HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
POLICY & RESOURCES CABINET PANEL
THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2009 AT 2.00PM
WORKFORCE REPORT
Report of the Director of Resources and Performance
Author: Carole Grimwood, Assistant HR Director. Tel: 01992 556667
Louise Tibbert, Assistant HR Director. Tel: 01992 556653
Executive Member: - David Lloyd
1. Purpose of report
Part 1: To update the Panel on the latest Workforce Information and key changes in HR resourcing and endorse the approach being taken.
Part 2: To present the annual Workforce Profile for year ending July 2009 and highlight key changes and actions which is a statutory requirement.
2. Summary
Part 1: Workforce Resourcing and Development Update
2.1 Overall the recruitment position has improved. Turnover has decreased by 2.6% from 12.2% to 9.6%. This may reduce further over coming months as a result of the economic downturn and needs to be kept under review as there is a risk of stagnation if this is perpetuated.
2.2 Recruitment continues to be challenging in areas of national skill shortage. Childrens’ Social Workers remain a high profile concern although as a result of consistent high level interventions the situation is steadily improving.
Part 2: Equalities Workforce Profile Update
2.3 The overall picture of the County Council’s workforce is broadly similar to last year; however there have been some positive increases from 4.8% to 5.2% (1,834 employees) in the percentage of BME staff, including those at more senior levels.
2.4 Of particular note is the increase in the number of BME staff on middle management grades M3 – M5 however we realise there is still further work to be carried out in this area.
2.5 There remains very little change in the age profile of the council, although the council has initiatives and plans in place to attract younger workers. Details are contained in the body of the report.
2.6 The male to female ratio has remained constant as has the number of carers (31.2% of the workforce).
2.7 There has been a slight decrease in the number of disabled employees (0.1%). Further work is underway with the disabled employees' group, (Herts disABILITY Network), Job Centre Plus and Work Solutions to increase the numbers of disabled employees in the workforce and to better support those who become disabled in the course of their employment with HCC.
2.8 The council now collects and monitors employee sexual orientation data. This is the first year of reporting. The level of disclosure is still relatively low and currently shows that 0.4% of the workforce (38 employees) has declared themselves to be non heterosexual.
2.9 The overall equalities position for leavers and training is generally the same as for last year.
3. Recommendations
3.1 The Panel is asked to endorse the report. This includes endorsement of the Workforce Equalities Profile for 2008/09 before it is published on HertsDirect. This is a statutory requirement
3.2 The Panel is asked to note that the next annual report will be presented in November 2010.
4. Background
The report is in two sections:
Part 1. Workforce Resourcing and Development Update
Part 2. Equalities Workforce Profile
The body of the report provides an executive summary and more detail is available in the appendices
Part 1: Workforce Resourcing and Development Update
5. An overview of the size and shape of the existing workforce
Data for the year to July 2009 is attached in Appendix 1. There are only small variations from the previous year. Key points are:-
5.1 Basic Data
· There has been a 3.3% increase in headcount and a 4.0% increase in equivalent whole time employees (EWT) since August 2008. This is predominantly linked to increases in the schools workforce where headcount has increased by 3.9% and EWT has increased by 3.8% and is most likely due to the continued extended schools service provision. Last year schools received additional funding over 3 years to provide the extended schools service.
· Over 69% of staff are employed by schools.
· Over 65% of employees work part time - this figure has increased by just over 5% last year.
· 89% of the workforce has permanent contracts.
· We anticipate a reduction in headcount over the next 3 years as a result of budget pressures
5.2 Turnover
There has been a noticeable decrease in voluntary turnover by 2.6% from 12.2% in August 2008 to 9.6% for July 2009 for HCC overall. This can be attributed predominantly to the impact of the economic downturn although in some areas other factors and retention initiatives have had an impact.
The largest departmental decrease (8.3%) is in catering, from 17.4% turnover (August 2008) to 9.1% (July 2009). This is traditionally an area with high turnover and compared to manual turnover benchmarks, which are around 15.8%, turnover in Herts Catering is good. Improved pay arrangements and learning and development initiatives have contributed to this.
