Minutes:
Councillor Alun Williams (Cabinet Member for
Through Age and Wellbeing) presented an update to the Committee on Recruitment
and Retention of Social Care Staff. The Council had a legal duty to provide
safe statutory services for those most in need within the communities of
Ceredigion. Whilst responsibility for this ultimately lied with the Council’s
Statutory Director of Social Services (SDSS), there was an organisational
responsibility to support the SDSS to ensure these responsibilities were
discharged effectively and in a manner that resulted in a safe service.
The risk of not
having a safe service would at worst present a risk to life in terms of service
users, and significant financial risk and toll on staff capacity should the
council be placed into special measures. Whilst agency staff were used within
the local authority’s social care structures, where recruitment was
challenging, the cost of doing so represented value for money given the safe
service that they were critical to maintaining. Agency staff were carefully
selected and managed well to ensure the needs of the council and of service
users were met. The challenge to recruitment in social care was nationally and
was likely to remain so without a significant focus on the issues from Welsh
Government.
Care Inspectorate
Wales (CIW) inspected the local authority’s adults and children’s services in
March 2023. Following a robust inspection, an extremely positive report was
provided with many examples of the significant good work that took place every
day and citing the strong senior leadership that was in place. They also
acknowledged areas for improvement that the local authority presented to them
and confirmed that there were no areas of no compliance.
The recruitment and
retention of an appropriately sized workforce was one of the most significant
challenges facing local government and the public sector in general, with
increased vacancy rates across all areas. As well as explaining the challenges
in detail, the report also captured the ways in which the council was being
innovative and creative in attempting to respond to them. The ability to
attract and retain talent was critical to maintaining a skilled workforce
capable of delivering quality services to the local authority’s communities.
The Council employed a workforce of around 3,700 employees, to a fulltime
equivalent workforce of around 2,600 employees, largely female based at
approximately 66%.
The recruitment and
retention in the local authority’s Through Age Wellbeing social care services
had proved to be increasingly challenging, especially over the past 18 months,
post-Covid period. These services employed a workforce of around 700 employees,
a full-time equivalent workforce of 500 and a higher than the corporate average
female workforce percentage of 74%. Of these roles, 240 were supporting statutory
services and vacancy levels in these roles were currently at 45 (19%), and 21
of these were occupied by agency staff. Of the remaining 460 roles, vacancy
levels were at 88 (19%) but only 9 of these were occupied by agency staff, in
residential homes and Enablement team.
The agency staff
covering statutory services included the eight members of the managed team
arrangement through Innovate Services. Their appointment was following a
procurement exercise and the contract was awarded on an initial 6-month
contract, with the option of extensions of up to 6 months in three-month
blocks. Whilst this team was not included in the financial scope of the report,
the added value they provided to the organisation and their role in helping to
maintain a safe service was clear.
An overview of the
following as outlined in the report was provided:
·
Financial
considerations
·
Recruitment
and retention issues in Social Care
·
Local
Government pay
·
Regional
picture overview
·
Current
position in Ceredigion
·
Recruitment
and retention initiatives
·
Using
recruitment agencies for permanent recruitment
·
Outreach
·
Current
recruitment campaigns
·
Conclusion
The local authority
worked collaboratively with other local authorities regionally and nationally.
It was highlighted that salaries differed in each local authority and not only
were they in competition for staff but agency staff too. There were attempts to
limit the fees of agency staff, however, this could lead to the lack of agency
staff based in Wales. The Social Care sector was under pressure, similar to the NHS, and an improvement in Social Care would
have an impact on the NHS.
