Frustrated Swansea councillors have asked for more information about the authority's use of agency staff and whether enough is being done to reduce the bill.
Members of the governance and audit committee were, not the first time, presented with an agency staff report which included measures to provide longer-term agency workers with permanent roles when jobs became available. Committee members felt progress had been limited as the council was using 166 agency workers on March 31 this year, compared to 161 a year before. Cllr Cyril Anderson said this situation had been going on for a few years.
"That's why we keep on asking these questions," he said. "We don't seem to be getting anywhere lower. It (the figure) is going up."
The agency staff bill in 2020-21 was £4.3 million, which works out at just under £26,000 per worker. The agencies supplying the staff take a share of that. The figures in the report didn't include supply teachers used by the education department, for example in pupil referral units, and also supply teachers used by individual schools.
As in previous years, the vast majority of the 166 agency workers used on March 31 were in the waste, parks and cleansing department (149), with 10 in highways and transport and the rest scattered among other departments. The report before councillors said 28 permanent posts in waste, parks and cleansing had been filled via a trainee scheme, with another 18 due to be recruited this month, and that agency workers often covered absences at the last minute. But the agency figure for this department was, nevertheless, higher than the previous March.
Cllr Mike White said it was important that waste, parks and cleansing didn't go short of staff.
"The public expects these services to be delivered every day," he said.
But he sought reassurance from officers that agency staff were given opportunities to apply for permanent roles when they became available.
Committee chairwoman Paul O'Connor, who is not a councillor, said she wanted to know if the council had considered setting up its own bank of supply staff, as health boards did with nursing and admin staff. She said the found the annual spend of £4 million-plus "not very tasteful at all".
She added: "The only people making money out of this are the agency companies themselves."
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Cllr Jennifer Raynor, who until recently was cabinet member for education, said she wondered how complete the report was, given the exclusion of education supply staff.
"Within Swansea I suspect we have a considerable number of people who are agency workers, but we have no idea of the total cost and the number of months, weeks and days they are working," she said.
Adrian Chard, the council's human resources and organisational development manager, said an in-house bank of supply staff might not work because such a high proportion were needed for just one department, but he said he would ask the relevant head of service. Mr Chard also compared the £4.3 million agency staff cost to the £378 million bill for the council's entire workforce.
Last July it emerged that 86 of the 161 agency workers used by the council had worked at the authority, sometimes on and off, for more than 12 months. At that meeting, Mrs O'Connor said she wanted to know if the council was getting a "firm grip" on the use of agency workers in waste management, and what sickness levels were in that department.
Speaking this week, Mr Chard said sickness absence had fallen by 9% in waste, parks and cleansing and 38% in highways and transport.
