Newly published information shows the amount being spent by Scottish Borders Council on agency social workers in its children's services department has increased seven-fold in the last six financial years, the bill for 2018/19 totalling £626,577.
Meanwhile the council is also spending record sums on temporary staff to run the region's adult social work services, the bill last year costing local taxpayers £779,773. The combined expenditure of £1.406 million is far above the 2012/13 figure of £378,216 which included just £95,419 for temps in the children's service.
SBC provided the 2018/19 statistics in response to a Freedom of Information request from Dee Green who had asked a number of other Scottish local authorities for data on agency numbers and expenditure.
Ms Green had already been told by councils serving Edinburgh, Dumfries & Galloway, Aberdeenshire, South Lanarkshire and Dundee that they had not spent anything on agency social workers to deliver children's services in 2018/19. The results of her research have been published on the What Do They Know website.
According to comparisons made by the Community Care organisation, it costs local government departments considerably more to take on agency social workers than to hire permanent staff members. Pay rates of up to £35 an hour for locums were being quoted by Community Care back in 2016 as being offered by stretched local authorities.
In a previous FOI response in 2017 Scottish Borders Council revealed that it was paying on average £175 per day for agency workers in children's services and £152 in the case of adult services. In both sections of the service the average time spent in the Borders by these temps was given as 103 days.
So far as children's social work was concerned the annual totals in fees paid to agencies providing locums were: 2012-13 £95,419; 2013-14 £139,032; 2014-15 £264,365; 2015-16 £236,629; 2016-17 £467,751 (to 1st March 2017).
The figures for the adult services were: 2012-13 £282,797; 2013-14 £168,921; 2014-15 £327,880; 2015-16 £409,266; 2016-17 £588,089
(to 1st March 2017).
Now the new information from the Borders Social Work & Integration and Children & Young People department confirm that spending on agency staff continues to spiral upwards.
Details included in the response show which private companies received council cash over the last full financial year. The breakdown is as follows:
Children’s Services:
Randstad Care Limited £7,502.97 Sanctuary Personnel Limited £12,742.72 The
Social Care Community Partnership Limited £479,478.16 The Harmony Employment
Agency Limited £4,768.48 Tripod Partners £62,589.78 Taylor Davenport £16,660.00
Randstad Public Services CAR £29,790.78.
Adult Services: Bibby Financial Services £13,498.05 MacDonald
McEwan Limited £167,864.10 Piers Meadows Recruitment Limited £67,154.26 Randstad
Public Services CAR £398,503.06 Sanctuary Personnel Limited £122,408.22 The
Social Care Community Partnership Limited £10,345.46.
An article published by The Guardian newspaper last year
stated: "Experts said the difficulty experienced by councils in attracting
permanent staff meant vulnerable children and families were often seeing
multiple social workers in a single year, making it harder for them to engage
with services.
"They said the large-scale use of agency social workers
was a poor use of dwindling local authority funds, as locums received a higher
hourly rate than permanent staff, on top of the fee paid to the company they
were employed through.
"Ray Jones, a former director of children's services
and emeritus professor at Kingston University, said working conditions for
social workers had deteriorated, with bigger caseloads, less support and
inadequate pay, which made locum work more attractive.
"'You're paying more for a poorer service
[with agency workers] because what you need in terms of children's and adult
social services is continuity - people who know the people they are working
with, can build relationships with those families over time, and know their
history', he said".
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