Tuesday 12 November 2024
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Nottingham

Agency worker spend at Nottingham City Council could reach almost £700,000

Nottingham City Council will be spending more than of £670,000 on temporary workers after several recruitment attempts failed to fill vacant posts across departments.

The Labour-run authority has been struggling to recruit staff across several different teams, and has turned to agency workers to fill the gaps.

Similar recruitment problems are being encountered by many local authorities across England.

The largest sum, £268,000, will be spent on temporary staff to support the Corporate Portfolio and Investment Team.

“The council has been unable to recruit to permanent posts within the team which has led to the requirement to appoint interim resource,” a delegated decision document says.

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“Further consideration needs to be given as how we might improve the prospects of permanent recruitment before we yet again return to the recruitment market.”

Documents show a further £230,671 is being spent on temporary staff in the Disposals and Development Team, on top of £172,000 on staff to support the Strategic Asset Management Team.

It brings the total spend approved for temporary staff to £670,671 across the three teams from April this year to March 2025.

The council says more staff members are needed in these areas as it continues to ramp up work on selling property.

Money brought in from selling assets such as the former library building in Angel Row, have been helping to reduce the authority’s overall debt.

Special permission was also given so the council could use asset sales to fund day-to-day costs, after it declared effective bankruptcy in November last year due to an inability to set a balanced budget.

This so-called ‘Exeptional Financial Support’ was granted for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years.

Problems with recruitment and retention in local government was branded “one of the biggest challenges” facing councils in England by the County Councils Network in February this year.

The group, which represents England’s county local authorities, published research earlier this year which said staffing problems have been “worsened by over a decade of funding challenges and exacerbated in recent years by post-pandemic trends”.

According to its survey of more than 6,000 staff working in county and unitary councils across different council departments, pay was the biggest factor for all employees wanting to leave local government, and 18 to 34-year-olds said career pathways was the second biggest reason.

Nottingham City Council’s corporate director for finance and Section 151 officer, Ross Brown, previously described the market as “very difficult”.

“We are seeing a trend and a shift, a transition, particularly with the more experienced professionals going into interim work because of the flexibilities and rather compelling pay,” he said.

“Local authorities have some quite restrictive ways in which we are allowed to pay interim staff more than we are established staff, that’s just the way the pay grade works overall.”

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