Sunderland recruiting Texan social workers: why and how?

Sunderland City Council are proud of having filled their need for experienced children's services workers by recruiting them from Texas. The motivation seems a bit suspect though:

And the Children’s Services boss claims recruiting the new members of staff from America will be financially beneficial to the city, saying the employing of permanent staff to fill the 11 posts will save council tax payers in Sunderland £320,000 over a two-year period.

From: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/council_takes_on_u_s_staff_1_2939704

I wonder why Americans are so cheap. The Council says they can easily get newly qualified workers and since wages are not low in the US and the pound is not doing specially well, my comment would be that the Council must be avoiding some other employment-related costs. Is it perhaps that newly-qualified workers are too expensive for it because it does not like the costs of training and support for its staff. Or has it been employing expensive agency staff will nilly, rather than building a loyal local workforce?

Commentators on the Sunderland Echo website are thinking the same way. One writer asks: is the Council offering internships for the newly qualified workers so that they can learn from these wonderful Texans (or from anyone else) so that it does not have to do this again? And is it really offering good support and supervision according to the advice recently issued by the Social Work Reform Board? In which case, why can't it retain and train up local qualified social workers, says another commentator?

My comment again: I'm all for social workers gaining experience of other cultures and countries, but I'm also in favour of local authorities providing systematic support and training for staff of all levels of qualification and building skills in the social work profession. That's every employer's responsibility, and local authorities have a record of ducking it.