Decision details

Seeks approval for changes to our current establishment in Children’s Social Care Business Support to retain coverage of the essential duties, staff experience, skills and knowledge in order to maintain a high standard of service delivery. To reduce our dependency on agency and support the recruitment challenges facing the service.
This is set within the context of the development of our Target Operating Model to ensure the service is fit for the future in line with our vision for Children’s Services in Oldham.

RESOLVED - That:
Incorporate 1 FTE grade 4 Senior Business Support Officer, 1 FTE grade 3 CLA Administrator, 1 FTE and 0.8 FTE grade 3 Higher Level Business Support Officer into the Children’s Social Care business support establishment in budget code 63955.
To retain coverage of the essential duties, staff experience, skills and knowledge in order to maintain a high standard of service delivery. To support the reduction on our dependency for agency workers and the recruitment challenges facing the service. To continue support of the statutory duties for our Children Looked After and LADO. To continue supporting the financial processes for statutory payments to our service users.

Option A – incorporate 1 FTE grade 4 Senior Business Support Officer, 1 FTE grade 3 CLA Administrator, 1 FTE and 0.8 FTE grade 3 Higher Level Business Support Officer into the Children’s Social Care business support establishment in budget code 63955.
This is the preferred option to retain coverage of the essential duties, staff experience, skills and knowledge in order to maintain a high standard of service delivery. To support the reduction on our dependency for agency workers and the recruitment challenges facing the service. To continue support of the statutory duties for our Children Looked After and LADO. To continue supporting the financial processes for statutory payments to our service users.
Option B – Revert the postholders back into their substantive posts. Retain the LADO business support on grade 2.
This option is not recommended because it would result in losing coverage of the essential duties, staff experience, skills and knowledge in order to maintain a high standard of service delivery to meet our statutory duties. It would be demoralising to revert the postholders back into their substantive posts.
Option C – Continue to extend the temporary acting up arrangements pending outcome of the business support review.
This option is not recommended because of the likelihood being that these posts will be recommended to continue as an outcome of the review and will therefore maintain anomalies within the HR and Financial systems.

Option B – Revert the postholders back into their substantive posts. Retain the LADO business support on grade 2.
This option is not recommended because it would result in losing coverage of the essential duties, staff experience, skills and knowledge in order to maintain a high standard of service delivery to meet our statutory duties. It would be demoralising to revert the postholders back into their substantive posts.
Option C – Continue to extend the temporary acting up arrangements pending outcome of the business support review.
This option is not recommended because of the likelihood being that these posts will be recommended to continue as an outcome of the review and will therefore maintain anomalies within the HR and Financial systems.

There has been full consultation with all relevant
parties affected by this decision.