Council pays triple usual rate to fill some roles

A council has been paying more than triple what it would normally spend to fill some job vacancies, according to figures seen by the BBC.

Norwich City Council paid £750 per day for a temporary fire safety manager, when the permanent position would normally cost £201.

Green Party councillor Liam Calvert, whose party discovered the sums paid through a Freedom of Information request, said they were hard to justify.

The council said recruiting permanent staff for some positions was a problem experienced by local authorities across the country, but that it had recently reduced its agency spend by half.

The figures obtained relate to contracts starting between March 2021 and June 2024.

The BBC compared the daily rates obtained by the Green Party with the council's published pay policy for permanent posts on the equivalent bands.

For example, an interim chief finance officer was taken on at a rate of £944 per day, while the permanent equivalent would be paid £451.

In 2022, someone with the job title portfolio manager received a day rate of £780, 254% higher than the staff equivalent of £220.

The revelations come after the council announced it needed to make £9.5m in savings over the next five years.

Mr Calvert, councillor for Wensum ward, accused the authority of "throwing money at the problem" of recruitment.

He said: "It is hard to see how Norwich City Council can justify paying huge multiples of a standard wage, in some cases, for very long periods.

"By repeatedly filling posts with short term appointments, the council suffers a loss of the continuity and experience needed to properly serve resident."

He referred to other figures, gathered by The 4 Day Week Campaign, showing Norwich City Council had the 27th highest proportional spend on agency staff of any local authority in the UK during 2022-23.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Local Democracy Reporting Service in September revealed overall agency spend by the council had significantly increased in recent years.

Total spend on agency staff in the 2021-22 financial year was £1.4m.

Two years later, it had risen to £3.8m.

"We are struggling to recruit staff," the council said at the time.

A recruitment industry source, who did not want to be identified, said temporary senior managers were often independent contractors who charged rates reflecting their specialism, scarcity and flexibility.

They could fill vacancies quickly while the search for a permanent staff member got under way, the source added, and could "hit the ground running".

The insider said such senior managers were often taken on for specific projects and could easily go elsewhere for more money.

They also told the BBC commission paid to the agencies would not usually exceed 10%.

Between 2009 and 2024, the English local government staff headcount almost halved from 2.2m to 1.3m, according to ONS figures.

Data released in May by the the Local Government Association shows large proportions of agency staff now filling workforce gaps.

For legal services, about a quarter of staff across English councils were employed in this way. In finance, the ratio was 1:7.

But the vast majority of agency workers were within adult social care.

A Norwich City Council spokesman said: “Since 2020, local councils up and down the country have all reported the identical issue of having real difficulties in recruiting permanent staff – particularly for certain specialist and statutory roles that all councils must have.

“These are sector-wide issues which have forced so many local councils to use agency staff to plug the gaps."

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