Agency staff at Herefordshire Council earned £700 per day

8:00am Monday 26th July 2010

By Bill Tanner

FIVE agency staff employed in temporary management positions by Herefordshire Council and the Primary Care Trust earned £700 or more a day over the past financial year.

Another 10 people in temporary roles got more than £500 a day, the Hereford Times can reveal.

Confirmation of these daily rates – some for working weeks of less than five days – comes in the wake of revelations earlier this month of the salaries of the council’s high-earners over 2009-2010.

Those figures showed 117 senior employees – 15 more than 2008-2009 – on salaries from £50,000 to more than £180,000.

The council said that the agency costs that offer a daily rate do not carry the kind of liabilities arising from employment overheads like national insurance, pensions, tax, paid leave and redundancy. These interim staff can work less than five days a week and for short periods of time.

The council’s overall payroll costs for 2009-2010 came to £138,484,032 for 2009-2010 spread between 6,501 employees, including those working part-time.

In that time nearly £6 million was spent on employing agency staff, some in very senior management positions.

On average, the council employed around 127 agency staff a month over 2009-2010.

Bill Bloxsome, of Unison Herefordshire, the council’s largest union, said his members accepted the flexibility shortterm senior staff allowed the council but urged the employment of full-timers as soon as possible.

“Herefordshire has to compete to get quality people, and there is a need to test roles to see if they are required,” he said.

“But it is disconcerting for staff to have short-term managers, they see themselves as having to pick up the pieces should things go wrong,” he said.

■ Meanwhile, Herefordshire Council has spent more that £250,000 on a single court case that has still to come to trial.

The sum is included in a breakdown of specific legal costs put to the full council last Friday (June 16).

According to the figures, the only cost incurred since May 1, 2007 - the period in question - is £250,129 spent so far on one “very complex” case which is ongoing.

Given the current state of proceedings, full details of the case could not be made public, only that it is related to historical property and is expected to go to trial in January 2011 with the award of costs being settled between the parties as part of the case.

Members heard that all defence costs from 2007 have been recovered through awards of costs on successful cases.

The costs incurred in planning appeals over the same time top £96,300 with cases still to be resolved on which costs could yet be recovered.