To ask the Minister of Finance and Personnel to outline (i) the estimated cost savings her Department could make through sourcing temporary workers for NICS positions through her Department’s dedicated on-line recruitment portal, rather than maintaining Contract P3436 with private recruitment agencies at an estimated annual cost of £20m; and (ii) the reason why this method is not currently used to fill short-term fixed contracts for NICS posts, given the current financial challenges faced by the Executive.

As recently advised in the response to AQW 46567/11-15 the total cost paid to temporary agencies to supply staff across the NICS for the financial year 2014/15 was £9,228,998. It is not possible to quantify what, if any, estimated savings could be realised from recruiting directly for temporary workers since a number of variables will influence the costs. These include the number of posts to be filled from each competition etc, the number of competitions, the fact that HR Connect charges are only agreed for some grades but would have to be negotiated for additional grades/posts. For illustrative purposes, the current Agency workers contracts cover over 100 different job roles, this would mean the NICS potentially running over 100 competitions every year in order to be in a supply position. The costs paid to HR Connect for running these competitions depends on the number of posts that would be filled from each competition. For the grades already covered in the contract this could range from approximately £2,000 to £23,000 per competition. This figure only covers the direct HR Connect charges, it doesn’t cover other costs such as staff time sitting on recruitment interview panels etc.

Contract P3436 with Kennedy Recruitment and Premiere Employment Group Ltd to provide a range of staff across administrative, professional and technical job categories and contract P9115 with Apple Recruitment Services to provide accountants and auditors are only used to fill short-term vacancies required for urgent business needs that cannot reasonably be met in any other way.