Report attached.

Officers advised that the proportion of agency workers had dropped from 17.3% to 14.2% as at May 2025. The target of the London average figure for this expenditure stood at 12%. The focus was on reducing the number of agency workers earning in excess of £75. It was noted that expenditure on agency workers would be the responsibility of the Head of Procurement from now on.

All agency workers with more than two years service were being reviewed and all officers at assistant director level or above were being asked to look at their agency staff numbers. The number of agency staff who had worked at the Council for more than two years totalled 118 and officers were working on which of these could be made permanent and hence save costs. There now very few agency social workers at Havering. It was noted however that the OFSTED judgment had led to three additional social work teams being introduced. Some agency staff had been used to fill these posts due to the national shortage of social workers.

Casual and seasonal workers were not included in these figures. Exit interviews were undertaken to understand the reasons why staff were leaving. The issue of key person dependency was acknowledged and succession planning was considered with HR colleagues to establish which staff could be trained for promotion etc.

Sickness levels had reduced to 9.8 days per employee per annum and the London average for this was 9.1 days. The cost to the Council of sickness absence had now reduced to £3.1m. The list of reasons for sickness absence had been improved and the results of a benchmarking exercise were presented at appendix 3 to the report. It was confirmed that sickness absence data did not include figures for agency staff.

Officers were not aware of any Council that currently used an in-house agency recruitment team but procurement could be asked to look at this. The use of the current Adecco agency did give advantages of larger scale and reach. The proportion of agency workers in senior roles who lived outside the borough could be supplied. Generally, Havering had a high proportion of local residents amongst its staff with around 63% of employees living within the borough.

A new occupational health provider had recently been appointed. Data was not available as to why certain age ranges e.g. millennials had higher levels of sickness. The Council’s sickness policy was aligned to its contract of employment. The policy was under review but length of sick pay periods etc  were similar to other Councils.

Fewer calls to the wellbeing line were received from men to the perceived stigma associated with men seeking out support. Domestic abuse support was part of the contractor’s wellbeing offer. A breakdown of the legal support requested could be supplied.

It was accepted that previously suppled figures for the cost of sickness absence had not been accurate but officers were confident that this had been resolved. The time lost due to sickness absence across the Council was approximately 4%. Some 10% of staff had been on a period of long term sickness over the last 12 months although it was emphasised that these absences were not simultaneous.

It was recommended that the figures reported should include the number of absences rather than just total length. It was also suggested that the use of language such as ‘sickness tolerant’ would be considered as part of a review of the policy.

Display screen equipment assessments were undertaken for staff working from home in order to address musculoskeletal and mental health issues. Reduced price chiropractic treatment had been made available to staff and more stress and mental health categories had been added to the recording system. The Board recommended that it be investigated if the working from home policy was leading to increased levels of sickness. Officers confirmed that the work from home policy was under review. Anonymised data summarising the reasons for people exiting the organisation could be brought to a future meeting of the Board.

The extent to which people were able to use their leave was monitored. It was accepted that staff should not have in their out of office messages contacts who were themselves away and this could be addressed. On-call arrangements in services such as social care were discussed with unions and designed to ensure that on-call staff received sufficient rest.