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Delivering Efficiency Savings in the Procurement of Agency, Temporary and Interim Staff: An overview

The London Centre of Excellence recently merged with London's improvement body - Capital Ambition - and London Connects, to form London's Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (IEP). The new organisation retains the name Capital Ambition, and is responsible for all former LCE projects.

A website is being created for the new Capital Ambition, but in the meantime this site continues to be updated with all the latest information on this project, as well as important legacy documents. 

The LCE gave grant funding to the LB Havering in 2005/06 to analyse the use of agency staff, and to find ways of achieving efficiency savings in the procurement of this significant element of the workforce.

The project had three initial objectives:

  • to undertake an in-depth analysis of a typical London local authority with unmanaged agency staff expenditure
  • to undertake an analysis of the London-wide position with regard to the use of agency staff
  • to develop a step-by-step guide for authorities to use in order to achieve efficiency savings in the procurement of agency staff.

It was found that an estimated £500 million was spent on agency staff across London during 2004-05, and agency and temporary workers accounted for up to 25% of the total workforce.   Few local authorities had readily available management information about their agency and temporary workforce, commission, rates of pay, and quality of service from agencies was disparate.

The step-by-step guide, “Transforming the Procurement of Temporary and Agency and Interim Staff: Your Toolkit for Success” was launched on Monday 16 October and contains information of use to both organisations who want to take control of their agency worker spend and those which have already implemented a managed service.   It is applicable to human resources, finance and procurement professionals, as well as being a useful source of advice to anyone who manages agency workers.


It highlights potential risks where procurement of agency and temporary workers is not managed, illustrates options available for taking control and provides information on best practice in implementing a managed service from the experience of local and district authorities both within and outside of London .

Work is continuing during 2006/07. The project will deliver a system to enable the sharing of information between the London boroughs on the cost of engaging agency and temporary workers for particular types of roles.   This Electronic Knowledge Exchange will capture information via automatic downloads from managed services for each London borough and will become a tool for benchmarking and trend gathering.


The OGC has identified the Toolkit as ’best practice’ and is supporting the LCE and the LB Havering in disseminating its benefits nationwide via the regional centres of excellence.