Up to £70m could be spent on temporary staff as Somerset County Council struggles to recruit permanent employees.

The county council and Somerset's four district councils are in the process of being replaced by the new unitary Somerset Council, which will officially take control on April 1, 2023.

The five existing councils have all struggled to recruit permanent staff over the last few years, relying on temporary agency workers to fill gaps – especially in planning, social work and the legal department.

The county council has now agreed a new contract with Matrix SCM to supply temporary workers for the next four years – a contract which could be worth up to £70m a year.

Chris Squire, the council's director of customers, digital and workforce, told a meeting of the executive committee in Taunton on Wednesday morning (October 19) that the previous contract with Reed had "brought numerous benefits" but not always delivered as needed.

Reed currently provides temporary workers on a 'master vendor' basis – by which it sends its own registered staff wherever possible and then resorts to sourcing people through "an agreed set of second-tier suppliers".

The only exception to this system is in social care, where second-tier suppliers are immediately brought into the loop in light of the market being "scarce".

By contrast, Matrix SCM will operate as a 'managed service provider', meaning it sources all staff from a range of second-tier organisations and has no staff on its own books – an approach which has saved the council money in the past.

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 a variety of other providers.

The county council spent more than £11.8m on temporary staff in the 2015/16 financial year under its Reed contract.

While this has since declined to just over £6.7m in 2021/22, the amount is expected to rise as the transition to the new unitary council ramps up and recruitment pressures continue.

A total of 280 different temporary workers were at one stage employed by the county council between August 2021 and July 2022 – with August 2021 being the month with the highest number of individual staff, at 140.

Mr Squire said that the predicted spend on agency staff for the coming year was currently estimated at £18m – comprising £9m for county council duties (such as children's services and adult social care) and £9m for district council services (such as planning, licensing and environmental health).

The new contract – which comes into force on January 1, 2023 – will not include the procurement of temporary executive staff (who can earn in excess of £500 per day) or consultants.

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

She said: "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.

"There are costs if they choose to convert to us within the first 12 weeks, and we make them aware of that."

Mr Squire added: "You can take people from neighbouring [local authority] areas, but you have to start training up in your own area."