A SENIOR Wirral councillor says he is "horrified" by news the authority has spent more than £6m on temporary staff in the last ten months.

The freelance agency workers have been brought in against a backdrop of more than 1,100 town hall jobs being declared redundant over the last five years.

Tory group leader Cllr Jeff Green said the expenditure "beggars belief."

A top council official tonight told the Globe it reflects "best practice" and is "cost-effective."

Unearthed by prolific Wirral blogger John Brace, the figures reveal the authority forked out £6,003,273 for agency and contract staff between April of last year and January 2015.

Councillor Green said: "I find it absolutely extraordinary the council could make so many people redundant and then spend so much on bringing in agency and contract staff.

"Hardworking taxpayers will be horrified by this, as will those people whose jobs were made redundant as a result of cost savings.

"I could understand spending money on bringing in people with special skills, such as for children's services, but it beggars belief the council should be spending these amounts on non-frontline services."

And he revealed: "I've recently been made aware of one employee who was made redundant with a £100,000 severance payment only for the council to bring them them back in on £400 a day.

"It is quite extraordinary."

The biggest spenders on freelance workers were the departments for law, human resources, asset management and transformation - as Cllr Green remarked, not what most people would consider to be "frontline" services.

In response Joe Blott, Wirral's strategic director of transformation and resources, said: "Wirral Council is no different from any other large organisation where it is good practice and cost effective to have the flexibility of employing temporary or agency staff to respond to fluctuations in demand.

"Agency workers are largely covering vacant posts so are funded from within agreed service budgets."

How the cash was spent:

April - £925,556.

May - £483,823.

June - £701,271.

July - £727,515.

August - £551,481.

September - £483,601.

October - £661,501.

November - £500,049.

December - £568,418.

January - £400,052.