‘Golden handcuffs’ deals at Luton Borough Council are costing taxpayers nearly £1 million a year.
One employee – believed to work in the team tasked with cutting costs at the council – receives a ‘recruitment and retention’ allowance of £27,000 a year.
This year 235 staff will receive such allowances, making them on average worth £4,250.
It is not uncommon for authorities to offer incentives for ‘hard to fill’ posts. Social worker roles can be particularly difficult to fill, a situation that has worsened since the Baby P case.
Of the Luton council jobs with R&R allowances attached, 60 per cent are social worker roles.
The council says this is because Luton pays less than other surrounding authorities.
A spokesman refused to say what other roles came with an R&R package, because it would identify individual workers.
But a report that went before the council’s administration committee last week said “a few
payments that are greater for specific reasons” went to one specialist engineering post, jobs in the Building and Technical Services department, and roles in the Luton Excellence team, which looks at where costs can be cut at the authority.
The report said “recruiting and retaining at the senior level gives the council the greatest difficulty”.
Out of the 500 people who resigned from the council in the two years up to March 2012, 73 went to a job where they would be better paid or have a more senior role.
The report proposed replacing R&R allowances with a ‘market supplement policy’ that would make the process more transparent.
Lib Dem deputy group leader Martin Pantling said: “The council is shelling out huge amounts like this while penalising the community by doing things like increasing the rent for scout groups.”