Archived decisions

Agenda Item 8

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report

1. Purpose of Report

1.1 At a meeting of the Policy & Resources Select Committee held on 4 March 2009 the Committee agreed to undertake a short piece of scrutiny to review Hampshire County Council's recruitment and retention practices and wider Human Resources strategies. The objective of this review was to assess the extent to which these policies are helping with succession planning and ensuring Hampshire County Council's workforce is fit for purpose in the light of the challenges facing local government in forthcoming years.

1.2 A workshop was held on 17 April 2009 to consider these issues. The Members present were:

· Cllr Michael Cartwright (Chairman at the time)

· Cllr Carol Leversha (Vice Chairman at the time)

· Cllr Anna McNair Scott

1.3 The Director of Human Resources, senior managers from Adults Services and Children's Services, and past delegates who had taken part in the Hampshire Own Grown programme presented evidence to the committee. Participants had been provided with an `issues and questions' paper which outlined the areas the Committee was interested in, and those giving evidence addressed these areas in their comments. Members were able to question and probe the evidence provided to test their understanding of the key issues and challenges.

1.4 This report presents the findings of the committee following this light touch review.

2. Contextual Information

2.1 The context for this review is that the latest English Local Government Workforce Strategy was launched in November 2007. This was followed by a Local Government Workforce Survey in 2008, which provided information regarding the progress local authorities were making in addressing the key workforce challenges faced by local government. A Local Government Workforce Strategy Update was published recently (Spring/Summer 2009) which provides good practice examples of how authorities are finding innovative solutions to workforce issues. The update also highlights that a workforce strategy specific to those working with Children and Young People was published in December 2008, and that an Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy is in development and due to be published soon.

2.2 The importance of workforce issues to the successful operation of local authorities is gaining increasing profile. The Audit Commission is now including workforce as a Key Line of Enquiry (KLOE) within the revised Use of Resources assessment. This was introduced for councils from 2008/09 as part of the new Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) Framework. County Councils will receive their first assessment on this in Autumn 2010. The Audit Commission indicates this has been introduced `to reflect the significant proportion of council expenditure on staff costs and the importance of the workforce in helping to achieve value for money'. When assessing this KLOE the Audit Commission will be looking at:

· Has the council got a productive and skilled workforce?

· Does it know in the medium and long term what staff it will need, with what skills and does it have the plans to achieve this?

· Does it engage and support staff in organisational change?

· Has it policies in place which support diversity and good people management?

2.3 This review explores how Hampshire is approaching recruitment and retention issues, including specific workforce pressures, talent management, and turnover, in relation to this national context.

3. Findings

3.1 The findings of the review are detailed in the attached appendix, under the following themes: Workforce Issues, Skills Development, Recruitment and Retention, Turnover, and Leadership Development. The following provides a brief summary.

3.2 In relation to workforce issues, the committee learned that the County Council is working to build a workforce suited to new ways of delivering services such as Children's Centres and the Contact Centre. Members expressed interest in opportunities for staff to contribute to the development of the authority's plans with regard to workforce issues.

3.3 With regard to skills development, the committee was informed that the County Council has signed the national `skills pledge', indicating its commitment to developing employees' basic skills.

3.4 It was reported that, following national trends, the County Council is experiencing recruitment difficulties in the Nursing, Residential and Day Care sector, and for Quantity Surveyors. Options for tackling this were explored, including pay and benefits issues such as use of market supplements and rewards for relevant qualifications. It was also noted that the County Council, in conjunction with the Hampshire District/Borough Authorities has had success with the joint online recruitment portal, which helps to promote local government careers. The workshop also touched on the opportunities available for work experience and apprenticeships at the County Council.

3.5 In relation to turnover, the committee learned that the turnover rate in Hampshire is higher than the national average, with rates particularly high in Environment, PBRS and Chief Executive's. It was noted that in some areas high turnover is to be expected due to roles being low paid, and tending to be filled by young people who want to move on to progress their careers. The workshop also covered sickness absence, and it was indicated that in some cases there is a relationship between absence, vacancy rate, and turnover.

3.6 Under Leadership Development, the committee heard about the Hampshire Own Grown programme, which provides development for staff identified as having potential. Members understood that this is a year long programme, and that there was some concern from past delegates regarding how staff are to remain engaged once the programme finishes. It was also mentioned at the workshop that leadership development is now being led corporately through the Leadership and Management Development Strategy.

