Special report

by political editor Paul Francis

Kent County Council has paid more than £1.5m to keep and recruit staff over the last three years, figures disclosed to the Kent Messenger Group have revealed.

The payments have been made to many more than 700 employees under the council's arrangements for offering recruitment and retention allowances.

The scheme permits extra money to be offered where the salary that would have normally been paid is not considered enough to secure staff and vacancies would remain unfilled.

The scheme is also used to hold on to staff considering taking up similar jobs elsewhere on higher salaries.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that in 2009, KCC offered more than 200 employees recruitment allowances totalling £271,407, an average of £1,200. A further £184,328 was paid to 64 employees as retention allowances - an average of £2,880 for each.

In many cases, the allowances amounted to a few hundred pounds. However, in others, the payments were several thousand pounds and in 2009, KCC offered £6,000 more to 22 individuals appointed to jobs with the authority.

In the same year, retention allowances of more than £9,000 were paid to two individuals and £8,000 to a third.

In 2008, one senior employee on a pay scale of between £49,000 and £53,000 was paid an additional £25,473 as part of a recruitment package.

A second had their remuneration package increased by £12,240. In total over the last three years, KCC has spent £1.53m on allowances for 764 employees.

Cllr Roger Gough (Con) cabinet member for corporate services, said the scheme allowed KCC greater flexibility to adjust to changes in the employment market and compete with other sectors. He also emphasised that many allowances were paid to employees in key operational jobs, such as social work, care management and occupational health, not just management posts.

Vacancies in social services have become particularly hard to fill in the wake of various scandals.

Cllr Gough said: "This is a better way of doing things than just allowing pay scales to drift up. While the sums involved are not tiny, neither are they enormous.

"Most of the roles are operational rather than in management. Many of the alternatives, such as taking on agency staff, would be much more expensive. This is a sensible way of doing things rather than have services disrupted because vacances are unfilled."