Audit Commission

In 2003, leaders of public sector organisations in Birmingham recognised that they were competing with each other for staff as one in four people worked in the public sector. They were also competing with the private sector for individuals with technical skills such as IT technicians and engineers and those with transferable generic skills in finance and project management.

The employers were also facing other challenges. It is anticipated that the city region population will become increasingly polarised, with older working age people at one end and a younger, minority ethnic population at the other. Key partners such as Birmingham City Council and Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council (MBC) wanted to increase their capacity to understand and respond to the labour market and to develop shared approaches to common issues.

Action taken

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in partnership with Birmingham Strategic Partnership set up a Public Sector Compact initially with 12 members, including Birmingham City Council and Solihull MBC. Facilitated by the LSC, the Compact is a formal partnership network which enables organisations to work together to raise the profile of public services and make the sector an employer of first choice for those seeking employment and career development.

Currently 33 local public organisations from the West Midlands region are signed up to the Compact.

Best practice is shared and work programmes are carried out through four thematic groups:

• HR Group;
• Apprenticeship Provider Forum;
• Skills and Workforce Planning; and
• Communications and Marketing.

These groups report to a Strategic Core Group on a quarterly basis. The Compact has the support of the Solihull Local Strategic Partnership and the Birmingham City Strategic Partnership and its work reflects their service strategies.

Partners are committed to working towards the government’s challenge for the region to introduce 8,000 more apprenticeships, recruit 10,000 local individuals to public sector vacancies and ensure that 75,000 employees are at Level 2 standard for literacy and numeracy by 2010.

Compact partners have successfully worked together to design and deliver a number of schemes to address recruitment and retention issues such as collecting comparable workforce data to aid workforce planning, upskilling staff through a public service diploma delivered by local colleges and introducing a public sector apprenticeship scheme offering nationally recognised qualifications.

The Skills and Workforce Planning Group, chaired by the University of Birmingham, surveyed members’ staff profiles, retention and turnover rates as well as available career options in order to assess workforce needs in the sector. Coordinated by the Public Sector Compact, 19 organisations completed the survey, representing about 90,000 employees. Data analysis showed that organisations were facing similar issues, such as a need to improve the representation and development of black and minority ethnic (BME) staff.

The University then gave a lecture to organisations about forecast population trends in the city to inform future recruitment. Information has also been used to demonstrate to local people that there are a wide range of career routes and opportunities available in the public sector.

Mindful of changing demographics, the partners want to tap into pools of unfulfilled talent in inner city areas and attract more young recruits of a minority ethnic background. The Compact acts as a broker to support recruitment of people from the local community. The LSC initiated a number of employer-led pre-employment programmes in order to assist target groups, such as BME groups or the long term unemployed, to prepare for interviews within the public sector. Bespoke training courses have been delivered and paid for by Fair Cities after liaising with Jobcentre Plus and Connexions.

Activities within the Compact are communicated to members through an e-newsletter, allowing distribution to a combined workforce of over 100,000 people.

Resources

• The Public Sector Compact team at LSC consists of a director, a programme coordinator, a programme advisor and an administrator. The LSC marketing team also contribute staff time for communications activities.
• The Compact has been funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund which came to an end in March 2008. Funding for the Compact from 2008 to 2010 is currently being agreed between the LSC and sector partners.
• Written commitment has been given from organisations to take part in Compact work and allow staff to attend meeting

Outcomes

By bringing together employers from across the public sector, finite resources are pooled and co-coordinated more effectively. Agencies can agree actions which cut across institutional and funding boundaries. In this way, public organisations have reduced duplication in addressing recruitment and retention activities and have driven activity in areas that previously did not exist.

Organisations have benefited from employing a more diverse range of people through the pre-employment initiatives at no cost as the service is funded by the Compact. To date, the Compact has supported over 300 individuals onto bespoke pre-employment training and over 200 individuals into employment as a result; and the LSC itself has employed 23 administration staff through this scheme. The sector is also addressing issues relating to the aging population: in May 2007, 100 young people had signed up to the pilot Apprenticeship in Public Service Administration.

The Compact has launched a DVD to celebrate its achievements and encourage continued engagement from members.

The success of the Public Service Compact in Birmingham and Solihull has led to plans for its expansion throughout the West Midlands Region, whilst a City Region Compact for eight central local councils and a Shires Compact for more rural district councils have been established to facilitate work in networks with common issues. National recognition has led to proposals for similar schemes elsewhere in England and learning is shared between these partnerships.

Learning

• It was necessary to reduce the use of jargon and establish a common language between partners to demonstrate that partners were experiencing similar issues and changes.
• It can be slow to set up partnerships, especially where there is no established infrastructure for collaborative working. It can also be harder to engage larger organisations where bureaucracy means it takes longer to make decisions.
• Working together in smaller groups of organisations can be more manageable and members feel that plans and targets are achievable.
• Where there is a need or business case for an organisation to be involved in the partnership, organisations are more likely to actively engage rather than those who see it as simply right to join.
• Partners need to understand each other’s limitations instead of thinking that they are being uncooperative. However, increased contact through the Compact has improved this understanding.
• Energetic facilitators are needed to encourage continued attendance and run programmes for action. In this case, the independence of the LSC also aided facilitation.
• Partners recognised they could benefit from comparative workforce statistics in order to benchmark data across the sector, on an area basis.