Merging Surrey County Council and its 11 borough districts is supposed to create a better way of delivering vital services – but the lead up could create significant issues as overstretched staff struggle to cover unfilled vacancies.

Waverley Borough Council has £1.4million worth of roles sitting empty as would-be workers hesitate over taking jobs that would only exist for the next two years.

The struggle to attract permanent staff cost the borough £3.75 million in short-term agency fees last year.

Councillor Mark Merryweather, portfolio holder for finance, said: “In a sellers labour market we’ve been unable to fill skilled vacancies at budgeted cost.

“This can create a stressful if not an unsustainable activity variance, not a rate one, and it can come with the non-financial cost as our officer teams work within those gaps to maintain service levels.

“We routinely have to resort to temporary and agency staff at higher rates to fill these gaps to ensure service delivery but in face we have seen some improvement in the last year.

“But as pressures of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) build, we should be realistic about our expectations, particularly if pressures are put on us not to employ permanent staff.”

The area in the council with the highest spend on temporary staff is its planning department, at £1.58m. Its legal team spends £597,000 a year on temps followed by democratic services on £306,000.

It comes as Guildford Borough and Waverley Borough Council  confirmed plans to merge its regulatory services, to save about £90,000 in staffing costs, but also to fill gaps.

The service covers areas such as licensing, food safety, housing, as well as fly tipping, dog fouling, and graffiti.

Guildford Borough and Waverley Borough Council said they routinely use agency staff to cover vacancies with officers confirming that continued recruitment-issues was highly likely.

“Both authorities are currently carrying vacancies and contractors are being used to provide additional support which is not sustainable”, papers presented to the September 9 full council meeting read.

Cllr Jane Austin (Conservative:  Bramley and Wonersh) said: “The report shows £1.4 million of underspend due to vacancies, these are described as vacancy savings, which is not the sort of savings we should be celebrating, it means we are failing to fill posts, not delivering services more efficiently.

“Meanwhile our council spent £3.7 million on agency costs last year including 1.755 million in their planning department alone,.

“These are astonishing figures.”

Paul Follows, leader of Waverley Borough Council, said the problem had been exacerbated since the Government announced in December that Surrey councils would merge.

He said: “If you are looking for a permanent job, going to join a council that has about 18 months left is not going to be at the top of your list particularly when unitary is just around the corner.”

He added: “Soon we will lose the ability to permanently recruit, meaning more costly interim hires.”

Cllr Merrryweather added that agency spend had been on a downward trend until LGR “reared its ugly head”.