Christina Siviter, of Hazeldown Road, writes:

I know from first hand the strain that using temporary staffing puts on essential services. For many years, I was a supply teacher, mainly around Birmingham and later in Devon. This was because through moving areas I was no longer in permanent posts. I began with a private family agency who paid me £100 per day and charged the school £15 for the booking, which was fair. This rate reflected the need to cover school holidays when I would not be earning.

The agency proprietors retired and sold the business to one of the biggest firms in the country, which also supplies nurses. Quite by chance, I heard that the firm was charging the schools £200 per day, £100 to me, and £100 to themselves. There was I, getting up at 5.30am, driving into Birmingham through the rush hour traffic to tough inner city schools where the teacher had given up and the children had lost direction, while the agency was doing sweet ‘not-a-lot’. So I left, and registered with local education authorities directly, around the West Midlands.

No wonder councils and the National Health Service are being bled dry. Part of the remedy must be for the hard-working temps to refuse to be exploited in this way – cut out the middle men!

Then more funds would be available to train and employ people on a permanent basis.