The council’s wage bill for temporary staff shot up by tens of thousands of pounds in just three months this year after its interim top boss was recruited on a salary of £1,100 a day.

Will Tuckley was appointed by the Government to be Slough Borough Council’s interim chief executive on that daily rate, up to four days a week, in March. The Government also appointed Annabel Scholes as interim chief finance officer on £1,375 a day including agency fee.

Now, a recent council report has revealed that the council’s interim staffing costs rose by more than £65,000 in the three months since they were recruited. Mr Tuckley said the increase came because the council had to ‘bring in some particular expertise’ and ‘specialist skills’.

Slough Borough Council’s wage bill for interim staff rose by £65,200 between April and July this year. That’s despite the fact that the number of interim staff it employed over the same period fell.

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The council said it couldn’t tell the Observer exactly how much of the increase was made up of Mr Tuckley’s and Ms Scholes’s wages. But the report did say the rise was due to ‘an increase in new placements at a higher level’.

Mr Tuckley was asked about the increase at a meeting of the council’s cabinet – its leading group of councillors – on October 21.

He said he is ‘not pleased’ at the increase. But he added: “That reflects the fact that we’ve had to bring in some particular expertise especially in areas relating to finance but generally across the council.

“There’s a legitimate use of interim staffing which is where he haven’t got and are never going to be able to acquire the specialist skills that we need for particular purposes.”

In a statement, the council told the Observer Mr Tuckley and Ms Scholes’s wages made up a ‘very small proportion’ of the overall interim staffing bill of £6.34 million between April and July.

It added that every council must have a chief executive and chief financial officer by law, that interim rates are tested against the market average, and that the appointments were made by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

The MHCLG did not comment on its decision to appoint Mr Tuckley and Ms Scholes or on their salaries.

Slough Borough Council also said that 25 interim staff have become permanent since April. Councillors are to be asked to approve Ms Scholes’s permanent appointment next month.

Mr Tuckley said: “We value all our staff, permanent or interim, and the work they do for our council and our town.

“Permanent staff bring a feeling of greater stability and we will do everything we can to attract and secure permanent appointments to as many posts as possible.

“But the most important thing is for us to have the right people in the right roles with the right skills to not only provide services but drive our recovery and our new ways of working, all the while keeping our residents at the heart of what they do.”