Norwich City Council is paying triple the price to fill some positions

The council is paying more than three times what it typically spends to fill some vacancies, according to the BBC.

Norwich City Council paid £750 a day for a temporary fire safety manager when a permanent position would normally cost £201.

Green Party councilor Liam Calvert, whose party uncovered the amounts paid through a freedom of information request, said they were difficult to justify.

The council said recruiting permanent staff for some roles was a challenge facing local authorities across the country, but it had recently halved its agency costs.

The figures obtained refer to contracts awarded between March 2021 and June 2024.

The BBC compared the daily rates received by the Green Party with the council’s published pay policy for permanent roles in similar ranges.

For example, a temporary finance director was hired at a rate of £944 per day, while the permanent equivalent would be paid £451 per day.

In 2022, a portfolio manager would earn a daily rate of £780, 254% higher than the full-time equivalent of £220.

The revelations came after the council announced it needed to do £9.5m savings over the next five years.

Mr Calvert, a Wensum ward councillor, accused the authority of “throwing money at the problem” of recruitment.

He said: “It is difficult to see how Norwich City Council can justify paying huge amounts of multiples of the standard wage, in some cases over very long periods of time.

“By continually filling positions with short-term appointments, the council is losing the continuity and expertise needed to properly serve residents.”

He referred to other figures collected Campaign “4 days of the week”showing that Norwich City Council had the 27th highest proportional expenditure on agency staff of all UK local authorities in 2022–23.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act Local Democracy Reporting Service in September it was revealed that the total costs of council agencies had increased significantly in recent years.

The agency’s total staff costs for the 2021/22 financial year were £1.4 million.

Two years later the amount had risen to £3.8 million.

‘We’re struggling to recruit staff,’ council said at the time.

A recruiting source, who wished to remain anonymous, said interim senior managers were often independent contractors who charged fees reflecting their specialization, scarcity and flexibility.

They could quickly fill vacancies while the search for a permanent employee is ongoing, the source added, and could “hit the ground running.”

The insider said such executives are often hired for specific projects and can easily go elsewhere for more money.

They also reported that the BBC commission paid to agencies was typically no more than 10%.

Between 2009 and 2024, the number of local government employees in England fell by almost half, from 2.2 million to 1.3 million. According to the ONS.

Data released in May by the Local Government Association showed that a significant proportion of agency staff are now filling gaps in the workforce.

In the legal services sector, around a quarter of English council staff were recruited in this way. In finance the ratio was 1:7.

But the vast majority of agency workers were under adult social care.

A Norwich City Council spokesman said: “Since 2020, all local councils across the country have reported the same problem: they are experiencing real difficulties recruiting permanent staff – particularly for certain specialist and statutory roles that all councils are required to have.

“These are sector-wide issues that have forced many local councils to use agency staff to fill the gaps.”