4. Conclusions

4.1 The current Policy & Resources Select Committee is requested to:

a) note the report

b) consider endorsing the following conclusions

c) approve addition of any follow ups to the committees work programme

4.2 The Committee would like to thank those that gave evidence at the workshop. The Committee concludes that Hampshire County Council is responding well to local government workforce issues, and supports this positive direction of travel. The Committee wishes to endorse the work already initiated to address any gaps. The Committee is particularly interested in following up the aspects highlighted for monitoring/recommendations, and will seek updates on these areas in future, in a timely manner.

4.3 These areas are as follows:

1) Recommendation: Consideration is given to ways to reward employees who achieve qualifications e.g. NVQ2, to compete with other employers such as the NHS.

2) Recommendation: Develop mentoring/coaching as a staff development tool, in particular to target BME employees in the care sector to address cultural barriers to career development.

3) Monitor: Development of opportunities for a wide range of staff to contribute views regarding workforce issues.

4) Monitor: work being done to establish a corporate approach to apprenticeships.

5) Monitor: work looking into the relationship between vacancy rate, staff absence, and turnover, and how these can be addressed, linked to workforce planning.

6) Monitor: Development of a `follow on' from the HOG programmes, so that staff who have benefited from this programme continue to be engaged and developed.

IMPACT ASSESSMENTS:

1. Equalities Impact Assessment:

1.1. N/A

2. Impact on Crime and Disorder:

2.1. N/A

3. Climate Change:

3.1. How does what is being proposed impact on our carbon footprint / energy consumption?

a) How does what is being proposed consider the need to adapt to climate change, and be resilient to its longer term impacts?

N/AFindings

The following summarises the evidence received, collated under the following themes: Workforce Issues, Skills Development, Recruitment and Retention, Turnover, and Leadership Development. Areas where the committee would like to receive future updates on progress are indicated, as are areas where the committee makes recommendations.

1 Workforce Issues

1.1 The Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 gives five key priorities for local authorities, one of which is `Organisational development - effectively building workforce support for new structures and new ways of working to deliver citizen-focused and efficient services, in partnership.' This relates to local authorities ensuring they have an appropriate workforce to offer services in new ways.

1.2 For example, in Hampshire it has been identified that Social Work is operating in new ways as a result of developments such as Personalisation and Children's Centres. The job of a social worker is now more complex and less `static'. Feedback from social workers in Hampshire indicates that this has been seen as a positive change for social workers, as they felt that previously their skills to operate in this way had been under utilised.

1.3 Hampshire County Council has also changed the way it interfaces with the public by developing the Contact Centre as the main route through which people contact the council, to simplify the process for the public. It was acknowledged that recruitment to new services like the Contact Centre can be difficult and they can experience higher levels of turnover while they bed down. In addition the workforce that `call centres' attract tend to be more transient than for other job areas.

1.4 Another new way of providing services has been the rolling out of Children's Centres. It was reported that there were issues in the first wave of recruitment to Children's Centres, as Children's Centres as an entity were in place, but the premises were not. Recruitment was therefore held-off until premises were secured, resulting in a bottle neck in Human Resources for processing applications. However, phase 3 of Children's Centres is now being rolled out with no apparent problems.

1.5 Involving Employees

According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008 91% of authorities involve trade union and/or other employee representatives in planning the authority's workforce development priorities, however only 26% always involve employee representatives. This issue came up at the workshop, and Members expressed concern that the employee representatives involved in such discussions may not be representative of all employees.

1.6 Other Authority Good Practice - Birmingham City Council has run workshops where staff are asked to come up with proposals to improve customer service, partnerships and team working, and ideas generated have been adopted. It is estimated the re-engagement of staff they achieved has resulted in a £17m saving through improved productivity.

1.7 According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development `successful organisations will be those that have genuine internal lines of communication that enable leaders, managers and employees to talk openly, honestly and sensibly when a crisis hits'.

Item to Monitor: Development of opportunities for a wide range of staff to contribute views regarding workforce issues.

2 Skills development

2.1 Another of the Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 key priorities for local authorities is `Skill development - with partners, developing employees' skills and knowledge, in an innovative, high performance, multi-agency context.'

2.2 Joint Skill Development

According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, 61% of authorities have undertaken joint skill development with other authorities, 40% with the health service and 26% with the Children's Trust. Hampshire County Council is working with other local authorities in the South East to resolve issues around recruiting Children's Social Workers. The Hampshire and Isle Of Wight Local Authority (HIOWLA) Heads of HR Group have also undertaken work on a cross council mentoring scheme for managers and have a Hampshire Wide Learning & Development Group made up of County and District representatives which explores opportunities' for joint skills development.

