Agenda item

The Committee is asked to review the report from the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development which sets out the mitigating actions proposed to address Corporate Risk 11 in relation to recruitment and retention issues.

The Committee is asked to make any comments for Cabinet and officers to consider when taking forward the actions.

46.1     The Committee considered a report by the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development (copy appended to the signed minutes).

46.2     Summary of responses to Members’ questions and comments: -

·         The Council is receiving external specialist recruitment support for six months and will judge after that whether this support needs to continue  

·         There will be key performance indicators introduced for the external recruitment specialist to measure the time taken to recruit staff from agencies and the number of candidates they provide. The external specialist will be passing on key learning and advice with regard future recruitment techniques to council staff

·         If the Council wished to pay market supplements to staff starting in hard to fill roles, it would also have to pay a market supplement to existing staff in those roles - this would be difficult to maintain and remove

·         Market supplements have on-going cost implications so are not a sustainable position. The salary benchmarking exercise will be important in recognising any problem areas

·         The Council has access to the Integrated Care System’s ‘Staff in Mind’ programme that offers psychological support to staff

·         Sickness due to stress and anxiety is being closely monitored and a number of well-being actions have been undertaken including the introduction of mental health first aiders

·         The Council will offer job sharing, part time/term time and hybrid working as well as using social media, creating a new localised staff benefits package and making use of mentoring to encourage recruitment and incentivise current staff to remain at the council

·         A collective solution is required when different authorities compete for the same workforce

·         The gap between public and private sector pay is likely to decrease, so the Council needs to emphasise what the public sector can offer to make it more attractive

·         Supervision and one to ones between officers and their managers are improving, but more needs to be done on discussing career aspirations and development with staff

·         The Council is monitoring the number of performance/disciplinary cases against time served in the organisation to ensure there are no particular issues with newly appointed staff and that standards and abilities do not drop

·         Social workers employed from overseas will receive a comprehensive induction and will benefit from the support from their peer group

·         The Council will also help them find accommodation and do what it can to encourage them to stay by offering career development opportunities

·         The Council is considering the cost of further overseas recruitment to decide if this is something it wants to do again

·         The staff turnover rate has risen across the Council – priority for recruitment is focussed on social care where there are most vacancies

·         The Council, other local authorities and the Local Government Association would like legislation to prevent agencies from providing project teams instead of individual workers

46.3     Resolved - that

1. Recognises recruitment and retention as a significant risk to the Council and welcomes the work being undertaken to mitigate this
2. Recognises the growing and changing requirements in terms of recruiting to posts and made a number of suggestions on how this could be done in future including more local and community-based advertising, a focus on skills requirements and working collaboratively with other Councils

   iii.        Supports the recruitment of international social workers

  iv.        Requests an update report in a year with information broken down by service area and key risks. Also requested that more information is included in the quarterly Performance and Resources Report to provide an on-going summary of the situation