Audrey
Somerton-Edwards provided a presentation outlining the following trend analysis
as they stood on 27.10.2022 and 18.05.2023:
·
Open
Cases – Referral Status
·
Open
Cases by RAG Amber and Red Status
·
Number
of LAC and % with visits in last 12 weeks
·
Number
of CPR and % with visits in last 10 days
Members were provided with the opportunity
to ask questions which were answered by Officers in attendance and Councillor
Alun Williams. The main points raised were as follows:
·
From
exploring options, developing a Masters Degree programme in Social Work was the most appropriate
course as opposed to an undergraduate course, as this was where all involved
felt they could effectively recruit. Work by Aberystwyth University and the
local authority with an oversight from Social Care Wales to develop the course
was in the early stages but the aim was to replicate the success of the nursing
course available at Aberystwyth University.
·
Placements
for trainees studying the 3-year Social Work degree through the Open University
were arranged by the local authority. Trainees were required to work for the
local authority for a minimum of 2 years post-qualification.
·
It was
clarified that at no point the service was unsafe during recent challenges. As
soon as issues were identified, a strong recommendation was provided by the
previous Statutory Director of Social Services to ensure the service remained
safe. Without the support of the Innovate Team, the caseload would have been
very unmanageable for staff who had remained loyal and committed to the
authority.
·
At
present, there was no evidence to suggest either way that hybrid working that
had been trialled over the past 12 months had an impact on staff’s wellbeing.
Staff members working in Triage worked in the office daily, and Social Care
staff had utilized the opportunities to work in a hybrid manner. It was
acknowledged that a supportive environment, supervision
and access to well-being services were important for the staff’s health and
well-being.
·
There
were challenges in recruiting staff due to competition such as higher salaries
offered by other local authorities, but Ceredigion County Council generally had
no challenges in retaining staff. Vacancies were usually due to career
progression or retirement. Raising the need for a national pay scale across
Wales for the Social Care sector with Welsh Government (WG) at any given
opportunity was vital along with highlighting that given the financial
pressures on local authorities, this should be fully funded by WG.
·
At
present, there were 38 agency Social Workers across the local authority (there
were 8 Social Workers and 2 Senior Practitioners in Planned Care). Most of the
recently qualified Social Workers had opted to work with adults whilst most of
the agency staff worked with children given the level of vacancies. Hopefully,
the proposed MSc degree would lead to recruitment locally and would strengthen
the services.
·
To
recruit people to work in the Social Care sector within the local authority,
members felt it was important to promote social work positively and the
opportunities available across the county. Video clips from employees
discussing and promoting their roles and the area had been used in recent
recruitment campaigns. As technology and communication evolved, it was
important to consider all available options.
·
In
response to concerns raised around the language skills of agency staff, it was
clarified that some agency staff spoke Welsh. Members felt there could be
greater collaboration with academic institutions such as Bangor University, to
develop training and work placement with a particular regard to training
bilingual Social Workers.
·
An
element of using agency staff would always be required in the local authority,
but having the balance was key. During the next few years, work on succession
planning was important, not only due to vacancies but due to retirement.
Members would be updated on this in due course.
Given the recruitment challenges across the
local authority as a whole, Councillor Rhodri, Chair
of the Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed to include
this item on the Committee’s forward work plan for consideration. In addition,
given his role on the Hywel Dda University Health Board, he was willing to
raise matters related to recruitment as required.
Following
questions, Committee Members considered the following recommendations:
1.
To note
the current position about the important use of agency workers within our
social care services.
2.
To note
the activity already taking place in responding to the challenge of recruitment
in this sector.
3.
To
provide feedback and suggestions of any other possible solutions to the
recruitment challenge.
4.
To
endorse Officers working with partners including HDUHB to explore creative and
innovative opportunities to provide longer-term solutions.
Committee Members agreed to recommend that
Cabinet:
1.
Committee
Members agreed to note recommendation 1 and 2 above,
2.
The
Committee supports ongoing discussions with Welsh Government for a fully funded
National pay scale for Social Care staff, and,
3. That the authority considers greater
collaboration with academic institutions including Bangor University, to
develop training and work placements with a particular regard to training
bilingual Social Workers.
Supporting documents: