TEMPORARY council staff has cost Thurrock taxpayers more than £40 million since 2010-11, the Gazette can reveal.

Thurrock Council, which is a unitary authority and is responsible for all services, has spent a whopping £32.8million on agency staff and £9.5million on consultants.

In the same time period, Southend Council, which is also a unitary authority, spent £20million.

The council said temporary staff were only used where it wasn’t possible to fill the role full time.

Thurrock’s Conservative leader, Councillor Rob Gledhill, said he was told in 2010 that the spending would be brought under control.

He said: “What we must remember is for every pound spent on an agency or consultant, anything up to 20p of that is profit going to these companies which is 20p not being spent on services.”

A spokesman for Thurrock Council said: “The council aims to keep the use of agency staff to a minimum, advocating the permanent employment of the workforce where possible.

“Our spend on agency staff represents around 10 to 12 per cent of staff costs and agency staff are only used where it has not proved possible to recruit and retain permanent staff or where the requirement for the work is short term.”