2.3 Other Authority Good Practice - district and borough councils in Surrey have formed the Surrey Training Officers Group including officers from all 11 second tier local authorities. This has enabled them to offer a broader range of training courses to staff than would have been possible on a single authority basis.

2.4 Skills Pledge

Hampshire County Council has signed the national `Skills Pledge', which is a public commitment to develop the basic skills of employees where applicable. This assists the Council in demonstrating it is a model employer, and means that the Learning and Skills Council can promote Hampshire County Council, the largest employer in Hampshire, as an organisation which takes the up-skilling of staff seriously. According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, 28% of authorities have signed up to the Employers' Skills Pledge, with 21% signing up in the next 2 years.

2.5 Training

The Local Government Workforce Strategy Update acknowledges the pressure local authorities are under due to the current recession, however the Improvement and Development Agencies Workforce Strategy Advisor is quoted as saying `Reducing training budgets may appear to be a painless cut, but can severely damage staff morale, and mean that critical skills are not developed. Many of the occupational skills shortages that councils have suffered from were caused by cuts to trainee posts in the last recession'.

3 Recruitment and retention

3.1 A further Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 key priority for local authorities is `Recruitment and retention - with partners, taking action to:

· address key future occupational skill shortages

· promote jobs and careers

· identify, develop and motivate talent

· address diversity issues'

3.2 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, 83% of authorities are currently experiencing recruitment or retention difficulties - this is down on previous years. The survey also indicates children's social workers and planning officers are the occupations with the greatest recruitment and retention difficulties (64% and 55% respectively). The situation in Hampshire generally reflects this national picture.

3.3 Skill shortages

At Hampshire County Council, the Nursing, Residential and Day Care workforce has a vacancy rate of 18% (one fifth of total staff) with a turnover rate of 17% (much higher than the HCC average) of a headcount of 1,761. In particular, there is a serious shortage of Registered Managers in care homes; the pay is good, but the role is considered to be tough and talent management needs to be focused here. In order to address vacancies in Nursing, Residential and Day Care, a greater focus on workforce plans is required. Methods currently being used to address shortages of skills in this area include rolling recruitment, social care apprenticeships, sponsorship or nurse training and 14-19 Diplomas. This issue is also being tackled through improved partnership working with the NHS to address vacancies i.e. rotational nursing posts with the NHS (staff working 50/50 for Hampshire County Council and the NHS).

3.4 Recruitment to this sector will be a particular issue in future, as in Hampshire 40% of the workforce is over 51 years old and 30% of staff will retire in the next 5 years. In one residential home, 50% of the staff are due to retire in the next 12 months. There are difficulties in addressing this issue: for example, it was reported that a new private 90 bed home is being built in Winchester, which will increase competition for staff. It was also commented that this sector has `Image' issues, for example It is difficult to attract young people to carer posts as it is often not considered `cool' enough as a job. In addition, nurses often favour jobs in acute hospitals over care homes, as these jobs are seen as more interesting and challenging.

3.5 The Local Government Workforce Strategy Update indicates that a National Social Work Taskforce has been set up to ensure a coordinated approach is taken to the problems in this area.

3.6 Another area where a skills gap was identified was in recruiting Quantity Surveyors.

3.7 Other Authority Good Practice - City of York Council in partnership with six other North Yorkshire Councils has developed a scheme to `grow its own' planning officers to help with difficulties in recruiting to these posts. The local authorities fund staff currently in non-professional roles to go through a foundation degree course at a local college, and release them one day a week to attend classes.

3.8 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008 86% of authorities are offering career progression opportunities/'Grow Your Own' schemes in order to address occupational skills shortages.

3.9 Recruitment difficulties due to salary

Geographical variations also exist within Hampshire, for example London weighted salaries are available across the County border in the north of the county affecting areas such as Fleet and Aldershot. This may mean the County Council is loosing potential employees due to the salary difference within a short distance. Hampshire County Council pays market supplements to deal with this and other issues and these are reviewed on an annual basis to ensure we are competitive.

3.10 Other Authority Good Practice - Leicestershire County Council tackled recruitment difficulties by offering market supplements and improved conditions to staff in areas it was struggling to recruit to.

3.11 Another issue noted was that there is currently a requirement that carers should have NVQ2, but Hampshire County Council does not currently pay more for carers to have the qualification, whereas the NHS does.

