Sheffield Council spends £100m on outside help in five years

Sheffield City Council said agency workers were sometimes needed to fill skill shortages

A cash-strapped council spent almost £100m on consultants and agency staff in a five-year period, a meeting heard.

Sheffield Council has paid £14.3m to 366 consultants and spent £84.8m on agency staff since April 2018.

Mohammed Mahroof, who chairs the audit committee, said: "In anybody's language this is a horrendous figure."

Council leader Tom Hunt said the council sometimes had to bring in technical advice which was "not available in-house".

Councillor Mahroof, who asked for the figures at a full council meeting this week, said: "People in Sheffield will be concerned about this amount of expenditure on external sources. Do we have control of this?"

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said during the same time period 454 Sheffield Council employees had been made redundant, which Mr Hunt said had led to gaps in skills and knowledge which had been filled by outside staff.

He said the reduced headcount was a result of the authority being "systematically underinvested" in by the government over the past 13 years.

"Yes, these are comprehensive and large figures," he added. "At times we have to bring in expert, technical advice that perhaps we don't have in-house.

"That's where consultants can provide a very good service for this council to help us in the work that we are doing."

'Prudent and wise'

The council, like many local authorities across the country, has struggled to balance its budget in recent years.

The authority had planned to make £47m in savings this year and not use any of its dwindling reserves.

Looking at forthcoming financial decisions Mr Hunt said the authority had a duty to ensure "every pound of public money was spent wisely" and a budget for the coming year should be set "prudently, transparently and wisely", with all costs scrutinised.

Considering the amounts spent on agency staff and consultants he said: "These figures are looking back and I think we need to be focussed on the challenges going forward.

"Those challenges would be reduced if we had adequate funding from government."

The department for levelling up, housing and communities have been approached for comment.