Councils are struggling to recruit and retain staff for vital local services
Working in local government is hugely challenging and varied, but equally rewarding. It is a great place to grow your skills and your career.
However, councils are struggling to recruit and retain the staff they need to provide vital local services, from children’s services and adult social care to planning and environmental health.
The LGA’s recently published 2022 Local Government Workforce Survey sets out the challenges. It found that more than 9 in 10 councils were struggling to find and keep staff, across a range of services and professions.
More than 8 in 10 councils, for example, were having difficulties recruiting children’s social workers and almost three-quarters (72 per cent) were having problems retaining them – meaning they are having to turn increasingly to agency staff to plug gaps, which is more costly and leaves less funding for children’s services overall.
When it comes to adult social care, 57 per cent of councils were struggling to retain care workers and 71 per cent to recruit them.
National adult social care organisations, including the LGA, have called for government to deliver a long-term care workforce strategy and tackle the issue of care worker pay.
Almost 6 in 10 councils (58 per cent) were struggling to recruit planning officers. This will have an impact on the ability of councils to plan and deliver new homes and ensure new housing meets local needs and has the right infrastructure.
More than a fifth (22 per cent) were experiencing recruitment difficulties for HGV drivers. HGV driver salaries in the private sector are going up fast, which is an issue for councils and their contractors, putting pressure on gritting and waste and collection services.
Meanwhile, 45 per cent of councils that run environmental health services couldn’t find enough environmental health officers, and 43 per cent were having difficulties recruiting building control officers.
This comes as councils struggle to fulfil new duties being placed on them, such as implementing the new post-Grenfell building safety system and reviewing the condition of social and private rented housing.
The services councils provide are relied on by vulnerable people particularly, and those who urgently need support, as well as by government to help it meet key pledges – from building more homes to boosting economic growth and reforming adult social care.
Councils are pulling out all the stops to tackle recruitment and retention issues, by offering more flexible working, running targeted recruitment campaigns locally, and offering accessible training and development opportunities.
They are also looking to grow their apprenticeships to develop ‘pipelines’ of the skills they need, with nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) saying they were going to do this in 2022/23.
Addressing the issue at an individual council level is difficult, however. There is recognition that there needs to be a broader, long-term strategy for the local government workforce, and the LGA is looking at how we can support the sector with this.
It will require cross-sector agreement and support from government and other agencies, and we will bring forward proposals to the LGA’s boards this spring.
It can also be difficult for councils to make long-term plans for staffing and development when they continually have single-year funding settlements.
The LGA is always reviewing our work and exploring new ways to support member councils, and already provides a range of government-funded practical support to councils on workforce issues (see below).
We are clear that government investment in councils and their workforce is key to ensuring services are protected, and to government delivering its own policy agenda.
The workforce crisis in numbers
- Nearly 1.4 million people work in around 800 different occupations in local government.
- From 2009-22, the English local government staff headcount fell from 2,254,700 to 1,346,400. Full-time equivalent totals fell from 1,584,200 to 1,022,000.
- 33 per cent of council chief executives and senior managers in England did not have enough skilled staff to run services to an acceptable standard (Solace, 2021).
- In September 2021, the vacancy rate in local authority adult social services was 7.1 per cent (Skills for Care).
- England’s children’s social work vacancy rate rose to 16.7 per cent in 2021, with 6,500 empty posts.
- More than half of public health services were disrupted by staffing shortages, according to the LGA/ADASS 2022 Public Health Annual Report.
Sector support
To help with workforce recruitment, training and retention, the LGA offers a range of government-funded programmes to support and develop council professionals and build a talent pipeline. These include the National Graduate Development Programme, and schemes for chief executives, executive directors, middle managers and ‘rising stars’. The LGA also provides a range of practical support to the local government sector on workforce, including strategic workforce planning, recruitment and retention, and workforce capacity.