To receive two reports from the Corporate Director of People.

The Strategic HR Lead Policy, Reward and Intelligence gave an overview of the two Agency Spend reports that had been circulated with the agenda which covered 2019/21 and Quarter 1 of 2020/21. The Committee were informed that the overall spend in 2019/20 was 2.7M which was an increase of £700,000 on the previous year. There had been reductions in the Governance and Community Strategy, Place, People, and Finance and Systems directorates. The increase was mainly from the Children and Young people’s directorate with the majority of the positions being social workers. The shortage of social workers was an ongoing issue locally and nationally. Due to the Council’s framework provider not having adequate staff available other providers had been used and the cost to the Council for those agency workers was higher.  A lot of work was being done in order to increase the Council’s own workforce and decrease their reliance upon agency staff although it would take time for the impact of this work to be seen. The Strategic HR Lead Policy, Reward and Intelligence informed the committee of the various ways in which the Council was attempting to increase their workforce including training staff to become social workers and encouraging agency staff to join the Council. The Council had not needed to use any staff members who were not from the framework provider since July 2020, which was a sign of improvement.

Councillor Boyes asked whether the reductions that had been seen in some directorates were expected to be achieved again during 2020/21. The Strategic HR Lead Policy, Reward and Intelligence responded that those directorates were showing signs that the reduction in spending was a trend and not a one off occurrence.

Councillor Holden asked how the training of frontline workers was being done during lockdown. The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy responded that the workers who had been brought in during lockdown went through a detailed induction process and received training which informed them of the standard policies, procedures, and other requirements to prepare them as much as possible. Although the e-learning training was not a substitute for face to face interactions it would enable staff to get up to speed quickly if and when standard service delivery was resumed.

The Strategic HR Lead Policy, Reward and Intelligence then moved on to the report for quarter one of 2020/21 £891,664 which was a decrease of around £20,000 on the previous quarter despite additional pressures due to COVID 19. The majority of spend during the quarter was on social workers. The Council had appointed the new Corporate Director of Children’s services and they were looking at ways to improve recruitment and retention within the directorate.

Councillor Boyes noted that there had been a significant increase in costs relating to legal and solicitors during the last two quarters and asked why this was the case. Kate responded that it was a difficult area to recruit to as have to compete against the private sector and there had been a large increase in work load due to the pandemic which had resulted in a need to recruit agency staff.

Following the Committee’s questions the Chair stated that it was important that the Council completed and review exit interviews when staff left as retention was a key element in increasing staff numbers. The Strategic HR Lead Policy, Reward and Intelligence added that a manager within Children’s Services was focused upon reviewing that information to see how the Council could improve retention.

RESOLVED: That the reports be noted.