Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services and the Assistant Director – Human Resources and Organisational Development attended the meeting to provide a progress report on the recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on the use of agency staff.

The report noted that the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board review of the use of agency, interim and consultancy staff had reported in February 2018 and had made twelve recommendations that had been subsequently endorsed by Cabinet in July 2019. The report provided a progress report on the three recommendations that had not yet been fully implemented.

In introducing the report, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services noted that the Workforce Management Board continued to monitor and control agency costs by challenging usage across the Council and assured members that agency staff were only used to enable the continuation of services for specific and time limited periods, with directorates having been tasked to reduce agency usage and to seek alternative solutions for flexible resourcing to maintain service delivery. The Cabinet Member noted that the Council’s spend on agency staff had fallen by 77% since 2016/17 and advised that it was being forecasted that the cost of agency staff for 2020/21 would be similar to that of 2019/20 at around £3.6million.

The Cabinet Member detailed the progress made since the last progress report to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board in September 2019 on the three recommendations that had not yet been fully implemented.

Recommendation 6

That the transformation plans for ASC are carefully monitored to ensure that agency and consultancy use is delivering value for money and practice improvements.

The new Adult Social Care Pathway had been implemented in October 2019 and agency usage in Adult Social Care continued to be monitored by the Work Force Management Board. It was noted that currently the Directorate had two Social Workers in Supported Discharge Pathways whose engagements were scheduled to end at the end of the calendar year.

Recommendation 9

That further work be undertaken to lessen the requirement for seasonal agency staff. This should include annualising hours or ensuring operatives ‘multi-task’ and are able to share roles and functions.

The review asked that a further report be provided exploring options. It was noted that Regeneration and Environment recruited 22 employees in Grounds Maintenance on seasonal contracts at the beginning of March 2020 and that permanent recruitment to lessen the requirement for agency workers further was due to take place in Spring 2021.

Recommendation 11

That the Work Force Management Board should explore the feasibility with other councils and public sector partners of developing an in-house ‘bank’ system or employment agency to reduce cost and reliance on external agencies.

The new neutral vendor agency contract that had commenced in April 2020 had increased the number of suppliers from across the market.  The supply chains included the neutral vendors internal agency whose placements were not subject to agency commission rates and had typically delivered savings of around 8%. The new agency contract had reduced agency commission costs by £48,915 in the first six months of its operation.

Members welcomed the reduced and targeted use of agency staff and asked for further information on the neutral vendor arrangement and whether agency staff who had been in post for some time were moved onto permanent contracts with the Council. The Assistant Director – Human Resources and Organisational Development provided further information on how the neutral vendor arrangement worked and advised that where appropriate agency staff were moved to Council contracts as this both reduced costs and increased staff wellbeing.

Members asked whether further consideration had been given to the recommendation that an in-house ‘bank’ system or employment agency that could reduce costs and reliance on external agencies be created. The Assistant Director advised that the current neutral vendor arrangement enabled the Council to benefit from reduced costs when using agency staff without the additional administrative processes and associated costs that would be involved in the operation on an in-house agency.

Members asked that with the economic fallout of the pandemic severely impacting jobs locally, whether an in-house agency would enable more jobs to be made available for local people. The Assistant Director advised that work was being carried out to look at whether a generic recruitment process for entry level roles at the Council could be established that would create a list of suitable candidates for employment in roles as they became available. The Assistant Director noted that such a process would benefit local people in Rotherham to access jobs at the Council.

The Chair asked whether the pandemic had increased the use of agency staff across the Council. The Assistant Director advised that the pandemic had created some increase in demand for agency staff due to staff being absent from work in areas such as school cleaning and other important front-line roles but assured the Chair that all agency spend was carefully monitored.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services and the Assistant Director – Human Resources and Organisational Development for attending the meeting and answering members’ questions.

Resolved: -

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That a progress report on the use of agency staff be brought to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board in 12 months’ time, or sooner if the costs involved in employing agency staff increase substantially.