Tracey Lee (Chief Executive) began by highlighting the following points:

a)    She had added the risk to the risk register because of the number of posts that were vacant of permanent post-holders in the top 3 tiers of management, and this was a risk to the council in terms of having the capacity to deliver its programme of work and work well with partners across the city;

b)    The reasons why people had left the positions had been looked at and there was no pattern, but rather a wide range of different reasons;

c)    She agreed that the levels of interim cover within the organisation was too high, but needed to be in order for the Council in order for the statutory posts to be covered;

d)    The interim recruitment market was very aggressive and the pay levels were high, but the roles had to be covered whilst a permanent candidate was found;

e)    When roles need to be covered the Chief Officer Appointments Panel had not only looked at interim candidates but also at ‘acting up’ arrangements for existing staff;

f)     There were six senior posts out to advert at that time, but the market was extremely tight and the team were using recruitment agencies to try and fill the posts, and it was the second time that the roles of Service Director for Education and the Director of Resources roles had been advertised;

g)    Pamela Moffat (Interim Service Director for HROD) was looking at a more appropriate approach for succession planning, which the council had been good at in the past, but it needed to be far more intentional within a balance of growing talent and looking for fresh ideas from new people;

h)    Part of the new approach to recruitment had been recording of videos with members of staff on why they enjoyed working for Plymouth City Council.

Councillor Sue Dann (Cabinet Member for Customer Services, Sport and HR & OD) added:

i)     The team were working with Destination Plymouth to look at the wider picture across the city, as Plymouth City Council was not the only large organisation that was experiencing recruitment issues.

In response to questions, it was further explained:

j)     There was not a direct comparison between the figures on how much interim post holders were paid compared to if the roles were filled permanently,  as interim post holders were not paid when they didn’t work and were not part of the pension scheme;

k)    Interim post holders were working well within the organisation, and their work was valued, but it was important to fill the posts permanently as soon as possible;

l)     Tracey Lee would provide the Committee with information on the amount interim posts were costing in comparison to if the posts had been filled for the month of either August of September following the meeting, as she did not have the data to hand, but this information would not include acting up arrangements as they were being paid the difference between their salary post and the salary of the permanent role;

m)  It was not just a financial consideration, some posts had to be filled legally, so in order to legally function, some posts had to be filled;

n)    There were existing training and development programmes, but more work was going to be done on them to develop and refresh them, and to look more into what employees careers and opportunities were to help them grow;

o)    The way apprentices were paid had been changed so that apprentices could exist throughout the organisation on any pay grade, and several pay bands had been added at the top end of the scale to try and stop senior leaders from leaving the council for better paid jobs;

p)    Sometimes interim post holders enjoyed the role so much they went on to stay at Plymouth City Council in a permanent role, but interim posts often attracted a different type of person to those who were interested in permanent roles;

q)    The Chief Officers Appointment Panel did have the ability to look at market factor supplements for some roles, but for other roles, local government could never compete with private salaries, showing some people choose to work for local government to serve the public;

r)    It was preferable to put employees into senior roles onto a pay scale rather than provide a market factor supplement, because it was more transparent.