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Save Multi-agency services: Recruitment or secondment
Multi-agency services can recruit their staff in two key ways:
- through direct recruitment
- through partnership agreements or secondments with other agencies.
Direct recruitment
Recruitment involves employing practitioners to work in the service on a temporary or permanent contract.
In the extended schools pathfinders, some used the funding to buy in non-teacher expertise to address additional needs and personal development, for example youth workers, counsellors and other specialist staff. This was particularly the case where time pressures meant that partner agencies could not respond quickly enough to requests for partnership working and staffing arrangements.
For example, the evaluation of the extended schools pathfinder projects found that one school had funding for health professionals, but had to take on the employment of these staff themselves, since the health service was unable to make quick decisions about whether they could use the funding to employ the workers.
There were also examples of schools employing education staff to deliver services previously offered by external agencies due to problems in getting those agencies to deliver the level of service required under their extended school proposals. Examples included a teaching assistant undertaking therapeutic group work in school rather than a psychologist or counsellor.
Some of the benefits of recruitment are:
- you are able to fill the post, even if staff shortages mean that local agencies who are not in a position to offer staff themselves
- you are likely to have more influence over who is working within the service than you might do when going down a secondment route.
However, recruitment is not without its challenges and drawbacks:
- Recruitment can draw staff away from statutory services – such as social services – leaving these under-resourced and unable to provide the specialist support needed to back up the work of the integrated service.
- If you are only able to offer a short-term contract, this may be unattractive and could result in small numbers of candidates to choose from.
- Services with high numbers of directly recruited staff may see the multi-agency nature of the service being undermined, particularly if links with parent agencies are weak.
- The lead agency may not have the expertise to take full management responsibility for certain aspects of provision.
These challenges point to the need for a coordinated approach to recruitment across all agencies as a constructive way forward. For example, a single human resources function across the children's trust can help to ensure that services are staffed in a complementary way, rather than competing with each other.
Services that have carried out successful recruitment processes have used the following techniques:
- Some have brought in graduates and other less qualified staff, to give them a 'starting point' from which they can work their way up.
- Other areas have developed the capacity of parents to get involved as staff or volunteers. This can work well if it gives parents the opportunity to develop key skills and enhance employability.
- At the very beginning of the process, one area placed a joint advert to show the joined-up thinking across agencies. The logos of all the relevant services appeared on the advert.
- One area 'took a risk' by making some permanent appointments, but felt on balance that this showed their commitment to the development of multi-agency working.
- One area placed all their adverts at the same time, then held a local recruitment fair at a hotel and issued a press release. The fair was attended by 600 people and 1200 applications were given out. They felt this approach was necessary because the contracts were short term so they were keen to generate as broad an interest as possible.
Your lead body or home agency is likely to have its own recruitment procedures you can use and build on, so these are not included in this toolkit.
Remember you will need to carry out Criminal Records Bureau checks for new employees. Find out more on the Criminal Records Bureau website.
Partnership agreements and secondments
In this model of staffing, practitioners remain employed by their home agency, but agree to work in the multi-agency service on a full-time or part-time basis. The appointment will be formalised by a partnership agreement or a secondment agreement. In many cases the home agency will fund the post.
'We got professional qualified staff who otherwise wouldn't have left their jobs for us.'
Manager, Sure Start evaluation, 2005
In children's centres this is an important way of filling posts. When it works well it has a number of benefits:
- It gives the integrated service access to skills that they may not be able to bring in through recruitment.
- It enables practitioners to develop a new range of skills and networks, while maintaining links with their home agency which allow them to keep in touch with what is going on. This is likely to mean that the home agency is more trusting of and receptive to the work of the team.
- It enables the partner organisation to develop a stake in the programme and to develop a more preventive remit to their services.
- It may be an attractive option for staff not wishing to change terms and conditions and who wish to resume their mainstream career.
- It may be an attractive option for statutory agencies not wishing to lose key staff permanently.
- It ensures that skills are replenished and updated in the team.
- It can pave the way for mainstreaming multi-agency services by illustrating how a flexible approach on the part of statutory agencies can help them deliver services in new ways.
At the same time, it can present management challenges where people have dual lines of accountability, particularly where they work part-time both in the integrated setting and in their home organisation. This was one of the issues identified in Implementing Sure Start local programmes: An in-depth study (2005).
Other challenges include:
- some organisations do not have sufficient resource to locate staff in an integrated service
- staff can fall between two management systems and cultures
- some practitioners are concerned that during their absence from their home agency they might miss out on promotion and professional training opportunities
- replacing staff can be slow and the staff composition may frequently change
- in isolated incidents, some organisations may use this route as a way of relinquishing responsibility for underperforming staff
- other agencies may use this route to relieve themselves of responsibility for providing services themselves
- there can be differences in terms and conditions between staff doing similar jobs.
Two Sure Start programme managers expressed reservations about having seconded staff working in the programme: one because it represented a loss of control; and another because of the 'hurdles related to differentials in pay and contracts'. 'It's not easy; there is a lot of tension.'
Services that have overcome these challenges have:
- invested a lot of time in the planning phase with other service managers
- put in place detailed service level agreements so that all three parties –practitioner, home agency, integrated service – are clear about roles and responsibilities
- amended practitioners' existing contracts, or drawn up an additional contract that lasts for the length of their time with the integrated service
- worked to help managers from home agencies understand the implications of staff working for two or more organisations
- worked with home agencies when they are recruiting new staff, so that together they can set job descriptions and interview candidates for working in an integrated service.
Training and development can help to promote clarity of roles, as well as providing any additional skills that may be necessary for staff to deliver a coherent service to the target group and to carry out best practice in relation to the available evidence base.
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Last updated on 30/04/2009
