Council balancing recruitment challenges with plan to trim workforce

Nicholas Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter

Some council jobs are proving hard to fill, as a Welsh local authority balances recruitment with a cost-cutting plan to trim its workforce by 600 staff.

A new Audit Wales report found Caerphilly County Borough is largely on top of the recruitment and retention challenges it faces, but could do more with strategic data and to ensure better value for money.

Matthew Brushett, from the national auditors’ office, said the council “broadly” understands those challenges and has “taken a proactive approach” to recruitment and retention.

He told a council scrutiny committee similar pressures were being “faced by councils across the whole of Wales”.

The Audit Wales report noted hard-to-fill roles at the council included departments such as highways, asset maintenance, and social services.

Those difficulties were down to various reasons including “non-competitive” pay, travel or location constraints, the need for specialist qualifications, and the limited reach of adverts.

The auditors also noted the council was “aware of the potential impact its workforce reduction plan could have on recruiting for key roles and retaining staff”.

“To help reduce the impact, the council has controls in place to help it identify if recruitment for a role is essential or if an alternative solution is more appropriate,” they added.

The council is working to trim 600 jobs due to the wider financial pressures it is facing, which it argues is down to central government grants not keeping up with the rising costs of providing services.

An ongoing ‘transformation programme’ is designed to cut waste, modernise services and deliver better value for money – but has also been behind some controversial cuts proposals in recent years.

Previously, councillors were told the local authority would assess whether replacements were necessary when someone leaves their job, although there was no commitment compulsory layoffs would be avoided.

In light of the difficulties filling some council posts, Cllr Greg Ead asked how officers would “balance that out” with the wider plan to trim the workforce.

“How is that being managed in practice if on the one hand we’re reducing our workforce by 600 posts – are the roles being ring-fenced?” he asked.

Sarena Ford, the council’s head of organisational development, said the council was carrying out “regular workforce planning”, and officers are “ensuring that we are scrutinising the roles that we need to recruit to, but ensuring that hard-to-fill roles in the areas that require posts – like social care – are guaranteed to have a pool of people regularly advertised [to]”.

Mr Brushett added Audit Wales had found “the balance does seem to be there” between the recruitment to key roles and the wider proposals for a smaller workforce.