Agenda item

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 is difficult .

39.7     The Committee discussed the use of Newly Qualified Teachers (NQT’s) in schools.  The Head of HR and Organisational Development confirmed that the Council is developing programmes to recruit teachers in partnership with the local universities. There are NQT’s in rural schools, where support can be in an issue due to the school size.  The Head of HR and Organisational Development  is not aware of the dropout rate for these programmes, but can speak to Children’s Services about this.

39.8     The Chief Operating Officer added that Orbis is working to share staff in order to reduce the use of agency staff. Orbis is also developing its own talent across the three partners (East Sussex County Council (ESCC), Surrey County Council and Brighton & Hove City Council) through the Ingenium and EPIC+ programmes. The department believes that it is important to develop and encourage young talented people within the organisation.

39.9     The Committee asked what the evaluation and testing arrangements were for the new agency contract. The Head of HR and Organisational Development outlined that there was a robust infrastructure in place to monitor the contract, and has the sort of Key Performance Indicators that would be usual for such a contract. There are regular contract meetings and Adecco have employee in County Hall one day a week to look at any contract issues. The Head of HR and Organisational Development has found Adecco very responsive to any issues that have arisen.

39.10   The Committee RESOLVED to:

1)           congratulate to HR Team on their achievement;

2)           note the findings and conclusions presented in the report; and 

3)           request further information on the predicted agency staff and consultancy expenditure for BSD for the RPPR Board meeting December.