Hertfordshire continues to compare well with its other councils regarding voluntary turnover as benchmark data shows. See Appendix 1 chart H.
In areas of shortage skill, turnover for Children’s Social Workers has increased by 5.9% since August 2008 whilst turnover for Occupational Therapists in ACS has increased by 9.6% in the same period. The current situation is shown in Appendix 1 chart G.
5.3 Local & National Trends
As expected in the current economic climate Hertfordshire is experiencing a rise in unemployment rates. In September 2009 the UK claimant count (the number of people claiming the Job Seekers Allowance) stood at 4.2% whilst the rate for Hertfordshire was 3.0%. Over the last year the claimant count in Hertfordshire increased by 102.4% from (9,748 to 19,727) which was higher than the national increase of 68.4% and the East of England increase of 81.7%. Nevertheless our proximity to London and the high cost of living in the South East still creates a challenging recruitment market, especially where there are national skill shortages.
There were a total of 1180 long term claimants (more than one year) in Hertfordshire at the end of July 2009, 50 of these were in the age group 18 to 24.
5.4 Shortage Skills & Hard to Fill
5.4.1 Children’s Social Workers
As at 1 October 2009 there were 41.62 EWT vacancies against an establishment of 205. This is an increase when compared to this period last year when there were 36.21 vacancies. However the establishment has increased by 17 Qualified Social Worker posts and overall recruitment and retention has been improving steadily. All vacancies are covered by agency staff.
A recruitment and retention project team led by CSF meets fortnightly to monitor the position and agree actions. The current focus is on Hertfordshire’s Academy for Newly Qualified Social Workers which was launched on 5 October 2009 with 30 new starters, international recruitment with a recruitment campaign in Canada underway and a focus group of staff refreshing and refocusing the recruitment and retention strategy. More information is provided in Appendix 2
5.4.2 Catering Staff
A continuous, rather than campaign based, recruitment approach for Catering Staff has been extremely successful with vacancies remaining at a low level - there are currently 35 vacancies against the overall Catering headcount of 1,487.
5.4.3 Engineers & Planners
Hertfordshire Highways successfully restructured in April 2009, and following this, 3 Engineers were successfully recruited. There are currently no vacancies.
This year 2 Graduate Engineers were recruited and commenced a 3 year contract in September 2009.
There are no Planner vacancies at present. Our intelligence suggests that this may no longer be a shortage skills area but this will be kept under review.
5.4.4 ACS Occupational Therapists and Social Workers
ACS had 12.3 Occupational Therapist posts vacant as at the end of September 2009 against an establishment of 49.3. Of these 8 were covered by qualified locums. A campaign to recruit qualified OT’s is in place and as a result 7 recruits will start shortly and there are a further 3 interviews arranged. The action plan to address OT recruitment remains under review.
There were also 15.1 Social Workers vacancies in ACS against an establishment of 143.0, all of which are being covered by agency locums. A campaign to fill these vacancies is currently being developed with an aim to appoint successful candidates to start in these posts in early 2010.
5.4.5 ACS Unqualified Care Posts in Day and Supported Living
ACS have agreed to convert a significant proportion of their ‘absence cover’ budget for unqualified care posts into permanent positions and reduce agency spend. This has resulted in 112 EWT additional unqualified support workers vacancies across the County in addition to normal vacancies. A campaign to recruit to these posts was run jointly with our private sector “Homecare” partners. A series of “open days” were held across the County, between March and July. This has been successful when compared with previous recruitment campaigns and has resulted in 50.42 EWT vacancies being filled to date. There are a further 40 full-time and part-time recruits due to start and another 20 short listed or awaiting outcome of interview. The final position on EWT vacancies is not yet clear.
5.4.6 Teachers
The teacher vacancy rate for schools was 0.53% in January 2009, with no significant change from the previous report (0.5%). Newly Qualified Teachers are supported through high quality induction courses and individual support for those needing extra support during their first year. Hertfordshire recruits between approximately 700 and 800 Newly Qualified Teachers annually. Information on initiatives around succession planning is available in Appendix 3.
