Hiring agency staff for cover at Glasgow waste depots leads to £1m overspend

City treasurer Ricky Bell said absence rates in some refuse collection centres are “higher than expected” at around 15 per cent.

Finance chiefs flagged up the overspend in a budget monitoring report covering April 1 to July 2 this year.

A council spokesman said agency spend is a “last resort” but can be “necessary to ensure the job gets done”.

Paying overtime and hiring support vehicles to ensure staff can remain physically distant are also believed to have caused the increased spend.

Cllr Bell told councillors: “The difficulty we do have at the moment is that we do have a higher than expected number of absences, which are not Covid related.

“We are in discussions with corporate HR about how we can help and support those employees back to work as soon as we possibly can.”

The £1m overspend is within the council’s neighbourhoods, regeneration and sustainability department.

A council report stated: “This reflects an overspend in refuse collection and disposal due to increased staff costs, above inflationary increases in the residual waste sector and a shortfall in income.

“These pressures are offset by an underspend in Streetscene due to staff vacancies, recruitment is underway.”

Net expenditure was recorded at £67,740,000 but had been budgeted at £66,746,000. The total expenditure was £315,000 over budget while total income was down by £679,000 on what had been budgeted.

George Gillespie, executive director for neighbourhoods, regeneration and sustainability, said absence rates are “between 15 and 20 per cent at the moment within our refuse collection”.

“As a result of that we’ve had to supplement the workforce with some agency workers.”

The director said there had been difficulty recruiting and training street cleaners (Streetscene) due to the pandemic. He added there had been a shortage of drivers, but some have now been recruited and training has restarted.

The council spokesman said there is a mix of long-term and short-term absences within the rates highlighted and this “does present obvious challenges to the delivery of the service”.

“All absences are managed on an individual, case-by-case basis and in line with our personnel policies.

“Whatever our staffing issues might be, council tax payers are entitled to expect services to be delivered as intended and we always seek to manage our available resources as effectively as possible.

“Agency spend is always a last resort but there are times when employing staff on a temporary basis is necessary to ensure the job gets done for Glasgow. ”