Agenda item

(To receive a report by Tony Kavanagh, Assistant Director – HR and Organisational Support which invites the Board to consider a report on the Approval to Procure Contracts for Temporary Agency Staff which is due to be considered by the Executive on 7 June 2022. The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive as part of its consideration of this item)

Consideration was given to a report by the Talent and Resourcing Manager, which invited the Board to consider a report on the Approval to Procure Contracts for Temporary Agenda Staff, which was due to be considered by the Executive on 7 June 2022.

The Board was advised that Council’s current contracts for temporary agency staff with Comensura (for general staffing requirements) and Retinue (for social care staffing requirements) expire on 4 September 2022 with no further options to extend.

Between 1 April 2021 and 13 March 2022 the Council had spent around £5 million on temporary agency staff through its contracts with Comensura and Retinue. The majority of which was spent through the Retinue contract for social workers with 70% of the total spend in relation to qualified and unqualified social workers.

It was proposed that the Council utilised the current MSTAR3 framework agreement, conducting a further competition for two new contracts with initial periods of two years with options to extend for a further three periods of one year to a maximum period of five years.

The contract would also benefit from a reduction in out-of-contract spend and it was proposed that a collaborative approach with Rutland County Council and South Kesteven District Council be adopted, as set out at Appendix A to the report.

The Board supported the recommendations to the Executive and highlighted the following points for consideration:

·       The £5m agency spend included all the associated costs such as holiday pay entitlements. However, travel expenses were separate which was the same for employees of the Council. As agency staff were employed by the agency, pension costs would sit with the agency and not the Council.

·       The attraction and retention framework allowed for payments of up to 15% on top of the basic salary for social workers to try to make the pay offer more attractive. It was recognised that public sector pay had fallen in real terms since 2010. Pay was a major factor in attracting and retaining staff and the increase in cost of living could increase the risk of losing more staff to agencies due to higher pay offers. However, other factors were also important in attracting and retaining staff and adjustments such as condensed working hours and more flexibility around where staff worked from were being explored. The emphasis in the People Strategy was to be an employer of choice and a good place to work, where employees could thrive.

·       In relation to the adult social care reforms, there was concern nationally as to whether the new system could be fully staffed. It had been estimated that there could be a shortage of approximately 4000 social workers across the country which would be needed to enable these reforms to progress. The Chairman of the Adults and Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee had requested that the Committee be kept informed if the number of agency social workers for adult social care escalated so that the Committee could support officers with identifying a solution.

·       As of 26 April 2022, there were 666 staff employed across the social care qualified and unqualified posts within Adult Care and Children’s Services and 80 agency workers. In Legal Services, there was eight agency workers compared to 61 employed members of staff.

·       There were processes in place to ‘grow our own’ within the Council. There had been 13 social worker apprentices taken on in 2021 and another 13 were in the process of being recruited for 2022. A number of trainee lawyers had also been taken on in 2021 and 2022.

• The Board recognised the work being done to attract and retain staff but felt that more needed to be done to reduce the £5m spend on agency staff. The Board requested that further information be brought to a future meeting on the Attraction and Retention Framework and setting out proposals to help reduce the agency spend, including increasing the number of ‘grow our own’.

RESOLVED:

1.      That the recommendations, as set out in the report, be supported;

2.      That a summary of the comments made be passed on to the Executive as part of its consideration of this item.

(12:08 – Councillor T R Ashton entered the meeting)