ENGAGING consultants and agency staff has moved from being a default response by government to a “last resort”, the Chief Minister has stated as new figures showed that spending in this area fell by more than half between 2023 and 2025.
Deputy Lyndon Farnham said he was pleased to have seen a cultural change to the recruitment process, and has urged the next government to maintain the trend once the forthcoming election has passed.
A report released today showed a 54% fall in external workforce costs from £82.8 million in 2023 to £38m last year.
Reducing external staffing and agency costs as part of an overall drive for greater efficiency were among the stated priorities of Deputy Farnham’s government on taking power in January 2024.
Tighter controls on third-party spending were introduced in mid 2024, with a drive to reduce the reliance on external support and to improve the way staff are recruited and retained.
Spending on consultants has shown the biggest fall, with a 69% drop over two years, while reductions have also been achieved to spending on contingent labour (47%), agency health and social care staff (50%) and other agency staff (53%).
Although he said there hadn’t been a set numerical target for the reduction in external workforce costs, Deputy Farnham said he believed the 54% fall witnessed within two years was “a good start”.
“We’ve managed to curb the growth across these sectors without seeing any detriment to the public service, which I think is important,” he said. “In particular with agency staff, with the Health Department managing to recruit more permanent staff – it’s a much better scenario as you get much better continuity of care than with rotating agency staff, who are also typically more expensive because they are on day rates.”
Figures released last month showed that the overall government workforce grew by 153 people across 2025, but that this rise was accounted for by recruitment in frontline positions in health and education, with a decrease of 181 people once these areas were excepted.
The frontline health and education roles were the only ones not subject to a recruitment freeze brought in during 2024. Deputy Farnham said he agreed with recent comments by government chief executive Dr Andrew McLaughlin that the freeze should remain in place until at least 2030.
“Whoever takes over the new government [following the election in June] must maintain the policy on curbing growth, leaving the restrictions on recruitment and consultancy in place,” he said. “We don’t want to start undoing the good work, so that would be my very firm advice to the next administration.”
