Recruiting, retaining and developing a diverse workforce

Recruiting, retaining and developing a diverse workforce
Local government services are only as good as the behaviours, skills and knowledge of the people delivering them. It is essential that local government recruits, retains and develops the right people in the right place at the right time.

Local Government Pay and Workforce Strategy
The Local Government Pay and Workforce Strategy provides councils with a framework for developing an effective approach to people management and development, ensuring that the right people are in the right jobs at the right times.

The key priorities of the Pay and Workforce Strategy are:

  • developing the organisation
  • developing leadership capacity
  • developing workforce skills and capability
  • resourcing local government
  • pay and rewards

The Local Government Pay and Workforce Strategy helps local government to:

  • plan future workforce needs
  • forge partnerships to tackle recruitment problems
  • boost the skills of HR officers
  • ensure that local government is seen as an attractive employer

More information about the Pay and Workforce Strategy is available on the IDeA website.

Recruiting young people
Only 7% of local government employees are under the age of 25, compared with a national economy average of 15%. In common with many employers, local government has an ageing workforce. The lack of young recruits to the sector is a great challenge. Local government needs young, talented employees with fresh ideas, who are willing to learn about local government and who will one day become the managers of the future.

Many councils are addressing this by visiting local schools to talk about the large range of career opportunities available and offering work experience. Councils are also running Apprenticeship programmes and trainee schemes, which allow young people to earn money at work, while also learning and gaining qualifications.

The IDeA runs a national graduate development programme for local government, which aims to give graduates the skills and experience they need to become local government managers in the future.

Recruiting a diverse workforce
Local government is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for all its employees and service users. All councils have a recruitment policy clearly stating that no person will be discriminated against for reasons of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, culture or language.

Diversity means taking into account all differences. It values the different contributions different people can make. Local councils recognise that the strength of an organisation lies in having a diverse workforce. This means that a council can use the skills, knowledge and life experiences of its many different employees from different backgrounds to help develop services appropriate to the needs of the wider community.

More details of how local councils are working on equality and diversity issues is available on the IDeA website.

Local government skills
There are some areas of local government work, which particularly need new recruits. The top ten areas are: