Strategies for tackling recruitment and retention challenges
If you have heard “we just can’t recruit”, “we’re losing good people”, or “we’ve advertised three times and still can’t fill the post” in council meetings recently, then you would not be alone.
Across England, many councils are facing a recruitment and retention crisis, with issues of persistent vacancies, skills shortages and real challenges in holding on to talented staff in key professional areas.
All of this is happening while demand for services is rising and expectations from residents are higher than ever.
So, what’s being done about it – and, crucially, what can elected members do to help?
Over the past two years, the LGA has been working with councils to design workforce strategies and action plans for areas where skills shortages are biting hardest.
Alongside the well-known pressures in adult social care and children’s services, detailed engagement and data analysis identified eight further high-risk areas where there is a real risk of workforce failure if we don’t act.
The eight are: digital and ICT; building control; civil engineering; town planning; legal; finance; environmental health; and economic development.
These aren’t ‘nice to have’ services – they’re the backbone of safe buildings, sound finances, growth, regeneration, climate action and digital transformation.
That’s why the LGA, working with more than 60 volunteer councils, has developed practical, evidence-based workforce strategies and action plans for each of these areas.
These strategies weren’t written in a back office in London – they were co-designed with councils, drawing on the real experiences of hundreds of professionals.
The work has included: skills gap analysis, to understand where shortages are most acute; workforce planning workshops, to co-create realistic solutions; and stakeholder consultation – to make sure the plans reflect what services actually need on the ground.
Each strategy is built around three simple, but important, principles:
- contextual and iterative – recognising that local government is changing fast and workforce plans need to evolve with it
- collaborative – developed with and for the local government sector
- action-orientated – not just ‘nice words’, but clear priorities and practical steps.
Put simply, these strategies are a ready-made resource that you and your council can use and adapt locally.
They help councils to build a shared understanding of current pressures and future workforce needs, support peer-to-peer learning through ongoing webinars and workshops, and enable evidence-based planning with tools, templates and diagnostics.
The key goals across all eight hard-to-recruit areas include improving recruitment and retention, strengthening training and development, supporting service redesign, and embedding
future-facing skills – such as digital literacy, creativity, and analytical and critical thinking.
Councils are encouraged to take the LGA’s workforce strategies and embed them in their own workforce planning and HR practices, and use them to inform leadership conversations, recruitment campaigns and service planning.
The LGA is backing this work with a wide range of practical offers for councils, including: themed workshops and webinars; national recruitment campaigns; recruitment and retention reset programmes; apprenticeship support; national graduate recruitment campaigns; early career networks; and workforce planning tools, diagnostics and templates.
As councillors, your leadership is vital. You can champion workforce planning, encourage participation in our National Local Government Workforce Planning Network (email welna.bowden@local.gov.uk to join, if you’re not already a member), support HR and service leads to take a long-term view of skills and capacity – and ask whether your council is making full use of these LGA strategies, tools and networks.
- For more information, please visit local.gov.uk/our-support/workforce