Agenda item

To receive a presentation on the status of recruitment and retention of the department.

The Interim Executive Director of People and the Head of Human Resources were in attendance at the meeting to provide a summary on the position of recruitment and retention of staff in Children’s Services and answer questions arising.

The Service had been under immense pressure with all staff facing large caseloads and as a result having to work weekends and evenings, which was not sustainable. In order to alleviate this pressure, extra capacity was brought in on a short-term basis over the summer holidays to assist in clearing backlogs.

Longer term solutions being put in place included a strong support offer of training to build the expertise of newly qualified socials workers, who were not as difficult to recruit. The offer of apprenticeships and bursaries for those looking to return to social work had also been explored as part of a recruitment drive. Benchmarking of salaries across London and against neighbouring boroughs had taken place and there had been an increase in key worker retention payments

It was agreed across the Service that further work was needed with various agencies to improve the quality of referrals received. Referrers also needed to develop their understanding of what was an appropriate referral and what information was expected to reinforce the importance of the quality of referrals.

The Human Resources team now had a clear line of sight of the needs of the Service with monthly staff monitoring reports collated to analyse where vacancies existed and to understand how social workers could be sources for each team. A five point strategy had been developed to focus on advertising, recruitment and retention. As a result, a number of new starters had been recruited into various areas of the Service

The use of agency staff remained high in the Service but it was acknowledged that they were key to the workforce. Many had been with Croydon for a long time, were valued and were being encouraged to sign permanent contracts.

It was highlighted that the department had been proactive in finding resourceful ways to attract and retain good quality social workers, but it was questioned whether the offer of housing and school places had been explored as a means to attracting staff to the borough. Officers agreed that affordability of housing remained an issue. The Leader had given a commitment that key worker housing would be explored when introduced to the borough in 2019.

Members agreed that there was an acute shortage of good social workers in Croydon and a high caseload exacerbated the problem, with more work needed to address the present difficulties in order to be able to effectively compete for staff and raise the profile of the borough.

The Chair thanked officers for their responses to questions.

The Sub-Committee reached the following CONCLUSIONS:

1. Recruitment and retention of good quality experienced staff remained a challenge

2. The Council had been responding appropriately by looking at various methods to raise its profile in order to attract social workers to Croydon.

3. It was concerning that there had been no prior transparent line between Children’s Social Care and Human Resources to communicate the need for staff but the new strategies adopted through the collections of actions in place were encouraging.