Stoke-on-Trent City Council: Using the national shared workforce priorities to challenge and shape the local workforce plan

Stoke-on-Trent is a city and unitary authority in Staffordshire. In 2021, the city had an estimated population of 258,400. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surrounded by the towns of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Kidsgrove and Biddulph, which form a conurbation around the city. It is a centre for service industries and distribution centres. It formerly had a primarily heavy industry sector.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council was keen to explore how they could use the national shared workforce priorities to support the adult social care workforce programme that they were developing locally.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council recognised that they had an ageing workforce and were keen to increase the number of younger people who have the knowledge and skills to take up leadership roles in the future.

The city council was also also looking at how to retain existing leaders. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the city council has seen an unexpected increase in the turnover of middle managers. This made the offer to aspiring managers and developing their leadership skills even more important to retain these people in the workforce.

The city council felt that it had a good offer for newly qualified social workers, but there was a gap going up to senior social workers, who take on a more managerial role. The city council was also keen to introduce more development levels to bridge the gap between practice and management. Some leaders might progress outside of the city council, but the city council felt that it was still important to have a local pipeline of supply.

In 2023, Stoke-on-Trent City Council's adult social care department received support from Partners in Care and Health to develop a workforce plan for adult social care to 2025. The corporate workforce development objectives provided a framework for the plan, demonstrating a clear golden thread from the corporate plan to the departmental plan.

The workforce plan was evidence-based, building on local workforce data. This plan focused on the city council employed workforce, but the city council is keen extend the scope to look at the external workforce in the future. The workforce plan is to be reviewed at the end of 2024. The city council intend to use the national shared workforce priorities as a framework for the discussion with the internal and external workforce. One of the challenges with workforce planning is the use of jargon or buzzwords that the workforce is not familiar with or do not understand. Stoke-on-Trent City Council felt that the shared workforce priories provide the sector with a common language that makes sense to everyone.

In response to recruitment challenges, Stoke-on-Trent City Council is committed to 'growing their own' and has begun to take on apprentices, and at the same time think about how it develops and retains workers post apprenticeship. The adult social care department in Stoke-on-Trent City Council currently has eight social work apprentices this year and is looking to increase that next year. The department is also looking at entry level apprenticeships, of which there are currently two and plans to increase the number of entry level apprenticeships over the next year.

The city council has also started to explore values-based recruitment. They are keen to utilise 'Curious about Care', a research project undertaken by social care researchers at the University of York, that has created a values-based recruitment quiz of situational judgement scenarios that asks applicants to put themselves in a care worker’s shoes, and to consider how they might respond to different dilemmas.

In 2022-23, the city council was one of the pilot sites for the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES). The aim was to encourage a more diverse and inclusive workforce at all levels. Although the pilot is complete the city council continue to implement initiatives to support this aim, this year starting a reciprocal mentoring scheme for the workforce. In adult social care there are five members of staff involved in the scheme, and across the council this includes the chief executive who is acting as a mentor to others. The scheme is helping senior leaders to understand the challenges that some staff can experience in the workplace, and how the department can create more inclusive opportunities in the future for its ethnically diverse staff.

Start by mapping what you are already doing, using the shared workforce priorities as a framework for your thinking. This helps to build on strengths and highlights good practice in the council.

It is never too soon to start people on their leadership journey and support them to develop their leadership skills.

Getting involved in pilots is a constructive way to challenge thinking and practice. This includes national pilots such as the Social Care WRES or regional or local pilots such as the values-based recruitment approach being piloted.

Anna Woodberry, Workforce Development Officer – Adult Social Care

[email protected]

For more information, Stoke on Trent City Council's Corporate Strategy.