Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 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. This framework can be found here: 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, which provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full time sheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.

RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160, which 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.

HM Treasury has spent the following on agency workers:

B - Agency retainer fees:

We have interpreted your 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.

HM Treasury has spent the following on agency retainer fees:

The vast majority of HM Treasury’s agency retainer fees relate to the setup of the UK Infrastructure Bank.