Herefordshire is filling staffing gaps by paying for agency workers from elsewhere to live in temporary accommodation in the county, it has been revealed.

In response to a public question from a Ms Reid, cabinet member for finance and corporate services Coun Pete Stoddart said that Herefordshire Council had paid an accommodation allowance £126,684 to 32 agency workers between the start of April and the end of September this year.

Ms Reid then asked for confirmation that this apparent figure of around £8,000 per worker per year was “in addition to the normally more expensive cost of employing agency workers”, and how the figure broke down across departments.

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Coun Stoddart said in today's full meeting of councillors that he would provide this in a written answer.

The council has struggled to keep a lid on the cost of agency social workers in particular, who according to a report a year ago by children’s commissioner Eleanor Brazil, then made up over half of all front-line social workers, many at that time working from home outside the county.

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In June this year Herefordshire Council said it had spent over £17 million on 233 agency workers in the previous financial year, more than 100 of whom were social workers, including five children’s social work managers.

In a newly published list of savings it plans to make next year, the council has said £1 million could be saved by replacing 30 agency social worker posts with permanent employees by next June, with a further £338,000 coming from cutting 14 social worker posts altogether by March 2025.