Recommendation: Consideration is given to ways to reward employees who achieve qualifications e.g. NVQ2, to compete with other employers such as the NHS.

3.12 Pay in general

Another of the Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 key priorities for local authorities is `Pay and rewards - modernising pay systems to reflect new structures, new priorities and new ways of working.'

3.13 At Hampshire County Council the recent Pay and Benefits project set out to achieve the aims of the Local Government Workforce Strategy, including equality of pay issues. This project also allowed Hampshire County Council to take a closer look at markets and flex its salaries appropriately i.e. in using market supplements in order to attract and retain the right calibre of staff.

3.14 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, 84% of authorities operate an annual incremental progression pay system covering 60% of their workforce. Hampshire County Council operates an incremental pay progression system and from April 2009 pay progression has been linked to performance via the Individual Performance Planning (IPP) process.

3.15 Local Government Career Promotion

Hampshire County Council has developed, in partnership with the 11 Hampshire District/Borough Councils, the Hampshire Recruitment Portal for local government jobs in Hampshire www.hampshirejobs.org.uk. This has proved to be highly effective and popular with job seekers. This includes career pages which provide information on what it's like to work in Local Government in order to dispel traditional images of the `Town Hall' working environment. These pages outline the diversity of jobs available and are bolstered by comments from Hampshire County Council's Corporate Management Team members on the benefits of working for the County Council. The home page of the portal includes links to career profiles for social work and quantity surveying, to raise awareness of these areas which experience recruitment difficulties. This responds to the call in the Children & Young People's Workforce Strategy to raise the profile of hard to fill jobs.

3.16 Hampshire is also promoting work experience/work placements at the County Council to schools. This has been a successful programme. Feedback from Head Teachers has shown a very positive reaction to the diversity of jobs available in local government. However, more work still needs to be done to persuade young people that local government is an employer of choice.

3.17 Apprenticeships

According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, 78% of authorities are running entry level apprenticeship schemes. The Local Government Association's Human Resources Panel added a new national target to the Local Government Workforce Strategy in January to achieve at least double the number of apprenticeships in local government from the current 7,500 to 15,000 by March 2011. The view is that local authorities could use apprenticeships to help with job creation, to help their communities in the recession by providing a potential route back into work.

3.18 Other Authority Good Practice - Lancashire County Council has embraced apprenticeships and now has 225 across the council. The HR manager indicates this has contributed to saving money on agency staff. The council also offers work placements for those on incapacity benefit, single parents and young people.

3.19 Hampshire County Council could benefit from a corporate approach to managing apprenticeships. A key focus within such an approach would be using apprenticeships to provide a route into work for Hampshire's children in care. It was reported that a corporate apprenticeships strategy is currently being developed.

Monitor: work being done to establish a corporate approach to apprenticeships.

3.20 Recruitment in General

Hampshire County Council has seen increasingly high volumes of new starters (3442 in 2008/9 compared with 1826 in 2004-5). There are 36 staff in the Resourcing Centre handling all these applications. With the economic downturn, local government is seen to be an employer of choice and as a result more applications are coming in, but the quality of these applications is not necessarily good. Despite this, all must be treated in the same way which has put a great deal of pressure on the Resourcing Centre.

3.21 The Hampshire Recruitment Portal allows candidates to upload their CVs/details. This can sometimes speed up the recruitment process and reduces costs, as managers can check this `talent bank' for potential candidates as a first point of call when filling a role thus reducing the length of recruitment processes significantly.

3.22 Human Resources are also beginning to use rolling recruitment programmes i.e. recruiting even when there are no actual vacancies, to ensure a constant stream of candidates for roles where turnover is higher. This replaces the previous `reactive' approach to recruitment, responding to vacancies as they arise and not keeping pace with turnover.

3.23 Hampshire County Council is also working with Job Centre Plus to advertise vacancies. Job Centre Plus is struggling at the moment with the sudden increase in people searching for work and the County Council is helping them with this challenge.

4 Turnover

4.1 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008, the turnover rate nationally has fallen from 13.6% in 2006 to 12.0% in 2008. Hampshire County Council has a turnover rate of 14.5%. However, caution needs to be applied when assessing the Hampshire situation against the benchmarking group as it's not always clear how fair the basis of comparison is but, this figure does indicate that HCC has a problem in some areas. The national benchmark figure has been fairly static over time, whereas the Hampshire County Council figure has come down from a high of 16%.

