The right changes could help councils ‘grow their own’ workforce
Local government is in the grip of a capacity crisis.
Although our sector remains among the most challenging, life-changing and varied in which to work – where else could you find 800 different professions working side by side, from aardvark wranglers to zip testers, and everything else in between? – we have an ageing, and shrinking, workforce, down 40 per cent in a decade.
We have an increased demand for services, from social care to homelessness prevention, compounded by a recruitment and retention crisis that only seems to get worse.
This perfect storm has been building for years, and has left councils overburdened, underfunded and increasingly understaffed.
LGA research shows that 94 per cent of councils face recruitment and retention difficulties. More than half say they don’t have enough staff to run all services normally, while a similar proportion of council leaders say that workforce capacity issues will affect their ability to deliver services in the coming months and years.
We remain the lowest-paying part of the public sector, with other employers, from local hospitals to supermarkets, able to outbid us for talent.
Tackling the financial issues in the sector will take time, but we also know that pay, while it is a major obstacle in many areas, is not the only issue; there just aren’t enough qualified people in many specialist professions.
“Councils are working hard to spend more of the levy, but are hamstrung by a system that is too restrictive”
So, we need to do more to boost the supply of qualified staff coming into – and staying in – our sector and attract more young people.
There’s no silver bullet to this, but the weapons we do have in our arsenal are apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships offer us a way of ‘growing our own’, upskilling existing staff, and adding development opportunities to our retention offer. Encouragingly, 78 per cent of councils say they are looking to increase apprenticeship numbers to tackle their skills needs.
We know that local government’s record in this space is a good one. Since the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced in 2017, councils and our maintained schools have worked diligently to create more than 100,000 apprenticeship starts in our sector, and fund thousands more in our supply chains and with local businesses through use of levy transfers.
We now create more than double the number of apprenticeship starts, on average, each year (13,800) than we did before the levy’s introduction (6,000).
With more than 225 apprenticeship standards mapping across one or more of our 800-plus job roles, there are significant opportunities to use these qualifications to develop the skills we need. Yet we also know that the system as it currently operates is holding councils back.
Apprenticeship starts in our sector have flatlined for three years running and have failed to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Barely half of the £1 billion councils have paid into the levy has been spent, with around £200 million in unused funds reclaimed by central government after hitting the 24-month expiry limit.
This is funding, drawn from councils’ own budgets, that is ultimately being used to pay for apprenticeships in other sectors, at a time when that investment is badly needed for our own workforce.
Councils are working hard to spend more and more of the levy each year, but are hamstrung by a system that is too restrictive.
With the right changes, local government could do so much more to tackle our capacity crisis and boost local economic growth.
Reform of the levy has been limited, with only the increase in the levy transfer limit (now up to 50 per cent of an employer’s annual contributions) and a workaround to end the injustice that saw voluntary-aided and faith schools unable to access apprenticeship funding simply because councils ran their payroll being enacted in the past few years.
Both changes were lobbied for extensively by the LGA and were helpful, but with more ambitious reform, councils can be released from the shackles and use apprenticeships much more effectively.
Any reform should include a bespoke approach to tackle the unique needs of the local government workforce.
Government should consider allowing councils to retain all levy funds generated by the sector, ending the effective top-slice and ensuring every penny is reinvested in tackling our workforce challenges.
It should also look at allowing a small proportion of levy funds to be used to pay for apprenticeship-related activity, to help unlock more starts; if 10 per cent of our levy funds could be used flexibly for administration costs, pre-apprenticeship training, resits, backfill costs or salary subsidy, we could reduce dropout rates and unlock thousands more starts.
Government also needs to: maintain access to Level 7 apprenticeship standards in key skills-shortage areas such as planning, legal and finance; develop a list of non-apprenticeship qualifications eligible for funding that would support skills development in the sector, such as digital or leadership; and ensure a replacement for the discontinued Level 2 Business Administration apprenticeship is in place, to help recruit more young people into the sector.
Some of the early moves by the new Government could provide fresh opportunities.
Transforming the Apprenticeship Levy into a new Growth and Skills Levy that gives employers some flexibility to use funds on non-apprenticeship training is positive. The creation of Foundation Apprenticeships will allow employers to use levy funds on pre-apprenticeship training for the first time; and with significant involvement from local government in its development, a replacement for the Level 2 Business Administration Apprenticeship now looks to be on the way in the autumn.
Alongside the Deputy Prime Minister’s creation of a new Local Government Workforce Development Group, there are positive signs of the Government’s commitment to engage with us on these critical issues.
As ever, the devil will be in the detail, but I look forward to working closely with government to ensure the badly needed reforms of the skills system, including to the Apprenticeship Levy, work effectively, recognise the particular challenges councils face, and help us develop the workforce we need to deliver for our communities.
- National Apprenticeship Week took place from 10-16 February. The LGA’s virtual Local Government Apprentice of the Year event takes place from 20-21 May – Book your place by 29 April.