Local authorities Leavers of power

The local authority elections that dominated the headlines at the start of May might seem a distant memory now, but council employees across the UK are still feeling the reverberations. Manifesto pledges by the hundreds of new councillors that were elected on 3 May are now being put to the test and in many cases the new brooms are sweeping out many existing council staff.

Cara Downes, a consultant at recruitment company PSD, says that as a result of a number of local authorities slipping into no overall control, she has seen a surge in the number of senior council employees contacting her asking for a change of job.

“We have had more and more people approaching us wanting us to look out for other positions for them as they are not confident in a new leader’s commitment to a certain area of the council’s business,” she says. “This is a particular issue in regeneration and planning. Senior people are really worried that they will be left with egg on their faces when the new political leadership changes direction and that means they have to go back on promises they have made to people about development.”

Downes adds that more people than usual have been moving, and that of the “numerous” cases she has seen so far “all of the people I’ve been placing have gone to the private sector and not to other local authorities”.

For Richard Gelder, public sector director at recruitment consultancy Hays, this is a “natural hiatus”. “It is much like what happened at Liverpool last time when the Liberal Democrats beat Labour,” he says. “They wanted to work much more with the private sector. This approach attracts different types of people and similarly turns certain people off.”

All of the people I’ve been placing have gone to the private sector and not to other local authorities

Cara Downes, PSD

He adds that a contributing factor to the high degree of staff turnover now is the fact that “regeneration and development simply wasn’t on the agenda” until two years ago. “People in these areas are hugely

sought after at the moment. The reason is that regeneration has risen up the political agenda and there is now a lot of competition from other local authorities and the private sector for skilled staff. It is very intense,” he says.

Janet Dean is strategic housing adviser at local government performance body the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and is currently completing a review into the skills shortages that could prevent councils from fulfilling the “place-making” role recently mapped out for them by Sir Michael Lyons. She says a recent workforce study for local authorities showed that planners and building surveyors were among the top 10 hardest to fill positions. As a result she says councils are increasingly “lacking in skills to make new partnerships work” – not only with private sector bodies but with health and education as well.

Councils are adopting some interesting approaches to dealing with the shortage of staff. “A number of district local authorities are trying to recruit people across council boundaries,” says Dean. “For instance, research and development officers or empty property officers – roles where the housing market they are working with stretches across boundaries too.”

Dean adds that IDeA is also working with new and existing councillors to “let them know the dangers of a ‘stop, start’ approach” to regeneration. For some local authority staff who are feeling forced out, this advice surely can’t come soon enough.