Lincolnshire County Council is losing social workers to agency companies because they can earn more than double an hour than regular staff, a new report shows.
Last year Lincolnshire County Council spent nearly £5million on agency staff between April 2021-March 2022 through its contracts with Comensure and Retinue, with 70% of its spend on social workers.
During 2021/22 the council used an average of 116 agency staff – around 2.18% of the workforce. There were 79 qualified leavers and only 54 starters at the council, and despite recruitment of more unqualified staff, the authority was still left with a shortfall of 50 staff.
A report before the authority’s executive on Tuesday showed that social worker staff at LCC received £17 an hour while agency staff received £35 – a difference of £18.
Alison Miller, strategic HR at LCC told councillors that many agency workers tended to be “longer term” gap fillers at the council.
“So they’re not moving around as such, they’re plugging in some of the longer term gaps that we’ve got and unfortunately, at the moment we’ve got some retention issues where we are losing some of our own social workers to go and work with agencies, because the pay is so much better.”
The committee voted in favour of a three month extention of its current contracts, while new contracts were organised to start from December 5, 2022.
Councillors were told there was a “widely recognised” issue around a national shortage of social workers and other key roles in the council.
Officers said they were working to develop new controls to mitigate the problems.
However, there have been calls from scrutiny committee members for more to be done to reduce the £5million spend – with Labour Councillor Rob Parker pointing out that just under 11% of staff in children’s services and 12% in legal services were agency staff.
“More information is needed and more priority needs to be given to reducing the agency staff and more needs to be done to attract and retain routine staff,” he said.
“We’re not critical about what’s happening at the moment, but we want something to be done.
“That money could be better used elsewhere if we could spend more of our time on trying to grow our own.”
Conservative leader Councillor Martin Hill said that although the issues “appear to be large… sometimes members of the public forget how large this organisation is.”
He said the figure only actually amounted to 2% of LCC’s total workforce.
“That is a reasonable figure for an organisation of our size,” he added.
“We’ve also got to remember that we are in almost an unprecedented challenging situation at the moment with a national shortage of labour, particularly skilled labour.”
He warned that “pragmatically” the number would rise but also asked for more information on recruitment and training initiatives that were in place.
Council officers pointed to particular emphasis on securing graduate apprenticeships, but said they would take a while to come to fruition.
Conservative Councillor Richard Davies said the numbers were “quite startling” and asked what the cost implications would be if staff were paid at the rates they were getting in the open market.
“We’re clearly, particularly for social workers and on the legal side, vastly underpaying them compared to the market rate,” he said.
Councillors were concerned that people who were trained might “buzz off” after getting training, and said there needed to be work on not only attracting people at the authority, but also schemes to keep them in place.
Conservative Councillor Wendy Bowkett said it was happening “everywhere”, including hospitals pointing out that agency work gave more flexibility with the choice for example between £17 an hour for four days work or £34 an hour for two days.
Debbie Barnes, Lincolnshire County Council’s Chief Executive, said the council’s “Grow Your Own” schemes were thriving and that 100% of people trained through them were staying, despite the inability to put a clause into the contract in case they leave.
“The reality is that the Grow Your Own programmes are highly successful, and people do tend to stay with us, but they take three years in order for people to come to fruition,” she said. “So it is a slow burn.”
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An allegedly highly critical report about South Kesteven District Council will remain “secret” for another two months – taking it over a year since it was first received, a Freedom of Information Request has revealed.
The request, made by Phil Gadd on May 31, asked when the report – which was commissioned to review how decisions and scrutiny at the council worked – would be presented to the public.
The SKDC-commissioned review was carried out by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny which was by an independent auditor. The request also confirmed the review cost £5,520 to produce.
In his request, Mr Gadd said: “The people of SKDC were promised open, honest & transparent governance.
“However, months later we are still denied the opportunity to see the results.”
SKDC’s response said “the final report will be published over the next couple of months, together with an action plan.”
It promised the document would be published “in its entirety with no redactions”.
“Work has been taking place to consider the recommendations contained within the review and develop an action plan for implementing areas recommended for improvement,” the authority added.
The report, received on August 31, 2021, was previously questioned after nearly nine months of being hidden by Independent Councillors Ashley Baxter and Phil Dilks in April.
If the FOI is correct, it could take the length of time since the report was received to over a year.
At the time, Councillor Baxter said: “Taxpayers deserve openness and transparency.
“That’s why I wanted to share the secret report with the press and public but was warned not to by the council’s monitoring officer.”
He said the report made “some positive comments” but added it “also highlights massive gaps”.
It is understood Councillor Baxter is continuing with his enquries following the latest request.
SKDC was asked for additional comment but a spokesman said it had “nothing to add to this”.
Night-time closures of Spalding Road, followed by a full closure of Enterprise Way, will start in mid-July.
Below is a list of upcoming traffic management relating to the ongoing Spalding Western Relief Road construction works*:
A week of night-time road closures on Spalding Road will start on Monday 18 July (subject to weather). These will be in place from 7pm to 6am for up to six evenings.
The diversion route for the Spalding Road closure will be via Spalding Road / B1180 / A16 / A151 / West Elloe Avenue / B1356, and vice versa.
A six-week 24/7 closure of Enterprise Way will be in place starting Friday 29 July.
Diversion route – Enterprise Way.
The diversion route for the Enterprise Way closure will be via Enterprise Way / Benner Road / B1180 / Spalding Road, and vice versa
An alternative route will be via Enterprise Way / Benner Road / B1180 / A16 / A151 / West Elloe Avenue (A151) / Pinchbeck Road / Spalding Road, and vice versa.
Temporary traffic signals near the new roundabout’s north and south tie-ins will be in place from Monday 11 July until early September.
Narrowed lanes on Spalding Road will remain in place until mid-September 2022.
*Please note all dates and times are subject to weather.
Karen Cassar, assistant director for highways, said: “As part of the ongoing construction of the northern section of Spalding’s new relief road, we will be implementing further traffic restrictions in the area so the team can get the new roundabout built.
“These closures and other traffic management measures will, no doubt, cause some disruption for the travelling public in and around Spalding and Pinchbeck – but we’ll be doing everything we can to keep this to minimum, including making sure there is clear diversion route signage out for drivers to follow during the road closures.”
“And Enterprise Way businesses concerned about how the closure will affect them are encouraged to contact Eurovia’s public liaison officer.”
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