POLICE chiefs have spent more than £4 million on part-time staff in the last two years after cuts and squeezed budgets forced bosses to bring in extra help.

West Yorkshire Police’s bill for temporary and agency staff hit £2,470,324 in 2017. The total stood at £1,661,354 12 months earlier – an increase of £808,970 in 12 months.

Money was spent on bringing in a range of bodies to fill positions, including extra investigative officers, clerks, estates staff, control room operators, IT personnel, HR and administrative workers. The force’s spending on part time recruits has rocketed in recent years, with bosses only splashing out £443,545 six years ago.

In June last year, West Yorkshire Police’s Chief Constable Dee Collins and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Mark Burns-Williamson warned staff were ‘exhausted’, having worked incredibly long hours to meet demand and manage large-scale incidents.

The pair said staff were facing a massive challenge to cope as the county’s population increased.

Nigel Brook, West Yorkshire Police’s assistant chief officer, said some of the money was used to boost the amount of investigators looking into child sexual exploitation crimes and for full-time staff fulfilling roles for career development or covering a vacancy. He said this happened when the permanent deputy acted as the Chief Constable.

He added: “While seeking to address rising demand for historic and current child sexual exploitation investigations the Police and Crime Commissioner funded around 100 temporary Investigative Officers to supplement our investigatory resources. This significantly increased the numbers and costs of temporary roles in the latter years.

“As a result of very significant budget cuts, the force launched a whole series of reviews. During the course of such work, it is common for permanent recruitment to cease and instead to employ agency or temporary staff in order to minimise redundancies once final structures are determined.

“For instance, the review of our support staff covering over 1,000 posts has meant a much higher number of agency and temporary posts (and vacancies) and we are only in 2018 permanently recruiting into the new structures.

“Particularly in IT and Estates, we have significant numbers of projects and supplement our permanent staffing with project staff. As a diverse workforce we also need to use agency and temporary staff to cover maternity, paternity and sickness periods.”

Mark Burns-Williamson, West Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said: “Government cuts have resulted in 2,000 fewer police jobs here in West Yorkshire since 2010.

“To continue to provide the service people need and should expect West Yorkshire Police has undertaken an efficiency review programme looking at how they best use their workforce to ensure a strong and resilient police service today and in the future.

“This has resulted, in the short term, in spending on agency and temporary staff which will allow for future savings and efficiencies, which is crucial going forward to delivering an improved police service across West Yorkshire.”

Alex Wild, research director of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “This is a very large increase in spending on agency staff who can be more expensive than employees. What’s more, paying people to do jobs in this way is less transparent so it’s difficult for taxpayers to determine whether or not they’re getting value for money.”

Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, said: “I have persistently argued for more funding for the police - indeed Jeremy Corbyn recently quoted me regarding this at PMQs - but it is vital that West Yorkshire Police spend their resources wisely, and agency staff are usually extremely expensive so this is a concern, especially when budgets are tight.”

John Grogan, Labour MP for Keighley, said West Yorkshire Police were “caught between a rock and a hard place”, adding: “They want to employ more staff directly, but the cuts in Government grant mean they are being forced to take on agency staff as they are unable to make the long-term commitments which secure funding would allow them to.”