4.2 Significant areas of high turnover here are in Environment (16.3%), Property Business and Regulatory Services (16%) (figures are particularly high in HC3S the County Council's Catering Service), and the Chief Executive's Department (16.1%). However, much of the turnover in the Chief Executive's Department is accounted for by the Contact Centre, which is an area of natural flux due to the type of work. Roles experiencing higher levels of turnover have common features: relatively low pay, part time, posts held by younger people who want to move on.

4.3 The Human Resources Department is using rolling recruitment programmes to ensure a constant stream of candidates for roles where turnover is higher. To tackle this further, the Director of Human Resources feels that a more strategic approach to turnover, linked to workforce planning, is required to address turnover issues.

4.4 The County Council uses a company called `Talent Drain' which assists in building a picture of why staff leave. Members felt that the County Council should be capturing staff's reasons for wanting to leave before they leave, rather than once the resignation letter has been handed in, so that issues might be dealt with. The HR Director reported he is working on this issue with Talent Drain and that an employee survey is due to be conducted soon. It was suggested that these surveys are often more accurate than exit interviews as staff are less easily identified in their responses.

4.5 Focused work on the nursing home workforce in 2008/9 has demonstrated strong relationships between vacancy rate and subsequent staff turnover, and between vacancy rate and staff absence. These are important correlations and attention must be focused here.

4.6 Sickness Absence

Levels of sickness absence in 2007/8 averaged 10.1 days per Full Time Equivalent employee. The projected sickness absence days for 2008/9 are 9.5 days per FTE. This will be an estimated cost saving of £0.6m. One of the sickness absence hotspots is the Adult Services Department, except in care homes where the rate is lower at 7.3%.

4.7 In Nursing, Residential and Day Care, staff illness often occurs after an older person they are caring for has spent some time in hospital. It is inevitable that this will occur. This service area has undertaken two years work on absence management which has secured a reduction in long term, but not short term, absence. Nursing, Residential and Day Care is a 24 hour hour/365 days a year service, meaning that staff absence needs to be managed particularly carefully. High levels of sickness absence leads to a high level of reliance on agency staff, with accompanying high costs. A large contract with Manpower has been put in place which means that it costs around £100 for cover overnight by agency staff (10pm-8am) compared to around £80 for in-house staff (no agency fee).

Monitor: work looking into the relationship between vacancy rate, staff absence, and turnover, and how these can be addressed, linked to workforce planning.

5 Leadership development:

5.1 The Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 also identifies as a key priority for local authorities `Leadership development - building visionary and ambitious leadership, which makes the best use of both the political and managerial role, operating in a partnership context.'

5.2 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008 92% of authorities are taking action to develop their current and future leaders. Hampshire County Council has a `Hampshire Own Grown' (HOG) programme which provides leadership development. There was a sense that Hampshire County Council was good at attracting `bright young things', but has difficulties in holding onto them, as sometimes they do not see a career for themselves at the County Council. Opportunities like the HOG programme provide ways to engage staff with potential and encourage them to develop within the organisation.

5.3 Hampshire Own Grown

The HOG Programme has two elements, a graduate programme, open to staff in their first 5 years in local government in roles at pay grade E or F, and a future leaders programme, open to staff currently in senior roles (grade H or I). (salary ranges go from A approx £12,500 to K approx £77,000) Past delegates of both programmes attended the workshop to provide feedback about their experiences. The delegates present praised the programme, reporting that there is a robust selection process to identify suitable candidates, and that the programme provides a good opportunity to work with senior officers from across the organisation and Members. It was suggested that the main benefit of the programme is the opportunity afforded to work cross-departmentally and develop personal networks within the organisation, therefore building understanding between departments and sections and paving the way for a more coherent workforce.

5.4 In relation to areas for improvement, it was commented that the issue of `what next' following the HOG is a major one for HOG Graduates. The Director of HR indicated that work is underway to identify what might constitute a `follow-on' from the HOG programme as, at present, there is no formal development available for staff once the annual HOG programme finishes. Delegates also felt that HCC could be more proactive in rewarding staff (not necessarily financially) for up-skilling themselves.

5.5 It was also noted that middle managers (staff on Grade G for example) fall into the gap of being too senior for the HOG Graduate programme, but not senior enough for the HOG Future Leaders programme. This can be frustrating for staff on this level who have ambition. The Director of Human Resources indicated that he was aware of this issue, and had initiated discussion regarding the potential to access resources to tackle this. The Director believes current resources for leadership development are inadequate for an organisation of the size of Hampshire County Council.

