A TRADE union is urging council chiefs in Wirral to reduce their sky-high spending on freelance staff.

The call came as the Globe can reveal the local authority will lash out £7.7m on agency workers and consultants over the course of the current financial year.

Around £5m will be spent on freelance staff for children’s services - recently inspected by Ofsted and found to be "inadequate."

The council's chief executive said paying large sums for agency staff is a problem faced by many public sector organisations and "is almost always better value in the long-term than creating additional highly-paid posts which are permanently on our books."

Documents seen by this newspaper show the cost of consultants alone between April and November last year was £1.18m.

Total expenditure on agency workers in the same period was £4.5m - with more than 80% in social care and child services.

Paddy Cleary, branch secretary of Wirral Unison, said the town hall does not seem to learn by its mistakes.

In 2015 chief officers were the target of fierce criticism from the union when they spent £2.5m on agency staff - with £16,000 per week going to consultants.

The fees for two of these consultants came in at a staggering £1,700 per day.

Mr Cleary said: “The new figures are alarming and show the authority has failed to learn lessons from the past.

“We are haemorrhaging money that could provide vital services for the public of Wirral.

“Unison continually highlighted the concerns and pressures in children’s services that have been echoed in the Ofsted report.

“The same pressures apply in social care and across the majority of our departments.

“Despite the draconian cuts to local government spending from a Government hell bent on destroying the public sector, this Labour administration should not be wasting taxpayers' money.”

He added: “Some of these agency people come in against budgeted posts but are paid higher salaries than our full-time staff.

“They offer no continuity or accountability - and if they can’t stand the heat they get out of the kitchen.

“It will not be the agency staff or consultants who pick up the pieces if something goes wrong - it will our members and the tax-paying public of Wirral."

Council chief executive Eric Robinson said: “In the past staff numbers at Wirral like many other councils have had to be reduced in response to cuts in funding or as cost-saving measures.

"The impact of those cuts means we must invest in short-term or temporary support to fill gaps - and when it is urgent to speed up and develop improvement or transformation plans throughout the council.

“In today’s labour market more and more skilled social workers, like those working in caring, nursing, teaching and other key jobs, prefer to work through agencies or independently, choosing when and where they work and enjoying more flexible shift and work patterns.

"It is a problem schools, hospitals and local authorities are trying to come to terms with."

He continued: “When we do need short-term expertise to complete a specific piece of work or provide cover while we look to find a permanent staffing solution, the cost of this short-term support is often higher on an hourly or daily basis.

"But it is almost always better value in the long-term than creating additional, highly-paid posts which are permanently on our books.

“We have to get the balance right between managing the spending cuts and rising costs, and the challenge of finding suitably qualified staff to provide the quality services our residents expect and deserve."