Elected Member Briefing - Workforce management/ staff vacancies

About this briefing note

Report by: Pauline Johnstone, Corporate HR Manager and Scott Walker, Chief Accountant

Date: 6 February 2023

Subject: Workforce management/ staff vacancies

Responsible Officer: Karen Donaldson, Chief Operating Officer

Purpose

To provide a response to the question raised at Council Committee on 21 December2022 regarding the number of vacancies and any savings arising from non-filling of vacancies and in particular an impact on the workload of the Road Safety Team.

Briefing Information

The Council has a diverse and complex workforce.  It is not possible to report on the number of unfilled posts because of the range of alternative arrangements which managers can put in place to get work done. Managers may move resources between teams to maintain service delivery. In addition, a range of management tools are available for managers to ensure service delivery e.g., overtime, acting up. The level of vacancies is influenced by slippage targets, post and vacancy management measures and preparation for projects under the Transformation and Change Programme.

Recruitment difficulties in certain areas may also mean that vacant posts are unfilled longer than anticipated - this may be due to skill shortages, competition for labour or a lack of suitably skilled and experienced applicants.

When setting the revenue budget for 2022/23, the Council approved a minimum slippage target of 4%. In anticipation of potential budget savings in future years and to help deal with the financial deficit, proactive mitigations for vacancy and post management are in place. All teams/budget holders are asked to manage any vacancies through these controls.

From a budget perspective we can advise that the 4% slippage target is currently being achieved by all Services - this was included in the Revenue Monitoring report considered by the Finance & Resources Committee on 1 February 2023.

The proactive management of staff costs is resulting in the over achievement of the approved slippage target in several areas across the Council.

With regards to the traffic and road safety team, we can advise there are a total of 9.2 FTE permanent general funded revenue staff and 11.50 FTE, capital funded staff. At the end of November, there was one vacancy.