The trade union Unison has accused Lambeth council of spending an “unacceptable” amount on agency workers.
Unison said figures showed that Lambeth’s spending on agency workers had increased by 35 per cent in the last year, from 483 in 2014 to 635 at present.
Branch Secretary Jon Rogers said that, using council statistics, it was estimated that Lambeth is now spending at least half a million pounds a week on agency workers.According to the union, spending “is spiralling out of control”.
Rogers said: “With the council facing massive cuts in funding from the government it is completely unacceptable that Lambeth is spending more and more on agency workers while staff are at risk of redundancy. We don’t accept the need for redundancies and cuts in services while the council is pouring money into the coffers of the employment agencies.”
Unison said it is calling upon Labour councillors to work closely with the trade unions to bring down the use of these workers.
However, the council says the situation is more complex than Unison has suggested.
Councillor Paul McGlone, Lambeth’s deputy leader, said: “In some employment areas, such as social work for example, Lambeth, along with other councils, struggles to recruit permanent qualified social workers as there is a national shortage of suitable candidates.
“This means we need to supplement our permanent staffing with qualified agency workers as a means of covering vacant posts and ensuring that the delivery of essential services is maintained to vulnerable children and adults.
“The last thing I want at Lambeth council is job losses and budget cuts. But the financial realities we face mean that redundancies, cuts and the use of agency workers play a role in best delivering essential services and helping us deliver a balanced budget – as required by law.
“I’ve met with local Unison representatives and those of other unions to explain the very difficult financial situation and complex staffing challenges Lambeth council faces. That dialogue will continue.”
Absolutely agree with Unison. What’s happening at Lambeth Council is a complete farce. They made loads of people redundant at huge expense, created new roles which was a play on words on the roles they had deleted and made people redundant from, tried recruiting to the new roles and you know what’s coming next, couldn’t recruit to the new roles and employed agency staff.
How could this possibly be value for money? Its an absolute shambles that our council tax is being wasted and paying for this incompetence. Interested in fining out more? Try doing a freedom of interest request on the restructure of the neighbourhood regeneration team Spring 2015, find out how much the restructure cost in redundancy payouts, how many of the new roles weren’t filled and how many of these roles are now being filled by agency staff when they could have continued to deliver services with staff who were already in post?
I think the Council is adopting a sensible approach at what is a difficult time