MORE than £500,000 of taxpayers' money has been spent on consultants to cover for unfilled council vacancies in Worcestershire - despite in-house jobs being slashed.

Your Worcester News can reveal how Worcestershire County Council has been going to outside companies to help 'fill' manager's roles on a temporary basis while bosses searched for replacements.

The practice, which is widespread across County Hall, led to £518,946 being paid to external organisations to plug gaps that keep on cropping up once staff leave for jobs elsewhere.

The spending has never been compiled before, but has now been obtained after bosses decided to trawl through the data.

For the 2013//14 financial year it shows:

- The council paid Leeds-based Gatensby Sanderson to find people to cover for jobs in safeguarding children twice, costing £17,311 and £46,976

- Penna PLC, which offers HR help and is based in London, was handed a whopping £123,000 to cover for a 'services manager' vacancy covering the Wychavon area

- Pricewaterhousecoopers was handed £7,219 to cover for the chief financial auditor's vacancy

- £61,820 went to Herefordshire Council to manage the waste contract due to vacancies being open

The council says all the spending went on filling managerial roles, and in some cases it took "longer than average" to find the right people to take a job on properly.

Councillor Peter McDonald, leader of the opposition Labour group, said: "This clearly shows the council cannot plan, it cannot do succession planning competently at all and the public are paying the price for it.

"In the private sector this sort of thing is unheard of - when managers go other staff roll their sleeves up and fill in to take up the extra workload until the job is filled properly.

"Any businesses that operated like this wouldn't survive, they don't go around throwing money at outside people to fill in - it's pure incompetence, especially when you're cutting jobs yourself."

The council is looking to shed 1,500 jobs by 2018 by handing up to 85 per cent of services to outside providers.

But Conservative Councillor John Campion, cabinet member for transformation and commissioning, said: "The majority of this spending relates to key roles which needed to be covered whilst the normal recruitment process was carried out and because it was not possible to divert responsibilities to other members of staff.

"These interim arrangements are particularly essential in cases where the roles involve working with vulnerable adults and children, where it is not acceptable to have breaks in service.

"In some cases it does take longer than average in order to find the right person for a role, especially if they are specialist positions for which there is competition from other organisations."