Part 2: Equalities Workforce Profile
6. Summary
The Workforce Equalities Profile Report provides breakdowns of the County Council’s workforce by gender, caring responsibilities, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and age as at 31st March 2009. The council is legally required to monitor workforce equalities, to review any issues and action being taken to address them.
The Council is also committed to diversity and equalities in employment and service delivery. A diverse workforce that is representative of the people of Hertfordshire helps to promote the Council as an employer of choice and to deliver. The full version of this report is attached as an Appendix 4.
2007/08 / 2008/09 / VarianceGender / 82.0% / 27,700 female / 81.9% / 28,888 female / 0.1% decrease
Caring Responsibility / 31.3% / 10,572 with caring responsibility / 31.2% / 11,018 with caring responsibility / 0.1% decrease
Ethnicity / 4.8% / 1,640 from ethnic background / 5.2% / 1,834 from ethnic background / 0.4% increase
Religion & Belief / 4.7% / 1,608 with non-Christian beliefs / 4.9% / 1,768 with non-Christian beliefs / 0.2% increase
Disability / 2.6% / 864 with a disability / 2.4% / 833 with a disability / 0.2% decrease
Age / 12.3% / 4,327 under 30
1.9% / 651 over 65 / 12.4% / 4,480 under 30
2.0% / 734 over 65 / 0.1% increase
0.1% increase
6.1 Key areas of note from this years’ report
6.1.1 In Fire & Rescue 86.3% of the workforce is male, with 137 females making up the remaining 13.7% of the workforce. This is being addressed through positive action initiatives to increase the number of female fire-fighters, such as open days targeted at women. Although there has been no change from last year’s figure (86.3% male); this issue is not likely to be addressed quickly, and is more likely to require an on-going programme of positive reinforcement. The percentage of women who are employed on middle management grades M3-M5 (£38,961 - £47,123) across the Council has decreased by 0.5%, from 59.9% to 59.4% (365 women).
6.1.2 There has been some progress made towards achieving a more diverse workforce, with an increased number of BME employees for a fourth consecutive year (from 4.8% to 5.2% / 1,834 employees), this has ensured that HCC has almost met its target of 5.4% for the percentage of BME employees. A particularly important increase is the number of BME staff on grades M3 – M5 (middle manager level) has increased although there is still some way to go until there is greater representation at these level.
6.13 We are working to increase the number of disabled employees (from 2.4% / 833 employees as at March 2009) through involvement with the disabled employees’ support group and work solutions to find ways of recruiting and retaining staff with disabilities. Line manager understanding is also being supported through a range of initiatives. Finding the balance between delivering effective front line services and supporting disabled employees can still be a challenge for managers in some areas.
6.1.4 The age spread of the workforce has remained stable (the 40-54 age band makes up 48.6% of HCC’s workforce, an increase of just 0.2%), however we are continuing efforts to address this through flexible retirement provisions and trainee schemes to recruit younger employees, such as the Graduate Recruitment Programme.
6.1.5 Discipline cases have decreased by 23% to 47 new cases in the period and harassment cases by 44% to 5 new cases in the period. However, grievances have increased by 24% to 26 new cases, and 7% of those are from disabled employees. Employment tribunal claims have increased by 50%, up from 18 in 2007/08 to 27 - this is a result of more action being taken by line managers and an increasing focus on addressing poor performance. Numbers are relatively low against the workforce as a whole. Monitoring will need to continue to check for evidence of disproportionate impact or possible direct or indirect discrimination across the 7 equalities strands.
6.1.6 The HCC Diversity and Community Cohesion Board will deliver a strategy and action plan by April 2010 that will identify how and when the authority will achieve an ‘excellent’ rating for the Equality Framework across all the 7 equality strands, including carers. This includes services and employment.
6.1.7 All departments are required to complete and use Equalities Impact Assessments (EqIA) to better inform service delivery requirements as well as employment policy and practice. Departmental Boards monitor EqIAS and are legally required to publish summaries to provide transparency about how the Council identifies and addresses equalities.
6.1.8 Applicants / Starters & Leavers Summary