The cost of contractors to fill the gaps after almost six thousand public service jobs were cut has soared to $145 million in 2012-13 documents obtained under FOI have revealed.  The FoI documents show more than 10,000 contractors were employed over the 12 months providing around $6 million in fees for four of the state's biggest recruitment firms.  The cost of contractors adds to the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent on redundancy payments in the past two years under the SGI cost-cutting drive.  The biggest spender last financial year was DEECD, which spent almost $29.5 million on contractors to fill vacancies.  Three other government departments spent more than $20 million on contract workers as staff shortfalls threatened the provision of services.  The Government's agenda is to replace its permanent workforce with insecure contractors as departments become overrun with these fly-in, fly-out workers.