Issue - meetings

Cabinet considered proposals for the issuing a temporary worker contract to support the delivery of Council services. The current contract to provide the council with temporary staff is due to expire on 14th April 2024. It is a three year contract with a one year extension option, this extension was exercised in April of last year. Temporary (or “agency”) staff are required to replace staff that are off through Annual Leave or Sickness, often at short notice and also to cover seasonal variations such as additional beach cleaning in the summer.

The current annual spend on this contract is circa £1.3m p/a. 80% of this cost is attributed to the Cleansing Service. It should be noted that this is a “call-down” contract with no obligation to spend the projected £1.3m. The contract has not been awarded, this decision is requesting approval for it to be procured via an agreed framework. As part of this process a full review will be conducted into the use of agency staff within TDC.

Councillor Albon proposed, Councillor Duckworth seconded and Cabinet approved Option 3 as described in section 3 of the report which was to competitively procure a temporary staff contract via a framework with an approximate value of £1.3m per annum.

Report to follow

Matt Elmer, Head of Cleansing Services introduced the report and made the following comments:

• This report was about arrangements for temporary staff i.e. agency workers across a number of Council services;
• The current contract was coming to an end in April this year and proposed options were for the future procurement of temporary staff arrangements;
• The current contract was a “call-down” contract and this was therefore not an obligation to spend the total value of the contract. Cabinet had requested a report into the use of temporary staff, which would be forthcoming and also shared with members of Overview and Scrutiny in due course;
• The value of the contract is approximately £1,3m per annum - 80% of which was within Cleansing Services which includes household waste collections, street cleansing and seasonal beach cleansing;
• Members were being asked to comment on the recommendation for Cabinet to agree a competitive procurement approach under the agreed framework.

Members then asked questions and made comments as follows:

• One Member said that this was a big counteract with one contractor. Had the Council looked at other contractors in order to secure the best possible terms?
• What was the procurement process that had identified HR-GO?
• How much agency staff was the Council using for activities that the Council knew would need to be planned for?
• The Council needed to widen its search to recruit to those difficult to recruit roles;
• Members welcomed the review that would be conducted on how the Council used agency workers to deliver services;
• The Council should develop its own bank of staff;
• Another Member asked how many agency staff ended up being permanent TDC staff.

Matt Elmer responded to Member questions as follows:

• Officers were going to investigate the issue raised by Members;
• HR-GO was the first place to go for agency staff. Their staff cover mostly sickness leave. The Council considered two other agencies but HR-GO had the best offer;
• It was difficult for the Council to attract staff for short term roles. That was why agency staff were being used;
• The hourly rate that agency staff were paid was the same rate that Council staff were also paid;
• The best approach to resolve the staffing issue was for the Council to consider a procurement framework.

Councillor Austin proposed, Councillor Wing seconded and Members agreed Option 3, (Further Competition under a Framework for a 3 year contract with a 12 month extension option with a value of approximately £1.3m per annum).