Agenda item

(To receive a report by the Executive Director – Resources which seeks approval to procure contracts for temporary agency staff)

1.    That new contracts be procured for the provision of (i) general and (ii) social care temporary agency staffing requirements through the ESPO MSTAR3 Framework Agreement with effect from 5 December 2022.

2.    That extensions of three months to the current contracts be approved.

3.    That authority be delegated to the Executive Director – Resources, in consultation with the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property, to give effect to the extensions and to determine the final form of the new contracts and to approve the entering into of the new contracts.

The Executive Councillor for People Management and Legal Services introduced a report which set out a proposed course of action to address the Council’s Temporary Agency Staff contracts which were due to expire on 4 September 2022.  This included a short extension to the existing contracts and procurement of a new contract.

It was reported that the Council’s current contracts for temporary agency staff with Comensura (for general staffing requirements) and Retinue (for social care staffing requirements) would expire on 4 September 2022 with no further options to extend.  It was reported that the spend on temporary agency staff through these contracts between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022 was c.£5 million.  The majority of this was through the Retinue contract for social workers with 70% of the total spend in relation to qualified and unqualified Social Workers.

The Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board presented the comments of the Board following its consideration of this item at its meeting on 26 May 2022.  The Executive was advised that the Board unanimously supported the recommendations, however, some of the key points highlighted during the discussion included that there was recognition of the work being done to attract and retain staff but felt that more could be done to reduce the spend on agency staff.  The Board felt that more priority needed to be given to reducing the reliance on agency staff, however, it was noted that the Board was not critical of the work currently being done but it would like to see further work carried out on this and a report to be brought back to a future meeting of the Board.

During discussion by the Executive, the following was noted:

·       Whilst the figures in relation to agency staff use appeared to be large, it was noted that they accounted for around 2% of the total staff, which was reasonable for an organisation of this size.

·       It was recognised that there was an unprecedented situation in terms of a national shortage of skilled labour and there was a widespread struggle to attract and retain staff across all authorities in Lincolnshire.  It was noted that an attraction and retention framework had been launched in recent months to assist the Council in recruiting permanent staff.

·       The Executive was advised that the Attraction and Retention Framework had the highest priority within the People Strategy.

·       The contracts would be focusing on the quality of the agency workers as well as an element for the providers to address the harder to recruit positions.

·       It was queried whether the attraction for agency workers was the variation and the ability to move regularly to different authorities.  The Executive was advised that the agency staff did tend to stay on long term and did not move around too much.  It was acknowledged that the authority was losing some of its own social workers to agencies as the pay was better.

·       It was commented that agency work also provided staff with flexibility in terms of the number of days they needed to work.  The hospitals were also facing the same issues and this was a huge challenge.

·       The Executive was updated on the initiatives in place to “grow our own” staff, particularly in relation to Children’s Services.  However, it was not possible to add any financial clause to contracts requiring staff to stay with the authority after their training was completed for training costs.  It was noted that these programmes were highly successful in Lincolnshire, with generally a 100% retention rate, but they took time, as the training took around three years to complete.

·       In the East Midlands, the Directors of Children’s Services had written to the DfE to explain how the recruitment challenges were affecting children’s services.

·       Housing was highlighted as a future challenge for a large part of the workforce, and it was queried what work was taking place in terms of attraction and retention packages, particularly for key posts.  It was commented that retaining skilled employees was likely to be the biggest challenge.

·       It was queried whether there were the same challenges within the education sector that were being seen in social work, and it was noted that a growth in personal tuition was now being seen.

·       Legal Services were keen to encourage more apprentices, however, one barrier was that this would mean that more time would be needed from existing staff to supervise the apprentices.  However, this was being worked on to find the right balance.

·       There was a suggestion that recruitment processes could be simplified and that it was important to ensure that applicants were kept informed of progress.

·       It was noted that the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board would be keeping this under review.

RESOLVED

1.    That new contracts be procured for the provision of (i) general and (ii) social care temporary agency staffing requirements through the ESPO MSTAR3 Framework Agreement with effect from 5 December 2022.

2.    That extensions of three months to the current contracts be approved.

3.    That authority be delegated to the Executive Director – Resources, in consultation with the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property, to give effect to the extensions and to determine the final form of the new contracts and to approve the entering into of the new contracts.