Pay squeeze blamed as agency staff bill doubles at RBWM

The council’s quest to reduce reliance on costly agency staff has started to bear fruit this year, it says – but low rates of pay at RBWM ‘remains a risk’ to retaining in-house staff.

The council records payments to suppliers each year, from April to March – including consultancy and legal fees, buildings/repair work, and payments to outside agencies.

Comparing 2023–24 with 2024-25, RBWM used 40 more suppliers and its spend rose by £14.3million.

The repeat suppliers paid the most in 2024/25 were:

• Achieving for Children, RBWM’s children’s services provider – £51.73million (up from £47.69million)
• Optalis, adult social care provider– £41.17million (down from £47.65million)
• VolkerHighways Limited, the highways contractor – £9.93million (down from £12.38million)
• Serco Ltd, bin collection and waste contractor – £6.60million (up from £6.40million)
• Viridor Waste Management Limited, another waste contractor – £3.79million (down from £3.91million)
• FMJ Solutions Ltd, a building contractor – £2.52million (up from £1.27million)
• EDF Energy Customers PLC, utility supplier – £2.11million (up from £1.59million)
• Tivoli Group Ltd, grounds maintenance contractor – £1.85million (down from £2.05million)
• Leisure Energy Ltd, improves the energy efficiency of leisure centres –1.84million (up from £1,500).

In some ways, RBWM cut its costs – it spent £9.9million on consultancy fees in 2023-24 and £7.9million in 2024-25.

Other costs went up – legal fees and charges, for example, went up from about £363,500 to £655,300.

Though most payments to suppliers in 2024-25 fell within the Place directorate (planning, highways, transport etc), the highest spend was in adult social care (£66.62million).

RBWM’s lead member for finance, Councillor Lynne Jones, has previously spoken on many occasions about the immense strain on adult social care in RBWM – which she stresses represents a national trend.

The most telling picture is in the rise in payments made to agency staff – an issue pointed out by Advertiser reader Barry Giggins in last week’s Viewpoint pages.

These went up from about £1.73million to £3.63million overall.

In total there were 1,831 payments to agency staff, compared to 918 in 2023-24.

A large part of this was within the adult social care brief. Agency costs in this area made a large leap from about £173,200 to £1.45million, across 690 payments compared to 52.

RBWM’s cabinet has acknowledged the financial problems caused by needing to hire costly agency workers to plug staffing gaps in adult social care and other services.

Officers, too, have repeatedly identified this as a problem since at least September 2023. The council has said several times that it is working to reduce its reliance on agency staff.

Nonetheless, problems are ongoing; a report by the independent Financial Improvement and Sustainability Board, which went before councillors last month, says there remains a ‘challenge’ in recruitment because of ‘low rates of pay at RBWM’.

Adult social care ‘has done a good job in attracting new talent’ – but low pay rate impacts staff retention and ‘contributes to a need’ for agency workers, the board report said.

Without pay levels being addressed this ‘remains a risk,’ the report said.

Responding to the Advertiser, a spokesperson for RBWM said: “In summer 2024, statutory adult social care services returned to direct council delivery from Optalis, including the transfer of staff and agency workers.

“Since spring 2025, the number of agency staff in this area has halved.

“Our active recruitment campaigns are continuing to drive this progress.

“Reducing agency spend is a key part of our strategy to strengthen the council’s financial position, and we’re proud of the strides we’ve made over the past year.”