Somerset County Council could spend up to £70m on temporary workers

The council spent £6.7m on temporary workers in 2021/22

Up to £70m could be spent on temporary staff as a council struggles to recruit permanent workers.

Somerset County Council (SCC) is relying on agency workers to fill large gaps in planning, social work and the legal department.

The county council and Somerset's four district councils are in the process of being replaced by a unitary authority.

SCC has agreed a new contract with Matrix SCM to supply workers for four years.

The county council spent £6.7m on temporary workers in 2021-22 but costs are expected to rise in the run up to the authorities merging on 1 April 2023, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Matrix SCM is already being used by Somerset West and Taunton Council at a cost of around £3.1m a year, while the other three district councils - Mendip, Sedgemoor and South Somerset - use other providers.

Melissa Fairhurst, the council's strategic manager for human resources, said SCC was doing its best to try and recruit agency staff to become permanent employees.

"We do a lot of work to try and 'convert' temporary staff to become permanent employees.

"We do welcome calls from our HR team to settle people in, and we recently took the decision to extend that to our locum staff," she said.