Local Authorities Struggling to Catch Up

Since the start of the Pandemic it has been extremely difficult for councils to deal with an increase in demand for certain services such as businesses applying for COVID grants and residents applying for isolation benefits, but whilst the demand has increased local authorities have had to deal with staff shortages and higher levels of sickness.

Because of this local authorities are now playing “catch up” trying to clear the backlogs that have built up over the months. Only recently York Council were discussing how the ‘Perfect Storm’ has been created due to Brexit and the Pandemic leaving them with a backlog of over 6,000 housing repairs and maintenance jobs. Cheshire East Council highlighted that they have seen an increase in complaints to their customer services centre due to a rise of 15% in planning applications but the planning team have been facing staff shortages.

It is also impacting the Finance and Accounting and Revenues and Benefits teams with Birmingham City Council discussing, back in July, that they have a shortage of professionally qualified accountants with experience across the council and the recruitment process to fill these roles has been extremely difficult.

Dealing with the Stress Staff Shortages Bring

Due to the clear apparent staff shortages; recruiting issues and the continued effects of the Pandemic doesn’t need to become a problem. There are some simple solutions to support you.

Choosing to utilise some managed services from a trusted partner to support your staff will help them to get back on top of things relatively quickly. Using a managed services provider doesn’t have to be about shipping out key services that you provide, it can be about leveraging their services to backfill key staffing positions such as those discussed by Birmingham City Council. Some managed service providers can offer bodies to be able to fill the roles Authorities have been struggling to fill. In some cases, by leveraging these providers it can potentially see cost savings of around 50% compared to when hiring temporary staff and in some instances, it has seen around 30% savings compared to employing permanent staff.

Aside from the potential cost savings achieved through utilising a managed service option, authorities are also able to gain benefits from those suppliers networks and can scale up or down at a rate an Authority requires.

Deal with Demand Now and in the Future

To help local authorities with filling their staffing needs immediately or within the future, should demand for services increase, Capacitygrid is here to help with our Anytime Service. This service provides on-demand support services to over 50 different local authorities currently and covers a wide range of work packages.

If you want to find out how our Anytime Services can benefit your authority, contact our team today.