.
Agency workers cost the local authority £1.28million in March, £1.01million in April and £1.23million in May this year.
Members of SBC’S Employment and Appeals Committee met on Thursday, July 2 to discuss the council’s partnership with Matrix SCM who has been granted a new two-year contract to help fill temporary roles at the local authority.
Lola Makinde, HR business partner at Slough Borough Council, told the meeting the council has tended to use agency staff to fill specialist jobs.
She said: “In the last 18 months we’ve been looking at the number of agency
staff we’ve engaged through the Matrix platform.
“It appears what managers were looking for was temporary solutions for six to nine months.
“What we don’t want to do is recruit a new member of staff and then if we have to restructure we have to make them redundant.”
Cllr Shafiq Chaudry (Lab, Central) questioned why the council had not permanently recruited agency staff who had been working for the council for more than two years.
The meeting was told Matrix SCM is aiming to turn more temporary positions into permanent jobs at the council.
Cllr Safdar Ali (Lab, Central) told the meeting: “The whole policy should be based on the fundamental point that the council needs to have less reliance on temporary staff.
“Where staff have been there (at the council) for more than two years as far as I am concerned they are becoming permanent temporary.
“If that member of staff is required to work for the council the council should employ them permanently rather than keep hiring for the agency and save some money.”
The new contract, which will use Matrix SCM’s ‘hybrid model’, is expected to save the council about £110,000 a year by reducing the amount of money spent on statutory labour fees.
Councillors also heard how the council is planning to carry out a ‘wholesale review’ of all its agency workers.