£5M cost of council’s temps angers unions

Oldham Council is paying over £5 million a year for temporary and agency staff as it makes almost 500 posts redundant.

The authority uses 61 firms, ranging from A1 Staff Agency to Zarak Group Recruitment, to provide bin men, administrative staff, drivers and carers, as well as smaller number of legal, financial and security staff.

The figures have angered unions who say the money should be spent on providing permanent jobs and investing in a committed work force.

The £5 million covers the last financial year until March 31, and shows one company was paid over £500,000 providing 459 people over 12 months, two more over £200,000, and six more over £100,000.

Cabinet member for Finance and Resources, Councillor Lynne Thompson, said many of the jobs, such as refuse collection and care workers, had to be filled that day.

She added: “You have got to look after people and a lot of agency staff are for jobs like that.”

But Wendy Bradbury, Unison’s branch chairman, said: “These figures have shocked and surprised me.

“Many of the agency staff are our members. We have agency staff who have been employed for years in some jobs, who should be made permanent, saving the council a lot of money.

“We should be spending money on permanent employees as our main priority. Unison has always opposed so many temporary staff.”

Peter Duckworth, the GMB convenor, has been questioning the amount spent on agency staff, when the council has imposed a jobs freeze.

And Paul Dale, the T and G union convenor added: “Management keep saying they can’t do anything about this until after jobs evaluation is completed (the system of grading all council jobs and salaries into one pay scale).

‘It is scandalous that they are paying that amount of money, yet it is not going into people’s pensions or the local government pension scheme.

“What we are saying is that full-time members of staff should be shown some commitment.”

Councillor Thompson said some of the agency and temporary staff were inherited when the Liberal Democrat administration took over from Labour last year.

She said other jobs were being kept open with agency staff so that people at risk of redundancy could have the chance to apply for them.

Others were filled with temporary staff until the new permanent council management structure was completed.

Some were where skills were needed on a temporary basis, such as for the Building Schools for the Future project, or for resolving queries on the council’s new financial IT system.

She added: “I would rather have permanent staff and invest in training them up.

“Temporary working is dropping and I expect the £5 million figure will come down over the next financial year.”

Labour leader Councillor Jim McMahon said: “This has always been a problem, but in the long run employed staff are cheaper.

“And as the town’s biggest employer the council has got a social responsibility to make sure people working here have reasonable terms and conditions.”