Citizen questions Hackney Council over £millions agency staff bill
The Town Hall is spending significant sums on outsourced staff. Photo: Hackney Citizen
Hackney Council has spent millions on outsourced agency staff services in the last four months, new council figures show.
The council paid just under £1.4m in September, about £2.5m in November and December and £2.9m in October to two Randstad companies for human resources, temporary and agency staff, administration and clerical services.
The figures were released on 17 January under the new transparency requirements for local authorities. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles announced last June that all councils would be required to publish details of their expenditure over £500 by 31 January 2011.
Much of what Hackney Council’s figures show is unsurprising. There are payments to various care homes, housing associations and to those who care for older residents. There are payments to companies that repair the roads and pavements and lay pipes. City and Hackney Primary Care Trust, the Metropolitan Police, traffic wardens, construction companies and telecommunications companies are all on the list.
But the high number and value of payments to two Randstad recruitment and human resources (HR) companies, Randstad Employment Bureau Ltd and Randstad Managed Services Ltd, stood out.
On its website, Randstad Managed Services Ltd describes the five-year contract it has with the London Borough of Hackney as a “one-stop-shop solution … one that will help Hackney achieve efficiency savings as the government seeks ways to reduce public sector expenditure.”
Hackney Council responded to the Citizen‘s request for more information on its relationship with Randstad on 3 February.
A council spokesperson said that Randstad is responsible for all interim and temporary vacancies and offers access to more than a hundred agencies,enabling it to provide staff that offer expertise and experience in specialist frontline services.”The broad range of services provided by the council means they need individuals with specialist expertise at short notice across a wide range of professions from social workers to planners and environmental workers,” the spokesperson said.
The council employs 60 staff in its human resources department. All permanent recruitment is covered by the in-house team. The contract with Randstad Employment Bureau was transferred to the newly established Randstad Managed services in 2010.
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Keep up the good work. Can’t wait to hear more.
Now remembering that some cleaning services are outsourced to Turners and the council are also using Tribal Resourcing Ltd and you do wonder just how much money is being spent. The council is also spending money with calco which is another HR company, so all these jobs under threat and yet money is free flowing with the agencies. But not to worry the councillors don’t care what the public want so long as they get a little less grief.
I wonder if they will publish the expenditure for councillors over £500 and not hide it under the supplier code but who the service was for? Guess not because then people might really start asking questions.
Tony N, does Hackney have a special department for oiling squeaky wheels, or is that outsourced too? 😉
I am guessing that comes under sundry payments. Although £138k petty cash in one month doesn’t seem that petty.Still trying to work out how why so much cash is showing in the over £500 report. Petty cash to me is £30 or £40 not over a thousand.
If only I could tell you a story about a recently former long term Hackney council employee and petty cash, it would make you weep.
I have seen one or two case in the past myself. Not in Hackney but having seen how rules are bent to please certain directors and senior councillors nothing really surprises me any more. The truth isnt important so long as those in charge get an easy life.
I think the answer will be that they used it to provide staff, won’t it? They’ll probably say that it ‘represents the best value for money for council tax payers’ etc etc.
Staffing usually represents a significant proportion of spending at an organisation like this, and by doing it through agencies they can avoid obligations like having to make pension contributions and keep financial flexibility by being able to shed staff immediately. In the long run, the theory is that it works out cheaper.
In practice, the agency skims off a big chunk and it’s usually more expensive for the body in question, but as we all know it’s practically impossible to sack a civil servant, especially in local government.
Would find it curious if an agency employee was retained over a permanent employee. One of the reasons for employing agency staff is the ease with which they can be dispensed with when the need is no longer there and when the demand increases then that position could again be filled on an agency basis, hence doing away with the need to pay a full time employee with all the additional benefits, national insurance, tax, etc. I for one would be most disappointed if my council tax were used to pay a fulltime employee who might be “sitting around” waiting for a job to do and still getting paid for it.
As an example of the impossibility of sacking a civil servant, in one of the Hackney Citizen’s other stories even the GMB union states that 800 council job losses ‘will be achieved by vacancies left unfilled when staff leave, staff taking early retirement and also those taking voluntary redundancy’.
So, essentially, they’re not going to sack anyone and everyone is on such great terms that they’ll happily volunteer to lose their job.
I love voluntary redundancy. For those who have worked in Local Government it means that certain staff have the opportunity to make money. For example (this was not hackney but it works the same way) the manager of the council CCTV system was a 20 year employee. Upon taking voluntary redundancy he was hired back as a consultant as they had released the only person who was trained in his job. The wage bill was cut but the cost to the council was over double his wages for 4 months till they found someone to promote into his old post and train them.
I would point out that hiring temp staff you either pay a premium for skills or have to spend time training them.
http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/council-spending-data-10-tips-for-journalists-looking-for-stories/#more-1132
Check out the above link for tips on how to help sort through the vague dross published by Hackney Council.
Tim how wrong you are. Long term workers at Hackney are getting removed on capability charges and via restructures resulting in the deletion of their posts. Some have been offered a payoff verbally and when the letter from HR arrives detailing it in black and white it’s no where near what they were told. Like it or lump it. Meanwhile countless interim managers carry on regardless recruiting agency staff who they recruit and sack at will and bring in well paid “consultants” to do their jobs for them with total impunity.
I wonder if I asked under the FoI Act I could get a list of what each payment to Randstad was actually for rather than just the fact they are paying them. Same goes for the sundry payments with no supplier names.
?? !!!
how much is hackney paying in consultants fees across all it’s services, and why do they need so many
excessively high paid posts, that seem to be greatly overlapping with already existing consultants and/or managers already employed.
Does Randstand ? have anything to do with the social workers who attend elderly residents and whose only priority seems to be getting their time sheets signed off