Agenda item

Report by the Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive, and Head of Organisational Development (attached).

The Committee considered a report by Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive, and the Head of Organisational Development on the Review of the Authority’s spend on agency staff (circulated previously). 

The Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised the committee:

·         The report covered the period: 2021/22, 2022/23 and quarter one of 2023/24.

·         Agency staff had been used for a number of years in order to cover leave and sickness etc in waste and recycling, and to meet the seasonal change in demand.

·         Agency staff was used to maintain core services.

·         All Local Authorities were currently experiencing staff shortages and the use of agency staff to cover this need was not solely in North Devon.

·         There was a national shortage of HGV drivers and professional staff qualified in specialist roles.

·         All Devon L.A.s used the same agency consortium for those appointments unless they did not have the particular role required – in which case other agencies could be used.

·         NDC was investing in its staff and encouraging and funding developmental opportunities by financing further education and qualifications.

·         The largest age group within the NDC staff was those aged over 51. 36% of the staff were in this age bracket.

·         The spend on agency staff was outlined in section 5.1 of the report. For comparison against this figure, it was noted that the total salary/pay bill for the authority was £17m.

·         On average, across the UK, the agency spend for local authorities was approximately 6% of total spend on staff costs (with the maximum being an authority spending 42% of their pay bill on agency staff costs).  North Devon was around 5.3% so below the national average..

·         The costs had been included in the base budget.

In response to questions from the Committee, the Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised:

·         That agency staff did not receive the full amount being paid to an agency to employ them.  The cost to the Authority included agency fees and employer National Insurance (NI) costs that the agency would be responsible for.

·         Under the working time directive there was a requirement to provide annual leave to agency staff ‘employed’ for a certain period of time.

·         Staff directly employed by the authority would receive their salary, but then, in addition, the Authority would then incur costs towards pension contributions and employer NI costs which in total could add approximately 30% cost on top of the salary received by the employee.

·         There were staff benefit schemes in place which included salary sacrifice schemes for purchasing bicycles etc.  The authority did not have any discount schemes (eg like the NHS’s ‘blue light’ card).

In response to questions from the Committee, the Head of Planning, Housing and Health advised:

·         The calibre of agency staff currently working at NDC was excellent. They may not be as experienced as the existing staff but there were no issues regarding their competency.

·         Despite advertising three vacancies within one department over the whole summer period there had been only two applicants in total (one of which was an internal applicant). There was very little interest in the vacancies.

·         Salaries were benchmarked against other authorities with pay set using national pay-scales.

·         There had been a reduction in the use of the Building Control office in South Molton. This was being reviewed.

The Chief Executive advised the Committee of the challenges with recruitment and retention of staff as, since Covid, and the move towards hybrid/remote working, the Authority was now competing with other authorities from a large geographical area, and with private commercial businesses.  He noted the need to attract staff who wanted to work in local government. Staff with the same values and ethos were needed. The Authority needed to promote the work it did and show itself as an attractive prospect as an employer. The benefits of working in Local Government should be promoted in schools and colleges.  There was an overall need to reduce spend in agency by attracting permanent staff.

In response to a question from the Committee he noted that it would be difficult to provide figures to confirm exactly how much it would cost the Authority to employ a member of staff in comparison with employing someone through an agency due to a number of factors such as their qualifications, length of service, market demands etc. This would be provided at a later date.

RESOLVED that the Review of the Authority’s spend on agency staff Report be noted.