Manchester council spends £70m on agency staff in six years

This article appeared in today's Manchester Evening News about information I've obtained showing the Council has spent £70,000,000 on Agency staff over the last six years (click picture to make it larger):

At a time when the Council is laying thousands of workers off and imposing harmful cuts on Manchester communities; it is hugely wasteful for them to be spending millions on agency staff. This is just the latest example of Manchester Labour making the wrong choices with our money.

Chorlton MP John Leech said: "If there is a full time job to be done a worker should get a full time job with proper workers rights, using agency staff doesn't save money and doesn't give the workers the rights they deserve."

The figures for each year are:

01.04.2007 - 31.03.2008 - £14,408,317
01.04.2008 - 31.03.2009 - £17,014,007
01.04.2009 - 31.03.2010 - £16,455,400
01.04.2010 - 31.03.2011 - £11,577,246
01.04.2011 - 31.03.2012 - £10,960,207
01.04.2012 - 31.03.2013 - £2,798,038 in addition to the £9,813,022 spent on Temporary staff