Slough Council spent £1.9m on temporary finance officers

Within the local authority’s finance and resource department, 55 temporary workers were used during those three months, known as quarter three. This has cost the council an extra £211,295 compared with previous quarters.

An additional 19 temp staff within finance are undertaking project work or have a specialist skill. This is costing the council £700,309.

In total, Slough Borough Council has spent nearly £1.9m on the finance team within quarter three.

The council is facing a £308m black hole and has accumulated £760m in borrowing debt caused by historic accounting errors. Finance officers are digging through previous accounts to unearth more issues and inaccuracies.

Steven Mair, chief finance officer at the council

Speaking at an employee and appeals committee, Steven Mair, chief finance officer that as the council’s magnitude of financial issues continues to grow, this requires more qualified people to help out, such as spooling through four years-worth of accounts in six weeks.

He said: “The challenges the council faces dwarf any other council in the country, and you cannot do this without investing quite significantly at this point in time.

“In comparison to the number we are dealing with, the amount you are spending on temporaries, although it is a big number in isolation, is a very small percentage to what those colleagues are dealing with.”

Mr Mair added they have drawn up an outline plan to drop the number of interim staff “very considerably” by the end of this year and implement a permanent structure to attract full-time finance officers.

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Between October and December, the council has spent a total of £3.6m on agency staff to fill ‘hard to recruit roles. This represents increased spending of seven per cent, or £232,729, on temporary workers during those three months.

Councillors were told at Wednesday’s meeting (Feb 16) this figure spiked due to a “higher number of leavers” between October and December, resulting in the need for more temp staff.

The council hired 175 agency workers to fill vacant posts. Spending on temporary adult social care workers has also gone up by £200,727 to spend on 39 workers and four specialists.

Nearly 250 temporary staff have been working with the council, 40 of which have been with the local authority for over three years.

As of January 22, 2022, the council has 1,070 full-time employees and 268 vacancies.

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Dipak Mistry, employee relations and policy manager, told councillors that a national shortage of experienced workers is making it difficult to find qualified permanent staff, resulting in using agency workers to fill ‘hard to recruit’ posts, such as social workers.

During quarter three, 83 permanent staff have left the organisation. 68 resigned for various reasons, such as personal, career change and progression, or moving away, six retired, four were sacked, and five came to the end of their fixed-term contract.

The council has to become ‘the right size’ due to its major financial pressures. This will involve cuts to services and restructures that will see vacancies deleted, redundances, and job transfers.

Cllr Madhuri Bedi (Foxborough) feared people are leaving the council because “they are made to feel there is no space for them.”

Mr Mistry said the council offers exit interviews and record the leaving staff member’s personal views about their role and organisation, however, he said it was “inappropriate” to publish their opinions publicly.