States defend their spending on interim appointments

States defend their spending on interim appointments

More details about the money spent on interim employees as part of States chief executive Charlie Parker’s OneGov public sector reform plan have been revealed by a series of freedom of information requests.

Earlier this week, three FOI responses showed that in just over a year more than £3.3 million was spent on interim staff earning more than £100,000, with temporary head of health Anthony McKeever earning £27,000 per month.

It also emerged that £29,000 per month is being spent on ‘expenses and accommodation’ for interim directors general.

Now a further series of FOIs has shed more light on how much has been spent on temporary staff, many of whom were brought in from the UK. Costs incurred since 30 November include:

  • £676,860.07 on interim communications and information services staff, with an ongoing monthly cost of £83,600.
  • £709,246.66 on interim transformation staff, with a further outlay of £24,000 per month.
  • £368,765.98 on interim finance transformation staff, with an ongoing monthly cost of £35,800.

Another FOI revealed that only one of 33 senior appointments – those earning more than £100,000 per year – made by Mr Parker has been given a permanent States contract.

A spokeswoman from the States communications unit said that there were no plans at this time to appoint any further interims to permanent roles.

‘If any interims apply for any permanent roles, then they will be considered alongside other candidates by the recruitment panel,’ she said.

‘The States have appointed 33 senior interims in a public service of 6,700, at a time of significant modernisation and change. This is not a large number, given the scale of the challenge and the capacity and capability gaps that needed to be filled.’

When asked whether the Chief Minister’s recent claim that there was ‘no magic money tree’ for greater public sector pay rises was appropriate in the light of the information revealed by the FOIs, she said that the interim appointees would not be a ‘recurring cost’, unlike permanent staff.

‘Public sector pay demands involve permanent, recurring increases in the pay bill beyond what has already been offered, and in some cases accepted,’ she said.

‘The government has approved pay offers worth £27.4 million, on top of the £359 million pay bill, but £8.6 million of this is unfunded, so cost savings have to be found elsewhere to pay for it.’

She added: ‘Interims are short-term specialists, who are either working on projects which will end, or filling essential senior vacancies ahead of permanent recruitment. Their costs are one-off and will cease once they leave. Where interims are covering vacancies, their fees are largely covered by the salaries attached to the post, rather than these costs being additional. The short-term costs of interims is not comparable to the long-term, permanent, recurring costs of pay rises.’

Earlier this week civil servants went on strike for the second time after receiving below cost-of-living pay rises for 2018 and 2019. They are likely to be joined soon by teachers and head teachers and possibly nurses.

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