University of Wolverhampton's £440k bill for agency staff

Bosses spent £335,170 on cover staff from August 2011 to July last year. They then also forked out £109,619 from August until December last year.

The spending was revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Education chiefs say all of the money was spent on outside help for out-of-hours work at libraries and in managing its facilities, such as catering.

They say the funds used for outside help did not detract from the investment in education because there are separate budgets for money spent on students to that for extra help.

Stephanie Harris, director of human resources at the university, said: "The majority of spend on agency workers is to provide cover for libraries, out of hours, and facilities, including catering staff.

"This is often because they are urgently needed to cover a staff shortage to keep the university running effectively, for example a member of library staff to cover a staff illness in order to maintain required minimum staffing levels," she said.

"We monitor agency spend to keep it to a minimum and have significantly reduced the amount of spend by utilising our own staff to provide cover wherever possible."

Bosses at the university said they would not break down costs by agency or employment business used, for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

Sonia Hawley, the university's information officer, added: "These organisations are all in direct competition with each other and would all be damaged by the disclosure of this information.

"Disclosure of the amounts paid to specific agencies is likely to cause financial loss to both the supplier and the purchasing authority.

"This may undermine the integrity and effectiveness of the tender process as universities may not be in a position to purchase the best all-round service as unit cost may become the sole overriding factor.

"This could mean in the long-term that agency services cost more, as small initial purchase costs are overtaken by high future cost factors."