We will work with our partners to develop a clearer understanding of issues relating to recruitment and retention in Shetland and deliver a strategy that focuses our work on overcoming barriers to recruiting and retaining working age people.
The Council has been focused on delivering its Workforce Plan, agreed in September 2021. As part of that, work has been prioritised on addressing the most significant challenges facing services in terms of recruitment and hard to fill posts. The Promote Shetland recruitment campaigns for teachers, planners and social care staff, mentioned in the previous section, have been an important part of that and have ensured that recruitment efforts for key posts have attained national reach.
As well as attracting people to move to Shetland, we have also been doing work to help young people consider careers in our isles. Through Developing the Young Workforce, the Council has sought to take a proactive approach to engaging with businesses and young people to understand the local labour market and the particular recruitment and retention challenges and opportunities. As an example, the team met representatives from the construction industry to discuss a framework for their engagement with schools.
We are also sponsoring eight employees to complete the BA in Social Work and four are due to graduate this year. There are three sponsorships for the post-grad Practice Education Award and one for the post-grad qualification in Mental Health Officer Award. One social worker has recently completed the mental health award, which will strengthen the numbers in the Mental Health team. We have struggled to employ experienced social workers, however, we have hired four newly qualified social workers over the past year.
We are also seeking expressions of interest from Children’s Services staff to become qualified teachers as part of a ‘grow our own’ programme. The offer is for staff to undertake the part time Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (primary or secondary) over two years. Staff can continue to work whilst undertaking the qualification. This includes a guaranteed probationary teaching year in Shetland.
There are 190 employees being supported to achieve qualifications across the Council as part of career grade progression, succession planning and talent management routes. We are continuing to offer apprenticeships across the Council and currently have eight Graduate Apprentices and 34 Modern Apprentices undertaking a range of different apprenticeship frameworks.