Workforce Planning, e-Workforce Systems / Bank and agency management, MAST Streamlining, Enabling Staff Movement, People Plan - HR Services Strategy
Workforce Planning
Our Workforce Planning Objectives for 24/25
Our Workforce Planning Programme
eWorkforce Systems
This year we completed the first South Yorkshire (SY) NHS collaborative procurement exercise, for medical and Agenda for Change (AfC) eworkforce systems, inclusive of job planning, appraisal and rostering systems. In addition, our ICB team led negotiations with the preferred SY system supplier for Job Evaluation, securing a 20% group buying discount as a result, which organisations are able to claim at the time of their contact renewal. Whilst there were challenges in these processes, the economies of scale and financial savings achieved in contracts were evident for the organisations who fully participated, and the lessons learned from the exercise will be invaluable as our collective purchasing objectives continue next year as part of a broader SY People Digital Strategy.
Aside from purchasing and procurement, we have scoped a new pilot project focussing on AHP job planning, pending CPO approval. Also, our SY e-roster leads network continues to provide a space for shared learning and driving standardisation in rota management as a crucial area of eWorkforce systems. We have maintained and managed a close relationship with core e-roster supplier RL Datix, leading to increased optimisation and co-design of important new supporting tools such as recently launched oversight reports. These reports enable organisations to improve rota planning, leading to associated benefits in terms of temporary staffing reductions and – by extension - optimum service delivery for patients.
Temporary workforce
2024/25 has seen significant progress in reducing temporary staffing costs for nursing and midwifery across SY, especially in agency costs (60% reduction year to date). This has been achieved through targeted ICB-led support and interventions to influence Trust booking habits and control measures, as well as work to identify and address the root causes of bank/agency usage, with collaborative work and shared learning progressed through our SY Bank and Agency Leads network.
In addition to maintaining and further reducing nursing/midwifery temporary workforce spend, focus for the final quarter of the year shifted to the temporary medical workforce, which was identified as a key workforce driver for the SY system financial deficit. For this purpose, we established an ICB-led programme of work at pace and in conjunction with Chief People Officer/Medical Directors. This has involved each SY NHS organisation agreeing Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) in order to formulate action plans leading to tangible medical workforce savings in Q4 and beyond. Through providing organisations with the necessary data and supporting/tracking their progress, we have already been able to demonstrate significant financial savings through Q4 at several organisations and understand the key areas of focus to ensure this progress is continued and upscaled across SY in 2025/26.
In other staff groups, SY non-medical non-clinical agency usage has been reduced significantly (by 82% year to date), with much of this progress attributable to our influence on booking behaviours and scrutiny through the ICB led controls and authorisation process for all SY organisations. This has included specific ICB challenge and resulting reductions on NHS England key target areas – i.e. over cap/off framework agency use across all staff groups. SY total agency costs were 1.7% of total pay bill for the year 2024/25 (1.3% in January; regional average 1.8%; national average 2.4%), demonstrating our ability to use workforce data, stakeholder influence and supplier relationships to best effect in order to drive down temporary workforce demand/costs.
Recruitment
We have progressed various strands of recruitment collaboration and upscaling through the course of the year. This includes the SY Time to Hire project, which brings a collective focus on to the NHS recruitment journey and the need to find efficiency gains through improving and streamlining organisational process across SY. Through these collective efforts, we have managed to take almost a week off the average length of time to hire across SY NHS organisations. In addition, we have designed a new ‘one employer’ approach to mutual recognition of pre-employment checks across SY NHS organisations, avoiding unwarranted duplication of checks, with a pilot phase expected to launch early in 2025/26.
Aside from our work to streamline and standardise recruitment efficiencies, our team has also been progressing important objectives for inclusive recruitment, in response to NHS England’s EDI Improvement Plan and priorities highlighted through WRES data. Work on this theme has included the SY Inclusive Recruitment Group, which has aided shared learning and standardisation of inclusive recruitment training methods across SY organisations. Our dedicated Inclusive Nurse Progression project has utilised QSIR methodology for a comprehensive data capturing exercise (including a survey completed by 330 nurses across all organisations and dedicated focus groups) to inform recommendations to improve the career progression experiences of nurses from all ethnic backgrounds.
On Job Evaluation, we have facilitated collective discussions between CPOs and CNOs, leading to the formation of a new SY Steering Group which has commenced planning and collaborative preparation for the new national nursing profiles, to ensure a consistent response from SY organisations.
Enabling Staff Movements
This year we have continued to support and develop key staff movement tools, including the Digital Staff Passport (DSP), SY Workforce Sharing Agreement and the SY Retaining Talent Protocol. In light of the national delays to full rollout of the DSP, we have ensured locally developed tools remain active to support temporary staff movements within the system, and that support is in place for colleagues at risk of redundancy to secure a guaranteed interview at other SY organisations (where applicable). In addition, we have continued to support the StatMand training provision, utilising our connections with the SY StatMand Governance Group to ensure SY compliance with the national reform agenda rolled out this year.
Partnership Working
We have continued to support and enhance staff side partnership relations through the South Yorkshire Social Partnership Forum (SY SPF) and its associated subgroups. These subgroups include the SY Job Evaluation Group (SY JEG) through which our team has organised and supported three regional cohorts of Job Evaluation (JE) training, increasing the JE capacity across SY organisations for the coming years with 48 newly trained job matchers. Another key development for the SY SPF is a partnership commitment to a new project focussing on avoiding harm to our people through organisational change, which is currently being scoped and will represent a key workstream in 2025/26. Trade union feedback through our SY SPF membership is consistently complimentary, with recent positive feedback on our ‘progressive’ approach.
In addition to the SY SPF, we have led engagement and collaboration through the SY Chief People Officers (CPO) and Deputy CPO networks throughout the year, responding to numerous urgent strategic needs and short-term project work as commissioned by these groups.
People Plan
Through this year we have progressed a wide-ranging portfolio of work, all linked to priority areas of national NHS policy including: The Future of HR and OD in the NHS; NHS People Plan; NHS Long Term Plan and NHS EDI Improvement Plan. We have also sought to consolidate local collaborative workstreams, for example aligning our Scaling of People Service programme (encompassing recruitment, people digital strategy and workforce data) with the plans and priorities of other leadership bodies such as the SY Acute Federation. This has enabled us to develop a robust, targeted programme of work in readiness for ongoing focus in 2025/26 on key national objectives relating to workforce standardisation, optimisation and cost reductions.
ICB People Services Strategy
This year saw the establishment of the People Services Team, which has focussed on support for ICB colleagues by providing refined and accurate people processes that aid efficiency and minimise duplication.
A key outcome for the year was the successful delivery of new internal structures within ESR and the outlining of new processes to keep all systems accurate and effective for establishment reporting and other internal reports across a wide range of workforce data themes.
Alongside this, we delivered a new establishment control processes for SY ICB, with a system and process that shows clearly defined roles, responsibilities and governance.
We also Introduced internal controls and documented processes (SOPs) to aid new and experienced employees alike in relation to efficiencies and understandings of tasks and responsibilities linked to people processes, bringing benefit and the best outcomes for all users.