Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Transformation, Customers and Resources. To be introduced by the Leader of the Council]

Report to set out the Council's approach to future recruitment of staff.

The Leader introduced the report which set out the future approach to Council recruitment following the end of the current contract with Hays in 2021. The new approach would focus on providing more employment opportunities for Haringey residents, reducing reliance on recruitment agencies to source staff and achieving value for money.

The Leader outlined that the Hays contract for recruitment to permanent and temporary worker roles ends on 21 July 2021. Permanent recruitment was being brought in-house and would be delivered by the Council’s enhanced Human Resources team in April 2021.

The Council has three key objectives that it aimed to achieve when considering future options for recruiting temporary staff going forward. These were:

• Increasing the number of Haringey residents able to benefit from employment opportunities at the Council – in line with our approach to Community Wealth Building.
• Reducing the amount public money spent via recruitment agencies by building our own capacity to recruit temporary staff directly including via Haringey Works.
• Ensure value for money for the Council in all Council recruitment activity.

It was considered that moving to a ‘Neutral Vendor’ supplier contract would support the delivery of these policy objectives.

In response to questions from Cllr Cawley- Harrison, the following was noted:

With regards to the changes in place to take forward withdrawal from the Hays contract, the Council were now in a position to procure a better contract and put in place an alternative which was better , costly more effective, and delivered to  more Haringey residents.

In relation to the cost of the contract , it was set out in the report that the majority of the cost was salaries as the company that completes the recruitment of temporary workers also pays the salaries of workers. Therefore, this was not profit for the contractor. The Council would be saving £800k from this new process and  this will bring  £3.2m savings over 4 years and  enable more of this spend to remain local.

When exploring the type of staff recruited temporarily, there were a lot of social workers and this was a fluid market for recruitment . However, it was important to ensure access to vital staff to look after residents.

The ultimate objective was to recruit more Haringey residents and make working for the Council a viable and achievable objective. This also helped save money for the council and enabled  spend to remain local.

The benchmarking of the success of this policy could be taken forward by scrutiny. However, the Leader outlined that the more local people that are recruited the more successful the policy would be. This decision would involve engaging more with local recruitment agents and the council were also seeking to create a route into permanent recruitment and permanent employment by building a talent pool. This would further  enable more local working and more local spending.

After considering exempt information at item 27,

RESOLVED

1. To approve the strategy to build the capability of Haringey Works to become a major supplier of candidates for temporary and permanent roles at the Council, through the creation of a talent pool, as set out in paragraphs 6.4 to 6.6.

2. To approve that the Council works with the Haringey Employment Forum and local employment agencies to bring them into the supply chain of the new contract as set out in paragraph 6.7.

3. To approve, in accordance with Contract Standing Orders 7.01 (b) (selecting one or more contractors from a Framework) and 9.07.1(d), the award of a contract for the provision of Temporary Agency Workers for a period of 4 years up to a contract value of £108,000,000 to the organisation identified as Option 1 in the exempt part of this report. This sum is inclusive of all salaries paid to Council temporary staff and fees.

Reasons for decision

The Council’s current contract expires in July 2021 and a procurement process has been undertaken to ensure a new contract can be placed that meets the Council’s current requirements

The new contract will allow the Council to realise savings estimated at around £3,200,000 over the 4-year period of the contact based on current agency worker usage.

The new contract will enable the Council to build in-house temporary recruitment capability in a manageable way, focused on recruitment of local people and giving them priority access to opportunities.

Alternative Options Considered.

Do Nothing

This option was discounted as it would result in the Council having to go to the open market on each requirement to fill temporary positions with the risk of incurring higher fees and greater risk of the position not being filled.