Agenda item

Helen Jenkins introduced the report, which as requested in the last Board meeting, gave a summary of the diversity statistics of the NGDP applications and gave an update on the work being done to improve and maintain representation within the NGDP recruitment. Helen also shared the latest figures from the Cohort 21, which had become available after the report was distributed.

Discussion

Members raised a number of issues during discussions:

·         how we attract older applicants to apply for the scheme –  there had been a slight increase in people with previous careers, and it was possible that work could be done to ask councils to consider internal staff for the scheme;

·         Work done with individual local authorities – it was explained that local recruitment is an alternative option. Councils have the choice between national NGDP recruitment and a local scheme. The NGDP team at the LGA is currently supporting local campaigns;

·         Whether there was a correlation between higher applications between good university and good authority at promoting scheme – where universities and councils work well together. Helen responded that this was likely and that councils could often get free stands at careers fairs at universities, which the LGA encouraged them to do.

·         It was suggested that the pool of candidates who just failed to get through the process, but who got to the final stage, would be a good pool of people the sector should try to exploit. It was reported that discussions were underway with the HR team about what could be done with this pool of candidates

·         Members stressed the importance of member involvement in welcoming graduates to their councils and remarked on the quality of the graduates. It was suggested that the test taken by NGDP applicants could be shared around Board members to demonstrate the level of difficulty in getting through.

Action

The NGDP team are to look into members requests and continue their work on diversity.