Islington Council has found an innovative way of tackling the significant recruitment and retention problem in the borough by basing some of its assessment staff in Greater Manchester. The initiative has taken a relatively short time to implement through the support of senior management and members in Islington.
In 2003, Islington's benefit service was taking around 140 days to process benefit claims. The service relied upon 60 per cent of its staffing resource from agencies. The council tried using The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) funding to assist the recruitment of new staff.
Recruitment was successful but retention was difficult. 80 staff out of a complement of 180 were recruited but the council found that after 6-12 months staff left for other jobs. One assessor was leaving every week or two, and 70% of staff had less than two years experience.
The council decided that a more radical approach was necessary to ensure greater stability of staff and a consequential improved quality of claim processing. It utilised an existing arrangement with a private sector provider to provide on site management for its staff - to be based in Tameside in Greater Manchester.
The council wanted to recruit experienced staff to ensure that they could deal with the full range of benefit claims, with minimum supervision. Support is provided for them through on-site team leaders, also employed by the council.
The council used existing vacancies to fund the posts, and the savings of London weighting for the staff have contributed to the site management fee. All staff have the same conditions, other than London weighting, as existing benefits staff based in Islington.
In all, 17 staff were in post when the initiative went live in December 2005. The council is confident that the experienced workforce will contribute to an improved service for claimants in Islington. The council also expects knock-on benefits from improved staff retention and savings by using fewer agency staff. It also has the capacity to expand the operation if it delivers these improvements.
The council has recognised that it has already learnt lessons from the initiative. For example, by consulting with the councils in the Greater Manchester area.
In relation to the Efficiency Challenge, what barriers did they encounter?
- Risk aversion
- Staffing issues
- IT systems