Cash-strapped Rochdale Council offloads workforce while spending millions on temps

Linda Fisher, acting chief executive of Rochdale Council

• Over three years children's services cut employee numbers and the payroll to the tune of £2,673,898, but increased spending on agency workers and consultants by £3,628,928.
• Last year lawyers, HR and IT departments spent £1,079,159 on temps and consultants.
• 2013/14 saw the communications department spend more on agency temps and consultants than on staff.

Cash-strapped Rochdale Borough Council has cut its staff bill by reducing its permanent employees yet at the same time the council has been hiring temporary agency workers and consultants to the tune of millions of pounds.

A Freedom of Information request by Rochdale Online confirms that the council has spent more on hiring agency workers and consultants than it has made in 'savings' on payroll costs from shedding permanent staff.

In the last financial year, two departments alone, corporate services and children's services, spent a total of £5,902,741 on temporary agency staff, consultants and professional fees.

The children's department reduced the number of staff from 970 to 813 and cut its employee payroll costs from £26,616,236 in 2011/12 to £23,942,338 in 2013/14, a reduction of £2,673,898. However, at the same time, spending on agency staff, consultants and professional fees rose from £1,194,653 to £4,823,582 an increase of £3,628,929, with almost a fifth of the workforce now employed outside of the council on a temporary basis.

Corporate Services, the majority of which are IT, HR and legal staff, saw temp costs soar to over a million pounds. Increasing over a three year period from £348,613 in 2011/12 to £1,079,159 in 2013/14, a rise of £730,546.

Last year's legal and democratic services payroll cost was £1,862,889, with an additional £714,426 spent on temps and consultants. Presiding over the spending was Linda Fisher, who joined the council in 2009 on a salary of around £70,000 but whose salary has increased to over £97,000. Ms Fisher, currently acting chief executive of Rochdale Council, will be leaving the council in a matter of weeks to become assistant director of legal services at Wigan Council.

The council's communication department has seen 13 interim staff, including six managers, in the last two years, and the spin department actually spent more in 2013/14 on consultants and interim officers, £240,740, than on pay for council staff, which was £176,461.

Council employees in the department were paid a top rate of £23.39 per hour, while consultants were paid up to a whopping £42 per hour.

The council refused to divulge how many people in total have been/are now employed by agencies and how many people started and left each department, responding: 'The Council does not hold the information in such a way that would allow a number to be provided for each of the last three years as requested... without exceeding the 18 hour limit to provide a response.'

The figures do not represent the full cost to the taxpayer of Rochdale Council spending on temps and consultants, as they do not include figures for Adult Services or the largest department, Environmental Services.