WORCESTER City Council's recruitment funding methods have been described as outdated by some councillors.

They have called for funding through efficiency savings to be scrapped so council departments know exactly how much they can spend.

It follows a £336,000 overspend on employee budgets this year, which led to urgent measures being taken last month to avoid a major overspend on this year's budget.

A policy introduced in the early 90s called for recruitment costs to be funded from a two-and-a-half per cent "variance factor" in each department's budget.

At last night's Corporate Services Policy and Review Committee meeting, Coun Colin Bruton said he was "surprised" that this system was in place.

"You need to set a budget and say that that is how much you can spend, and you can't go over it," he said.

"It's about knowing how much money you can spend."

The council's chief finance officer, Grahame Lucas, said departments were not set a target of how much they should save.

He said the policy made sense at the time it was introduced, but it was now causing difficulties.

Council chief executive David Wareing said the alternative to efficiency savings was to have a separate recruitment budget, but said the council was on a tight budget.

"It's a difficult one. We clearly can't increase the budget," he said.

"Services are under strain."