Increased use of agency staff partly blamed for near £1m rubbish collection overspend

An increase in the use of agency staff, mainly due to job advert costs, has been partly blamed for a projected overspend of almost £1 million on collecting rubbish in Wrexham.

A high turnover of staff and the growing amount of recycling being carried out were also cited as reasons for the estimated £966,000 figure.

Wrexham Council’s environment service manager Darren Williams told a meeting that there were more attractive opportunities for large goods vehicle drivers in the commercial sector than working for Wrexham Council.

However, some politicians questioned whether the authority was managing its employees effectively enough.

Speaking at a scrutiny committee meeting, Mr Williams said: “The staffing issues that we have go back a couple of years to when we introduced and changed our recycling service from our kerbside sort to having separate waste streams.

“Recycling vehicles went up from 13 and 19 and that’s why we’ve seen a reflective increase in staffing demands.

“At the same time budgets were cuts and we are where we are today.

“In environment we do have a relatively large staff force and relatively high turnover.

“Traditionally we’ve tried to recruit and over the next four days there’s interviews on. We’re trying to reduce our agency pressure.”

In response, Acton councillor Geoff Lowe said he sympathy for the department’s predicament, but felt staffing issues could be managed better.

He also questioned whether staff sickness was being dealt with properly.

He said: “The officer spoke about the pressures because of the increase in collection vehicles.

“The question that appears to me is this is not a new procedure we’re doing. Are we failing to manage our people better than we could do? My concern is this alleged large turnover in staff and if there’s anything we can do to reduce that by assisting people in difficult times then we should do that.”

Mr Williams insisted that the issues were more to do with there being better paid jobs elsewhere than anything else. He added that staff retiring at similar times had also contributed to the reliance on agency workers.

He said: “We have around 230 staff and of those 230 often we do have a spate where a batch of people retire. Also we are in a position where there are more attractive options out there than there were before. We do have sickness and it is an area of work that is a manual activity and they’re out in all conditions. The turnover of staff is not particularly to do with us not managing that, it’s just through people taking the option to leave or retire.”

‘Batch advertising’ for job vacancies seemed to be a preferred option with it apparently being very expensive to look for one or two people at a time. As a result stacking of job vacancies into bulk adverts that could be looking for up to 10-12 people money is saved, however creates bigger staffing gaps that are filled by agency staff.

Top pic: The meeting was also told if there are damage to bins or bins no returned by staff, let the environment department know as they take such things very seriously!

Clr Sonia Benbow-Jones asks Officer about bin collections, and feedback she has had that people get 'brassed off' when their bins are left half a mile away from their house. Officer says tell the Environment Dept if happens to you, as they take return of bins 'seriously'.

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) October 24, 2018

Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme) / Wrexham.com