Issue - meetings

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

39.1     The Head of Human Resources (HR) and Organisational Development introduced the report. The predicted expenditure on agency staff for 2016/17 is lower than for 2015/16. The Council has had a new provider for agency staff, Adecco, since the 1^st of January 2016. The Council  is happy with the new service, which has improved governance and arrangements for pre-employment checks.

39.2     One of the key reasons for the use of agency staff is to cover sickness absence. There are a number of initiatives to tackle this, which are detailed in Appendix 3 of the report. The focus of the work to reduce sickness absence levels has been on Adult Social Care (ASC) and Children’s Services (CS) departments. A comparison of sickness absence figures with other Local Authorities has confirmed the profile of absences is very similar to other councils.

39.3     There are two key targets measuring sickness absence; the number of days lost per employee (Council Plan target); and return to work interview compliance. Both targets have improved and the Council Plan target for reducing the number of days lost per employee has been achieved.  There is good evidence of the impact that conducting return to work interviews is having. For longer term sickness absence, making contact within seven days makes a big difference and managers are also using Skype to contact staff, where appropriate. This improvement has been achieved through targeted work with departments, increased support for managers and the development e-learning resources to help with these issues.

39.4     The Committee congratulated the HR Team on this achievement and noted that there had been a reduction in the use of agency staff in the Business Services Department (BSD) as number of corporate projects had finished. The Committee asked for a projection of the level of expenditure in BSD for consultants and corporate projects in the coming year.

39.5     The Chief Operating Officer responded that BSD are continually bringing down use of agency staff. Continued use of agency staff and consultants is mainly for specialist knowledge areas, which could rise if there are large pieces of specialised work that need to be undertaken. The Information Communications Technology (ICT) team is staffed slightly above budget to make sure we have resources and flexibility for projects and to deal with peaks in demand. ICT have also looked at skills across Orbis to make the best use of the resources available. The department can report on the levels of expenditure on agency staff built into next years budget at the RPPR Board.

39.6     The Committee asked if the increasing number of apprenticeships would have an impact on agency staff use. The Head of HR and Organisational Development replied that a lot of agency staff are used to fill skilled roles in ASC and CS. Consequently the number of apprenticeships will not have an impact on the need for sickness absence cover. However, apprenticeships may have more impact where we are seeking to train and develop our own staff for roles where recruitment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

40.1     The Committee considered a report by the Chief Operating Officer which presented the latest information available about the use of agency workers via Comensura. The Interim Assistant Director for Personnel and Training introduced the report and highlighted the key points within the report and the appendices.

40.2     The Committee asked for an update on two issues that were raised in response to last year’s report:

·        The establishment of a relief bank of care workers for Adult Social Care (ASC) to reduce the number of agency staff needed.

·        The suggestion of employing/identifying dedicated staff to work to reduce sickness absence in the ASC department.

40.3     The Interim Assistant Director for Personnel and Training reported that a relief bank had been established in ASC to provide care workers in directly provided services (DPS) where minimum staffing levels exist. The relief bank is working well, with existing part time staff being offered additional hours. This has had a positive impact on the quality of care as it maintains the continuity of care by using staff who are already familiar with service users. It has been difficult to assess the impact this has had on costs, but at a time of increased pay levels, the expenditure on agency workers has remained fairly consistent at around £6.5m - £7m per year.

40.4     A number of pilot schemes have been undertaken in ASC to reduce sickness absence, which have had positive impact on sickness absence levels. There are two examples in appendix 3 of the report. In one pilot scheme the provision of physiotherapy has led to a reduction in musculoskeletal absence, in another the “Five Weeks to Wellbeing” campaign has reduced the occurrence of sickness absence. The main piece of work has been to equip locality teams with robust return to work procedures and to support managers to have the necessary discussions with staff about their sickness absence.

40.5     The Committee discussed a number of aspects of the report and made the following comments.

40.6     The Committee noted that the Business Services Department (BSD) has the highest agency expenditure and asked for a breakdown of the expenditure. The Chief Operating Officer explained that approximately £2 million of the £2.4 million expenditure was spent on corporate change programmes, and was not supporting BSD core services. The agency assignments for corporate change programmes include short term posts (fixed term contracts) and interim managers where specialist skills are required (especially in Information Technology). It is the intention to reduce the number of these short term posts as the various change programmes come to an end.

40.7     Committee asked whether membership of the Orbis Partnership would have an impact on the use of agency workers. The Interim Assistant Director for Personnel and Training responded that the Orbis Partnership may potentially lead to a reduction in the level of agency assignments in these specialist areas as Orbis will provide a bigger staff pool. Alongside this, the ambition of being an employer of choice will hopefully lead to an enhanced  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40