Wakefield Council struggling to recruit key roles including social workers, town planners, highways engineers and legal staff

Andrew Balchin said the Council is facing staffing pressures as it competes with neighbouring authorities and the private sector during a challenging financial climate.

A report to the Council’s Audit and Government Committee states there is difficulty recruiting social workers, town planners, highways engineers, legal and procurement staff.

Other areas under pressure include building control staff, project and programme roles, ICT developers, architect roles, auditors, bid writers in economic growth and some specialist admin roles.

Mr Balchin told committee members: “This is one of the most challenging times for local government.

“There is considerable uncertainty combined with very real cost pressures.

“Wakefield is not immune from those pressures.

Outlining the ‘workforce challenge’, Mr Balchin said: “It is a continuing challenge and one we are trying to address in terms of having the right people with the right skills to do the job across the district.

“At the moment we are facing a very challenging financial climate.

“Like most organisations, we like certainty to be able to plan, but it’s a climate of uncertainty we are faced with.

“That’s what we will have to navigate over the coming months and probably the next year or two.

“The financial climate is such at the moment that we are not expecting any significant increase in funding, if anything, probably a reduction in real terms, for our budgets and our spending power.”

Currently across the Council (excluding schools) around 11 per cent of roles are vacant.

Agency cover is costing the local authority around £7.7m a year.

Mr Balchin continued: “I think it’s fair to say that every local government organisation faces a massive challenge in recruiting and retaining good quality staff.

“There are some professional areas in particular that are hard to recruit to.

“We are competing not just with neighbouring authorities but authorities across the Council.

“I think the workforce and the workplace is continuing to change post Covid

“Covid brought about some rapid changes in the way organisations can work and remote working in a number of professions is becoming increasingly the norm.

“Local government is having to consider what type of workforce practices in future will enable us to be both efficient and effective but also to enable us to retain and attract the very best quality staff.

“That is an area that will continue to evolve over the next year or two.

“There are some obvious areas across the council where local Government is never going to be able to compete, on the basis of pay, with the private sector.

“So we have to make ourselves competitive in other ways.

“We have to make sure that we offer people both rewarding jobs and opportunities and progression opportunities, but also that we are seen as a good employer to work for.

“We are also doing what we can, and hope to do more, in terms of growing our own workforce.”

Mr Balchin said the Council had seen some success with apprenticeships and graduate schemes.

He added: “We work with partners across the district to attract new graduates to start their career with us.

“It offers flexible opportunities and learning for graduates.

“It gives us an opportunity to demonstrate to them that they can work in local government.

“We have had a very successful apprenticeship programme over a number of years and that is continuing to grow the workforce of the future.”