Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department has spent on (a) agency workers and (b) agency retainer fees in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.

(a) agency workers

Agency workers (more commonly referred to as “contingent labour” or “temporary workers”) are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control

Commentary on contingent labour usage, if applicable, is available in departmental annual reports.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-reports-and-accounts-for-central-government-departments

The Crown Commercial Service provides two frameworks specifically for the supply of Contingent Labour which are used by central government departments. These are:

RM3749 - Public Sector Resourcing.

https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/rm3749

This provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full timesheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.

RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff

https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160

This provides access to a range of generalist, specialist and niche contingent labour agencies offering a wide range of suppliers, maximum margins, free transfer to permanent after 12 weeks and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.

Use of these frameworks provides robust governance, visibility, value for money and flexibility in meeting departmental contingent labour needs.

(b) agency retainer fees

We have interpreted agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service. This is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.

Agency retainer fees are not applicable to the contingent labour market.

There is no recorded expenditure on agency retainer fees.