(Alamy)
The number of consultants and agency staff working for Transport for London has increased by almost 20 per cent since April due to a “brain drain” of employees and difficulty hiring new recruits.
TfL says it is one of the employers hit by “the great resignation” as staff re-evaluate their careers after the pandemic or are lured by higher salaries elsewhere.
The two years it faced in battles to secure Government Covid bail-outs and the need to shelve many projects to save cash “reduced our attractiveness externally”, TfL board members have been told.
Recent senior voluntary departures include commissioner Andy Byford, deputy commissioner Gareth Powell and finance chief Simon Kilonback.
Latest figures show the number of agency staff, consultants and “non-permanent labour” increased from 1,513 at the end of March to 1,753 by the end of the summer — while a net total of 347 permanent staff quit.
The increase in contractors is even more dramatic when compared with 18 months ago. There were 1,113 at the end of March 2021 — meaning the number is now almost 60 per cent higher.
This is despite TfL, whose 24,728 workforce includes thousands of directly employed Tube staff, being under orders from Mayor Sadiq Khan to minimise expenditure on consultants and agency workers.
TfL’s permanent workforce has decreased by a net 666 people since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Fiona Brunskill, TfL’s interim chief people officer, told its remuneration committee: “We are competing for talent in a buoyant market. This has coincided with what has been termed ‘the great resignation’: a post-pandemic increase in employees making different career choices or seeking to rebalance their professional and home lives.
“Consequently, employees have more options and this has created an unprecedented number of job vacancies, resulting in rising salary expectations and greater competition in attracting key talent.”
She said TfL’s pay rates were “significantly below” comparable employers, with bosses planning to hike the pay of executives who have not received a rise due to recent restructuring.
TfL has struggled to find engineers for new projects – forcing it to turn to agency workers.
Nick Rogers, GLA Conservatives transport spokesperson, said: "Sadiq Khan needs to stick by his manifesto commitment to reduce TfL’s reliance on consultants and ensure talent is recruited and retained internally.
“The mismanagement of TfL by the mayor in recent years has clearly not helped matters and he needs to get a grip of this."
More than 3,000 consultants were working for TfL before Mr Khan became mayor in 2016. It says it is saving £1.5 million a week compared with the peak in December 2015, and over 93 per cent of staff are on permanent contracts.
A TfL spokesman said more than 93 per cent of TfL employees were on permanent contracts.
But he added: “We are increasingly competing for talent in a buoyant employment market and, like many organisations, face challenges in attracting talent, both internally and externally.
“With the average time to fill a vacancy now standing at just under 25 weeks, as well as difficulty in attracting the required skills, this has currently led to a higher use of temporary staff.
“We remain committed to ensuring we develop our staff internally and retaining talent within the organisation.”
