Agenda item

Roger Parkin, Director of Customer and Community Services, introduced a report on temporary agency staffing.

Members were informed that as per previous requests, figures relating to Slough Children’s Services Trust had been separated from the figures in the report. The total spend on SBC agency staff for the 2015/16 financial year was therefore £5,988,209. However this figure was somewhat lower than the actual spend, due to delayed invoicing for March 2016.

There were 217 agency staff placements across the Council, with the highest number being within the Wellbeing Directorate. Partly, this was due to the difficulty in recruiting the right calibre of staff to certain posts, e.g. social workers. In addition, agency staff within adult social care were often retained for longer than expected due to the importance of providing service continuity to residents.

In addition, agency staff were often required to complete projects on a short-term basis or provide expertise not available within existing staff.  An example of this was the recent employment of a Digital Transformation Manager, on a  short term basis, who was an external specialist recruited to drive the Digital Transformation project before handing off to regular staff in the longer term. In other cases, agency staff were recruited and retained due to the deliberate choice to keep permanent roles unfilled, in order to provide flexibility for internal redeployments following staff redundancies.

Members were concerned at the number, and length of tenure, of agency workers. It was confirmed that the concerns were shared by senior management, and that the Chief Executive had requested a report to the CMT to identify why specific roles had not been filled on a permanent basis. Managers were being asked to justify their agency worker placements, or remove them in favour of permanent staff.

The officer concluded by confirming that the Matrix contract had provided transparency over agency spend, and had made managers more accountable for their spend on recruitment.

Members asked a number of questions, including:

The number of agency staff employed by SBC for 2 years or more had increased. Why was this?

Since the last report, a number of agency staff within adult social care had now been in their positions for over 2 years, therefore skewing the figures. In many cases, highly skilled social care staff were retained to ensure high quality continuity of service and to deal with increasing caseloads.

It was accepted that there was a national shortage of social workers. What was Slough Council doing to incentivise social workers to live and work in Slough?

The OD/HR Business Partner  for Wellbeing is working alongside the Adult Services Managers as part of a task group mandated with reviewing the use of agency workers in the service.

Why were temporary agency staff not converted to permanent staff?

Conversion of staff from temporary to permanent often required a ‘finder’s fee’ to be paid to the agency. Through the Matrix contract, this fee was no longer applicable. However, many agency workers choose to remain temporary as they prefer the flexibility that this offers.

Were agency staff workers paid more than permanent staff?

No. Slough retains a pay parity scheme to ensure that agency workers are paid the same as permanent staff, in the same role. However, there were costs particular to agency staff that were not applicable to permanent staff (and vice versa), for example agency fees vs. pension contributions. Because of this, agency staff workers were not necessarily more expensive than permanent staff. A benefit of the Matrix contract was that there was now transparency of agency spend to ensure managers could produce sound business cases to justify the continuing employment of agency staff.

Were many agency workers retained as employees of their own company?

Some agency staff work through their own company in circumstances where specialist skills are required.

Was Slough working to adopt some of the initiatives employed by the Children’s Services Trust to reduce the spend on agency staff?

Yes, SBC and the Trust had forged a strong partnership to share best practice and reduce spend on agency workers.

Resolved -   (a) That the report be noted.

(b) That a further report be brought to the next meeting of the Employment & Appeals Committee.