Staff costs rise to £7.5m

The figures show that staffing levels at the council have increased from 17,496 to 25,487 – showing almost 8,000 extra staff taken on since 2000 – an increase of 46 per cent.

This despite the fact there is supposed to be a recruitment freeze, introduced last year, and redundancies will need to be made in order to introduce new pay structures under the ongoing job evaluation programme.

Philip Atkins, pictured, leader of the Conservative opposition at Staffordshire County Council, said the council is storing up problems for the future.

He said: "The figures are up 46 per cent on 2000 and even 10 per cent on last year, yet the council claims there is a moratorium on recruitment at the moment. How can there be? – They keep employing more and more people.

"There is a lot of money going into employing agency staff, and consultants are employed where there are no authority staff capable of doing a job.

"There are three directors in social care and health who are employed as consultants and are being paid a phenomenal wage. The county council needs to look closely at how it is spending its money. This is another example of the poor performance management and budgetary control of the county council."

The news comes as staff brace themselves from the next announcement regarding job evaluation.

Conservative members believe that the only way the council can afford to implement single status is to make widespread redundancies to help them balance the books.

Steven Jenkins, spokesman for Staffordshire County Council has defended the council's position.

He said every time someone leaves their post, it remains vacant and no recruitment takes place, with exceptions only occurring when 'essential posts' become vacant, in which case the corporate management team is approached to review the situation.

Mr Jenkins said: "Over half the growth of employees since the year 2000 has been school-based staff, such as support workers and this money is channelled to us from central government.

"We are absolutely 'normal' in terms of the number of staff we employ per head of the population, which is approximately one employee per 30 members of the public. This is not a high figure and extremely comparable to other authorities of our size."