Councils across Greater Manchester have spent millions on agency staff to fill gaps in their workforces - here's what each council is doing to secure a permanent workforce, including overseas recruitment
Greater Manchester's councils have spent more than £123m on social care staff from agencies since 2020.
It's difficult to quantify exactly how much more it costs to recruit social workers and carers from agencies than it would to employ people in-house. It is not known how many carer vacancies there are currently in Greater Manchester, with many on zero hours contracts. According to the most recent data from Skills for Care from 2021/2022 there are estimated to be 6,300 vacancies for care workers alone across GM. Nationally, the number of unfilled care worker posts is as high as 165,000 in the same time period.
The answers from each council varied depending on population, staffing infrastructure and the age demographics. All councils spent significantly more on the children's social care sector than adults - the data suggests. The total sum is likely to be higher than the headline figure as Bury council was not able to provide data for the full three year period.
Bury A spokesman for Bury Council said: “Bury, in common with districts across the country, has faced real challenges in recruiting and retaining social care staff and social workers. We have been taking a number of measures to address this, offering a range of incentives to come and work and live here.
"A key component of the programme will be small grants for which care providers can apply, to support their own international recruitment efforts, and the programme team is working with safeguarding leads from across Greater Manchester to ensure ethical approaches to recruitment are promoted and maintained.”
"We're determined to be an employer of choice and regularly review our recruitment strategies and retention packages to make sure they reach the widest audience of potential new recruits, and also that they are competitive in terms of what they offer. As a result, social care staff working for the council can expect high levels of support, training and skills' development, and excellent career pathways, as well as a salary that compares favourably with market rates.
“We’ve benchmarked the starting salaries of new social workers; introduced a new loyalty payment of £2k for those social workers who work in Oldham for at least the next two years; launched a high-profile “Choose Oldham” recruitment campaign, and also ensure that our social workers have the very best opportunities for professional training and career progression.
“However, we're actively striving to attract more social workers to join us, and we've seen increasing success in our efforts while ensuring we retain our existing colleagues. For our newly qualified social workers, we provide a bespoke training and support offer, enabling them to develop their skills and knowledge.
“In Children’s Social Care Services we have developed a recruitment and retention strategy, and a recently formed Workforce Board working with partners across the Council to maximise our permanent workforce. “Regional and local work is taking place to ensure that there is a strong strategy to address these workforce challenges including plans to adopt rules and agreements to reduce the movement of permanent staff to agency and salary costs in line with the government’s strategy.”
“We have several initiatives in place to reduce agency spend, including a successful and innovative recruitment campaign, jobs roadshows where we have hired staff on the day and a children’s workforce recruitment and retention strategy.
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