Report attached.

The Assistant Director of Resources and Organisational Development confirmed that the Council had a target to reduce the cost of agency workers by 50%. The HR talent team was working with directorates to move staff from agency to permanent status where possible.

A further target was to decrease levels of sickness absence by the publication of the October workforce data. HR metrics were produced monthly and sent to each directorate. Benchmarking with other Councils was also undertaken.

The Occupational Health service and Employee Assistance Programme were in the process of being reviewed. A Member pointed out that a broadly similar borough such as Bexley was performing better on sickness absence. The Assistant Director had not specifically looked at the position in Bexley but was part of the London HR Network. Officers agreed to look at any spend on agency workers outside of the official agency framework.

In social care and housing, a high level of agency staff churn had led to issues with consistency of practice. Lowering caseload levels could assist with reducing agency worker spend and sickness levels as stress levels would be lower. Council apprentices were moving into permanent jobs which was a positive development. It was accepted that agency workers were sometimes not suitable and needed to be replaced but officers were not aware of any risk of non-delivery of services in this instance.

The Assistant Director felt that all services should have a workforce plan and there was a high level of detail in the data available. A staff performance programme was used but agency and permanent staff were not compared. Support measures for sickness issues were also available.

Agency staff were used for certain roles such as IT which were very difficult to recruit to. Officers were keen however to move staff onto permanent contracts. The Choose Havering brand and the challenge of Havering’s position were used to aid recruitment. Some staff did however prefer the flexibility of working as agency staff.

The Assistant Director felt it was important to focus the support measures available to support staff with long-term sickness. The target to reduce agency workers had been deliberately set at an ambitious level. Sickness figures did not include agency staff as they were not paid employees of the Council. Agency workers who were off sick from front line roles would be replaced as soon as possible. The Health and Safety policy around workplace injuries etc applied to both agency and permanent staff.

The issue of staff isolation had not been raised directly but would be picked up by line managers in staff 121s etc. Officers accepted that the Occupational Health service had not previously been promoted in the right way. Performance related pay and similar incentives had previously considered but this had proved hard to implement. Incentives to reduce sickness could be considered. It was clarified that agency staff were also able to access wellbeing support etc.

The definition of the period that constituted long term sickness was set by London Councils but this could be altered if necessary. Referrals to Occupational Health could be made at lower sickness levels.

The Board AGREED the following recommendations:

-       The three Strategic Directors to attend the next meeting of the O & S Board to update on work in their directorates to address agency workers cost and levels of sickness absence (service)

-       Future reports to show the impact across pay grades of the cost of sickness absence (service)

-       Information to be provided on the best performing boroughs in these areas and what they are doing to reduce agency worker costs and levels of sickness absence. (service)