THE amount Bradford Council spends on agency staff for its Children’s Services department will have almost quadrupled in three years - and is currently £17 million a year.

It means the department is currently spending around £1.5 million a month on agency staff.

The figures were revealed in a financial document being discussed by Bradford Council’s Executive on Tuesday.

The Quarter 4 financial report says the Council’s social care budget has overspent by £4.9 million in the past year due to higher workloads and an increased reliance on agency staff.

As of February there were 149 agency social workers employed in the service.

In April 2019 there were just 53 agency social workers at the Council.

And it was recently revealed that 34 agency workers have worked for the Council’s Children’s Services for over a year.

Agency staff are not permanent Council staff, but staff that work for an outside agency and are brought in to work for the Council on a temporary basis.

They are often brought into areas where there are staffing shortages.

Staffing issue is 'elephant in the room' for Bradford Children's Services - according to Councillor

However, employing agency staff is more expensive than paying permanent staff.

The report going to the Executive says: “The forecast overspend is mainly due to the continued use of agency staff due to problems recruiting staff into permanent positions.

“The amounts incurred on Agency staff have increased significantly over recent years - £4.3m in 2018-19, £11.7m in 2019-20, and £17.0m forecast for this year - and are currently running at approximately £1.4m per month.”

It says work is underway to boost recruiting, meaning fewer agency staff would be needed, but adds: “So far, agency staff numbers have continued to grow overall as a result of increased workloads resulting in the significant overspend.”

Members of Bradford Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee recently discussed the high levels of agency staff within the Council, and heard that it is partly down to the need for Level 3 social workers within Children’s Services.

These workers are needed to deal with the most complex cases.

A report to members of the Committee said the implications of the Covid 19 pandemic was a major reason for the increase in taking on agency staff in the past year.Members were told that there were currently 37 agency staff who had worked for the COuncil for more than a year. Of these 34 were in Children's Services.

Chair Councillor Nazam Azam (Lab, City) said: "In an ideal world would 0 agency staff be something we're working towards."

Ian Westlake, head of procurement, pointed out that agency staff had helped fill temporary roles related to the current Covid crisis.

Chris Chapman, Director of Finance, said the "inadequate" rating given to the Council's Children's Services by Ofsted in 2018 had put off many social workers from taking on jobs in the District. This meant more agency staff were needed to fill vital roles.

He also pointed out that some projects - such as a road building scheme - lent themselves to hiring specialist agency staff rather than recruiting a permanent staff member.

Cllr Azam asked if officer would agree that the amount of agency staff was too high.

Richard Fawcett, assistant director for Fostering, said: "I'm clear the number of agency social workers is too high. We've been given a clear target to reduce those numbers.

"We have to do it in a planned way, rather than disrupting the market and having agency workers leave because they don't feel secure - because that would leave children at risk.

"We do that by revising our offer and getting social workers to make that move (from other authorities) and by growing our own workforce by retaining and supporting newliy qualified social workers to create the workforce of the future."