Temporary Staff costs break £1m barrier for fourth time in six years
Dr Susan Piest became the Head of Paid Service of Folkestone & Hythe District Council on the 1 April 2018, and later on the Chief Executive. During her six year tenure, the Council have spent more than £1m on Temporary Staff on no less than four occasions, as shown below.
Since April 2023, the Council have according to their payment to suppliers data, spent just over £1m on temporary staff. HR Go (Kent) Ltd have received 22% of the total sum spent to Dec 2023, making them the largest provider of Temporary Staff to Folkestone & Hythe District Council.
Dr Priest and head of HR, Andrina Smith, have both made it clear our Council have found it difficult to attract the right caliber of candidate and retaining them.
The Council late last year announced a voluntary redundancy scheme to save costs as they were facing a significant budget deficit. Since then a good number of experienced staff have volunteered. The costs for these redundancies will not be known until the 2023/24 accounts are published.
Local Government has historically faced high staff turnover rates, often leading to a reliance on temporary agency staff. In March 2021 it was recorded that 45.3% of those who worked in Local Government worked on a temporary or casual contract. Only 26.2% of staff were employed on a permanent contract. This is reflected in 78% of Councils reporting recruitment and retention difficulties.
It will we believe become the norm for Temporary Staff costs at Folkestone & Hythe DC to breach the £1 million pound mark each year, due to inflationary costs and other financial issues. How this can be considered “value for money” or even best value, we do not know.
Perhaps the Head of HR at Folkestone & Hythe District Council , Andrina Smith (pictured) might be able to explain.
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Is it any wonder that the cost is so high .
No one in their right mind would want to work permanently at FHDC with the level of toxicity that Priest has produced.
I bet the queue for redundancy was a very long one , nearly all the staff I expect .
The answer is and has been for a long time that she must be replaced by someone that people want to work for thereby reducing the cost to us the Council Tax payer .
It would be interesting to know what type of jobs are being recruited, particularly through the top three well paid agencies. Also it would be good to know how many “client days” from these companies ( e.g. sports days out, long boozy lunches, theatre trips etc etc) are accepted by the HR team.
What this article highlights is the overall cost of temporary, contract and interim staff. However, it doesn’t detail staff numbers which may be a bit misleading. As a former contractor myself I can advise that it probably doesn’t represent a large headcount.
A typical contract Project Manager might be billed to the council for (say) £500 per day by London-based Allen Lane, Penna, Morgan Hunt, Capita and Eden Brown, all staff agencies with recruiters that specialise in public sector. However, they also provide exec level interim staff that may be £1,000 or so per diem. These are market rates that haven’t significantly changed over past 20 years and may even be understated.
Each assignment (person hired) might be for three months, six months or a full year, especially for senior positions.
So as an example, an Interim Director might cost the council £120,000 for a six month assignment. That’s getting close to the gross amounts billed by each of the top providers and it’s just for one person. Doubtless most of the temp staff from other providers such as HR GO are at ‘admin’ level and cost less.
Of course the £1 million total sounds expensive (and it is in taxpayer terms). However, to be fair to the council, I don’t think this is unreasonable expenditure as long as its being procured, managed and accounted for correctly. I wonder how it compares to other similar local authorities?