Agenda item

The Chair invited Heather Wills, Principal Adviser (Improvement), to introduce the report, which summarised the LGA’s policy and improvement activity to address workforce capacity challenges in local government and sought the Board’s feedback on priorities for future activity. This would be fed back to the Resources Board and Executive Advisory Board.

The Chair commented that issues related to COVID pressures should be separated from long-term systemic issues around capacity and funding. Furthermore, the Government announcement around mould and damp would have a significant impact for the sector in terms of workforce capacity, particularly for large stock-owning councils.

Members comments:

·       While Covid can be separated to some extent, it has exacerbated previous issues; councils are struggling to attract younger staff but since Covid have lost lots of staff in their 50s and 60s which means local authorities are losing experience and the opportunity to pass this down to young people.

·       Employing and retaining young staff is proving challenging due to low pay and lack of opportunities for career development, notably in IT and planning.  Councils are training staff but then seeing them head hunted when they have two to three years’ experience.

·       Inflationary increases have caused challenges with contacts, for example, the price of tree contractors has gone up by 98%. Even if the increases in pay driven by inflation slow down, when contracts are retendered, big rises will be seen.

·       It was suggested that local government campaign to attract people to the sector by emphasising benefits such as flexibility and secondment opportunities in other public sector agencies.

·       It was noted that other parts of the economy are experiencing workforce shortages too, and that all organisations should have a workforce strategy.

Decision

The Safer and Stronger Communities Board noted the LGA’s policy and improvement activity to address workforce capacity challenges in local government and endorsed the next steps set out in paragraph 58 of the report.