The annual costs for employing temporary workers across the public sector has increased by £2.5 billion over the past five years to reach £11 billion, according to data from the GMB Union.

The union adds that the increase is being driven by concerns over recruitment as well as a cap on public sector pay.

“Recruitment and agency costs are spiraling out of control and it is questionable whether the policy is saving any money at all,” Rehana Azam, GMB National Secretary for Public Services, said.

The report adds that the majority of public sector workers, 55%, including council workers, front-line school and police support staff, and civil servants are not covered by a Pay Review Body. The report also stated that the central government had removed an estimated £5 billion from local authority budgets in order to enforce the pay cap across the whole public sector.

“We stand against all attempts to divide and rule over public sector workers,” Azam said. “We need proper pay rises for teaching assistants as well as teachers, and police support staff as well as police officers. The unfair and pernicious cap has caused lasting damage across the public sector. That’s why GMB and other unions are demanding a pay rise of at least 5% to start to restore at least some of the quality of life that has been stolen from our dedicated members.”

A Treasury spokesman commented to the Guardian, “More people are in work than ever before as firms across the country keep expanding and hiring more people.  Since 2010, the government has taken the tough decisions needed to put our public finances on a sound footing while protecting funding for the NHS, seeing crime fall and the number of good schools increase.” Furthermore, the government added that for every job lost in the public sector since 2010, eight new jobs had been created in the private sector.