Issue - meetings

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Children and Family Services which provided an overview of the development of a Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Children’s Social Care. A copy of the report, marked “Agenda Item 12” is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussion, the following points were raised:-

i)             In developing the Recruitment and Retention Strategy, officers had considered a variety of data including Leicestershire County Council HR Data, recent staff survey results, usage of agency workers and had benchmarked salary data with other County and City Authorities;

ii)            The Recruitment and Retention Strategy had been developed to recruit permanent staff and so reduce the use of agency workers; currently agency workers amounted to 11.5% of the Children’s Social Care workforce. The situation experienced by the County Council in recruiting and retaining permanent Children’s Social Care staff reflected the national picture;

iii)           All actions included within the draft Recruitment and Retention Strategy could be implemented within the current policy framework. However, should additional actions be considered that fall outside the policy framework, a revision would be considered;

iv)           The Strategy considered and highlighted a number of elements that were important when recruiting new staff including salary, working environment and flexible working policies, training and future opportunities to progress professionally. The Strategy also considered the use of the Apprenticeship Levy and links to university. Regarding entry qualifications, Members were informed that there was currently a Social Work degree which people could study on leaving further education before entering employment;

v)            The Committee recognised that the role of the Team Manager was vital in encouraging job satisfaction and generating a work life balance for staff. The Committee was concerned that there were a number of vacancies at this level;

vi)           There were a number of reasons why vacancies existed for experienced Senior Practitioners, many of whom had successfully moved into Team Manager positions within Leicestershire County Council. However, some had moved to other Local Authorities following the offer of incentives;

vii)         A salary gap had been identified in comparison with other Local Authorities; the gap increased at the higher salary scales, with a gap of up to £3,000;

viii)        The Committee discussed the possibility of offering incentives to encourage job applications for new Social Workers. However, it was recognised that there would be a need to set out expectations for the length of time that the new incumbent should remain in post before moving on to make this worthwhile to the County Council.

RESOLVED:-

That the Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Children’s Social Care be noted.