Ministry of Justice: Agency Workers

(asked on 21st July 2022) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

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


Answered by
Sarah Dines Portrait
Sarah Dines
This question was answered on 6th September 2022

MOJ spend on agency workers (also commonly referred to as “Contingent Labour” or “Temporary Workers”) in the periods requested is as follows.

We have interpreted the reference to 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.

Financial Year

2019/20

2020/21

2021/22

£197.6m

£233.3m

£196.0m

MoJ is taking several steps to reduce its reliance on agency workers. This includes monitoring resourcing levels and delivering recruitment campaigns which aim to adequately address shortfalls in staffing numbers, aiming to recruit 1500 trainee Probation Officers per FY to qualify in the Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP) to reach the Target Operating Model by 2025, and running regional ready-qualified Probation Officer recruitment campaigns to incentivise agency workers to apply for permanent positions with HMPPS. We are also developing internal progression routes for existing Probation Services Officers (PSOs) to apply to the PQiP learning programme internally. Recruitment activity is underway to prioritise the backfilling of PSOs to continue the pipeline throughout.

Reticulating Splines