Major drop in applications for social care jobs across North Yorkshire

The gravity of the staffing crisis in social care has been underlined as North Yorkshire County Council launches its biggest ever recruitment drive for the sector.

The number of people applying for social care jobs has plummeted, partly due to yesterday’s introduction of mandatory vaccines for care staff.

A full meeting of the council next week will hear at least three of its executive members highlight concerns over the 70 per cent drop in applications for jobs in social care across the 500 providers in the county since July and providers continuing to go out of business, partly due to staff costs.

On any given day there are at least 1,000 jobs available across the county.

A high percentage of the county’s care homes are in the Harrogate district.

In an attempt to fill the vacancies, providers in the county are offering extra financial incentives to staff to take on the roles, from a £1,500 golden handshake for a care setting nursing role in Northallerton to carers being offered £2,000 for referring three friends.

Councillor Michael Harrison, executive member for adult services, said:

“We have people who have joined us from all different types of experiences, some from the entertainment sector; actors, drummers, from the travel sectors; pilots, cabin crew, and everything in-between.

“There is a great career to be had in care and great stability and we support people who join us with career development. From the word go you can make a big difference to somebody’s life in this job; the work that you do really counts towards improving lives and no two days are the same.”

There are 20,000 people in North Yorkshire working in the care sector, from the 13,000 care and support workers in 500 organisations providing services in residential care and people’s homes through to social workers, project managers and administrators.

The alerts come after the authority said it was having to intervene in a number of care homes to keep them staffed and the government undertook to provide workforce recruitment and retention funding to support local authorities and providers to recruit and retain sufficient staff over winter.

In a statement to the meeting, the authority’s leader, Councillor Carl Les, said:

“I am pleased that as the government launches a nationwide initiative we are undertaking more locally the biggest ever recruitment campaign to attract people into a rewarding and progressive career.”

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The council has recently warned the situation would only worsen with about 200 fewer care workers in the county due to rules requiring all care workers to be vaccinated.

Before yesterday’s deadline, numerous foreign-born care staff in North Yorkshire had said they would leave the UK if they had to have the covid jab to work.

Pay concerns

Care workers have also suggested the lack of pay progression, with staff with more than five years’ experience being paid just 6p more an hour than those with less than a year in the role in 2020-21 is a cause of recruitment difficulties.

In a statement to the meeting, Councillor Michael Harrison, the authority’s adult social care executive member said the county’s situation reflects fierce competition within the labour market alongside hospitality, retail, heavy goods transport and construction.

He said:

“Pressures are building within nursing, residential home and domiciliary care capacity as a result of workforce pressures within the external market, and we continue to see provider failures in the system.

“Packages of care are being handed back to the council to either re-source or find alternative solutions to keep people safe. This is putting significant pressure on and impacting our in-house provision as we try to find solutions for people or fill the gaps using staff from our services.

“This is impacting our ability to provide re-ablement and respite services. Complex care packages are being handed back at short notice alongside those requiring two carers or in more rural locations. In addition we are seeing care home providers withdraw from providing nursing care or withdraw completely from the market.”

Warning of “difficult choices” in the upcoming Budget, the council’s finance boss Councillor Gareth Dadd will tell the meeting that securing the necessary workforce remains acutely challenging.

In an attempt to ease staffing pressures, the council is working with providers and has just launched a recruitment campaign focusing on the diversity of career opportunities in care.

Coun Harrison said:

“We are working with providers and partners to look at options and ideas to work more efficiently and promote people’s safety should we not manage to recruit more people to the sector.

“A system plan is in place with short, medium and long term actions to address issues relating to workforce, which includes capacity for registered manager support to care homes, recruitment to reablement, and recruitment to NHS posts to ensure sufficient intermediate capacity is available to meet the growing demand.”

Flurry of Yorkshire Dales barn conversions raises call to close planning loophole

Developers are exploiting a planning loophole that allows them to convert traditional stone barns in the Yorkshire Dales, a meeting has heard.

Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s audit committee called for the loophole to be closed to ease the national park’s housing crisis.

A policy was introduced six years ago to conserve the area’s historic agricultural buildings. It allows owners to choose whether the barns become homes for locals or holiday lets.