5.6 Future Leaders delegates commented that it would be beneficial for HCC to provide more opportunities for staff to move around within the organisation and between partner organisations: not only to build staff knowledge and skills (particularly of the work of partner organisations in the light of the Local Area Agreement), but also to help address vacancies e.g. in social care management. The Director of HR pointed out that HOG delegates were involved in the recent Corporate Review Groups, and that the intention is for more such opportunities to work corporately to be offered to staff. It was commented that the County Council could benefit from a more formal approach to secondments and rotating staff.

Monitor: Development of a `follow on' from the HOG programmes, so that staff who have benefited from this programme continue to be engaged and developed.

5.7 Succession Planning

It was acknowledged that 70% of Hampshire County Council's workforce on grades H-K (top management) will retire in the next 20 years. Talent spotting and nurturing is being focused on the following areas:

- Future Corporate Management Team potential

- Future departmental management potential

- Role-related talent i.e. specialists in a field

- Individual talent i.e. individuals who don't want to develop a career per se, but wish to excel in their role

Most of this `talent management' is being undertaken through Individual Performance Plans (IPPs). However, there was some perception that IPPs are not operating as successfully as hoped with regard to career planning and development.

5.8 The Director of Human Resources pointed out that, in order to have robust succession planning strategies, changes to the Constitution would be required to allow some jobs to be advertised internally only etc. It was suggested that the County Council's Constitution and Standing Orders were very traditional, whilst the organisation's approach to talent management was very forward thinking, and these two cultures are not yet reconciled. However, since the workshop took place, some amendments to the constitution regarding appointment of senior officers have been made (at the County Council meeting in June 2009).

5.9 Development Of Future Management

The County Council now has a Leadership and Management Development Strategy (available from the Director of Human Resources on request). Previously, the approach to Leadership & Management development was fragmented within departments. The strategy addresses the following levels within the organisation:

· Executive leadership: Corporate Management Team and Member development, including the New Member Induction Programme. It was reported that the Executive Member for Human Resources (at the time Cllr Glen) was of the view that many new Members with potential would benefit enormously from this programme, as long as there was a willingness to learn. There has been much interest from other local authorities about this aspect of Hampshire's Leadership & Management Strategy.

· Strategic Leadership through the Leadership Academy: including the Future Leaders stream of the Hampshire Own Grown programme. Work is being undertaken with the University of Winchester to develop programmes for future leaders i.e. on partnership working and managing people in partner organisations.

· Leadership Essentials through the Leadership Academy: for grades G, H and I i.e. HOG Graduates programme candidates.

· Management essentials: training on how to conduct basic management tasks i.e. managing the Individual Performance Planning (IPP) process.

· Management Induction: a mandatory programme for all new managers This is deemed important since the last staff survey showed that some staff's reason for leaving was the quality of their manager, rather than the organisation

Individuals benefiting from the programmes above will be drawn from a variety of backgrounds: those in supervisory roles, graduates and individuals with ambition and talent being recruited directly from school, colleges and universities.

5.10 According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008 59% of authorities have worked with other authorities to attract and develop leaders.

5.11 Other Authority Good Practice - Kent County Council has a leadership programme that incorporates both tiers of local government, the rest of the public sector and private companies. In Essex, fifteen local councils formed an HR Partnership and developed the Essex Leadership Centre of Excellence to develop future leaders.

5.12 Leadership Development - Service Specific

It was mentioned that in care homes, there may be Black or Minority Ethnic employees who have management potential, but for cultural reasons they are less likely to put themselves forward for promotion. Management posts in care homes are an area that can be hard to recruit to. An example was given of a private sector coach being brought in to coach a BME candidate to encourage the taking on of a management role.

5.13 Other Authority Good Practice - Leicestershire County Council offers coaching and mentoring to staff across the board. Cost can act as a barrier to councils using coaching. In the West Midlands twelve local authorities (with the support of the regional local government association) has set up a partnership offering free coaching to staff. The pool of coaches will be able to provide around 4,000 hours a year of coaching to hundreds of staff.

Recommendation: Develop mentoring/coaching as a staff development tool, in particular to target BME employees in the care sector to address cultural barriers to career development.

5.14 Graduates

According to the Local Government Workforce Survey 2008 45% of authorities offer a graduate scheme. In Hampshire, the possibility of a graduate recruitment scheme is being considered.

5.15 Other Authority Good Practice - London Borough of Lewisham have linked with the national graduate development programme and take on graduates every year, and have a high retention rate of graduates securing roles at the council after the programme. Benefits noted include challenging existing ways of working leading to improvements.