Councils in the UK spent a minimum of £2.1 billion on agency staff in the past year, as per the 4 Day Week Campaign's analysis. Nic Murray, a researcher and member of the campaign, criticized this expenditure as a "tremendous misuse of taxpayers' funds."
The campaign's freedom of information requests revealed that, in the 2022-23 fiscal year, councils allocated 6% of their total staff budget to agency staff. Out of 382 UK local authorities, 234 responded to the information request.
The organisation pointed out that spending on agency staff has been increasing annually, with £1.8 billion spent in 2021-22 and £1.6 billion in 2020-21. Slough had the highest percentage of staff spending allocated to agency workers, at 42%.
Earlier this year, the Local Government Association (LGA) reported that nine out of ten councils nationwide were grappling with staff retention and recruitment issues.
The 4 Day Week Campaign argues that implementing a four-day workweek could help councils address these challenges in local government staffing. South Cambridgeshire District Council recently became the first UK local authority to trial a four-day workweek with no reduction in staff pay. The council reported a decrease of £300,000 in its annual wage bill after the three-month trial, compared to the approximately £2 million spent annually on agency staff prior to the trial.