Monday 12 March 2012
Bedfordshire On Sunday: Council pays £16m for agency staff
Robert Oxley, campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “When local authorities have to do all they can to save money, spending extraordinary sums on expensive agency staff is counter-productive.
“There will always be a need to hire a few temps but depending on them too heavily is very poor value for taxpayers’ money, especially when council bosses are making staff redundant elsewhere.”
The Register: Council spunks ‘£100k on how to wash your hands’ vid
A spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance was presumably listening to a whalesong chill-out CD when the Telegraph got in touch, since he disappointingly failed to blow steam from both ears at the news that a council had spent money on something his organisation didn’t approve.
Instead, he moderately suggested: “Some councils either have more money and time than they know what to do with, or have a misguided understanding of what their job involves.
“Publicity and communications has long been an area where some councils simply don’t seem to understand what is a good idea and what isn’t.
“More worryingly, some of them don’t seem either able or willing to learn from their mistakes and stop pursuing poor ideas when they have clearly failed.”
