School spending on agency staff raises questions over council’s education budget cuts and redundancies

Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter

School agency staff spending was slashed by over £2 million by a council last year – but the local authority still saw more than £3.7m of its budget pay for external provision.

This continuing strong demand for agency staff has raised questions over the need for staff redundancies and whether schools are being given enough support.

The biggest spending institution in 2024/25 was the Maelor School in Penley. According to Freedom of information requests over the last two years, the secondary school spent nothing on agency staff in 2023/24. Last year however the school spent £288,592 on agency staff.

Just behind was Darland High School in Rossett. In 23/24 it had been the borough’s top spending school with £457,413 used for agency staff.

Spending

In 24/25 it was the region’s second-highest spending school despite almost halving that amount to £230,641.

The lowest spending secondary school in the county borough was Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, which paid just £74,362 for agency support.

In the primary school sector St Giles Voluntary Controlled Primary School had the highest agency bill – £178,749. That was £50,000 less than the previous year.

The smallest spend overall in the borough was St Mary’s Voluntary Aided Primary School, which spent just £71 on agency staff in 24/25. A year earlier its agency spend was just over £30,000.

Despite the savings made the level of agency spend remains an issue after Wrexham Council cut the schools budget by £5.4m in April.

At the time 16 schools applied for a licensed deficit – a sort of formal overdraft – having spent more than their budget. They have three years to pay that off increasing the pressure on headteachers to cut agency spending faster without harming education provision.

Questions

With demand for agency staff still high, questions have been raised about recent staff redundancies in Wrexham’s education sector. In 23/24 there were 40 members of permanent school staff made redundant at a cost of just over £400,000.

“There are schools in this LEA (Local Education Authority)  that are being kept going by supply staff (agency staff),” said Cllr Robert Ian Williams in a Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee discussion earlier this year.

“It’s a sad moment that we can have all this demand for supply and yet we are getting rid of teachers. I really feel that is a black hole that we need to look into as regards our finances.”

A spokesperson for Wrexham Council said: “To maintain the high standards expected as well as guidelines in relation to numbers of pupils per teaching staff we need to utilise agency staff.

“They cover both short-term and long-term teacher and support staff absences and to fill gaps between recruitment of specialist subject teachers. The size of the school and therefore the number of positions that may need to be filled can impact on costs.

“All costs are borne from the delegated school budgets or the sickness supply scheme, which is funded by the schools themselves.”