Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Culture, Strategy and Engagement.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Local Investment.

The report will seek an increasing the overall value of the contract , but not the duration, of the Matrix agency staff contract to enable agency staff to continue to be provided until the end of the contract term.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Local Investment introduced the report which sought approval ofincrease of up to £20,000,000 for the duration of the contract for agency staff spend. This increase was to ensure that the Council could continue to provide short term agency / interim workers and support the permanent agency supply chain where required. As described in the report, the number of agency workers in Haringey had accelerated recently and the assumptions made at the beginning of this contract underestimated the cost required for the duration. This decision would extend the funding of the contract.

The Cabinet Member described that all directorates were working to ensure that there was a solid reason for every agency worker employed at the Council, and that there was an end date for their employment. Also, that no new workers would be recruited without prior consideration of all alternative options. The reduction in the numbers of agency workers would be monitored corporately once a month. The Cabinet Member for Finance and Local Investment would be meeting with officers every quarter to ensure that the reduction targets were being met. This focus would be supported by a new workforce strategy that would be coming to Cabinet shortly, which would revise Council policies around recruitment and retention. The Council valued the hard work of all current agency staff and hoped that where possible these employees would join on a permanent basis.

In response to questions from Cllr das Neves, Cllr Hakata and Cllr Connor, the following information was provided.

-      That the agency staff were needed to cover certain circumstances of employment need. This included: interim positions, completing a specific project, and to cover a specific trained skills set to meet a service or project need. It was acknowledged that the Council had a higher number of agency staff than benchmarked local authorities. The Council’s aim was to have a permanent workforce and for agency staff to be embedded in the Council workforce.

-      In relation to reducing spend on agency staff, directors were adding in end dates for discontinuation of agency staff contracts. The number of agency staff was monitored on a monthly basis, but it was difficult to leave vacancies as there was a shortage in certain areas of the Council which if not filled would be impacting on service delivery. It was noted that other boroughs were also facing similar issues.

-      The Director for Culture, Strategy and Engagement advised that the challenges of recruiting to sector specific roles was not unique to Haringey, and London Councils and other agencies were facilitating initiatives for different roles to mitigate Councils competing with each other to recruit to these roles. There were different initiatives to participate in for different sectors and the Council was exploring a number of them.

-      The figure in the contract increase was to cover the salaries of agency workers and enable the Council to continue to manage the agency workers until the end of the contract term.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40