But although the dual policy has brought some barns back into use, the overwhelming majority of permitted conversions have been holiday lets, which could be sold for about £500,000, the meeting heard.

Of the 198 planning consents granted, only 28 per cent have had local occupancy or rural worker restrictions placed on them.

Previous policies had required local occupancy of most barn conversions, the only exception being where it was linked to farm diversification, in which case holiday letting was also permitted.

The meeting heard many locals were being priced out of buying barns, as even derelict ones with planning permission to be converted were now being marketed at between £150,000 and £200,000.

Officers added at £1,500 per square metre, the costs of converting barns were usually higher than new-builds.

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They said barn conversions should be of wider socio-economic benefit to the national park, where there are several ongoing initiatives aiming at attracting younger residents.

Too many holiday lets

The meeting comes ahead of the creation of a new Local Plan for development.

David Ireton, the North Yorkshire County councillor for Upper Craven said he had been a supporter of the dual policy, but had changed his mind.

He said the authority was set to examine whether a principle place of residence requirement should be brought in on the barns, “which would then allow new blood to come into the Dales with children”.

Mr Ireton said:

“It’s disappointing that so many of these have gone for holiday lets. We’re trying to encourage people to come and live in the Dales, which has got to be good for keeping schools and businesses open.”

Swaledale councillor Richard Good said giving approval to a barn conversion that enabled a Swaledale farming family to remain in the Dales had done much good for the authority’s image.

He added:

“Every time there is one that’s to be a holiday cottage there’s load of muttering, but what can we do about it? Not a great deal.”

The authority’s longest-serving member Robert Heseltine said the barns remained an opportunity to “give that indigenous population a chance to have a permanent home”:

“This is something this authority has to address. There’s been an explosion of tourist accommodation, particularly at the lower end with yurts such like, but tourism isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of the economy in any rural area. The need to bring young blood into communities is something that should never be ignored.”

‘Bleak’ future for North Yorkshire fire service due to underfunding

North Yorkshire’s fire and rescue service faces a bleak outlook due to chronic underfunding, systemic on-call staffing shortages, crumbling buildings and out of date vehicles, a meeting has heard,

North Yorkshire’s police, fire and crime panel was told the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and the fire service, which serves about 824,000 people across the county, was working “exceptionally hard” to break even this year.

Chief financial officer Michael Porter told the meeting the service would be drawing on £638,000 of reserves to balance the books until April, but “next year is looking like it is going to be really challenging”.

Mr Porter said a £390,000 deficit had initially been forecast for 2022/23 from reserves to balance the 2022/23 budget, but that was likely to deepen significantly due to pay awards, soaring utility bills and increases in national insurance contributions.

The meeting heard unless restrictions on fire services increasing their council tax demands were eased by the government, the service would need to make more savings. Mr Porter said:

“There’s an awful lot of additional pressures that are lining up for the fire service for next year. Initial views on the settlement for next year are that it is probably not as generous as it has been for the police and the police have more scope to increase precept.”

The meeting heard members question why some £365,000 had been spent on “minor works” to fire service buildings, before hearing they were built as medium-term premises up to 70 years ago and constructed with interiors designed for a different time, when there were few female firefighters.

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Mr Porter said the service’s 30 buildings across the county and its fleet of vehicles had been significantly under-invested in for some time.

“There are a significant number of properties within the estate that are in dire need of replacement, as opposed to maintenance. The longer that we leave it or are unable to replace the buildings, the more we will have to spend patching them up.

“We have got an aged estate that doesn’t meet modern requirements and standards it is an inhibitor of what the organisation wants to do as it moves forward. We almost have to borrow every single penny we have to invest in the capital programme as it is. It is not a rosy picture.”

Sharing buildings

The meeting was told the fire service was considering sharing more buildings with other emergency services to cut costs, but the fire service needed to have bases spread across the county to reach emergencies in good time.

City of York Council leader Councillor Keith Aspden told the meeting recruitment issues over on-call firefighters had persisted for a long time, but overall funding was the key issue.

“Every time I see the fire minister I ask about capital grants for fire services and precept flexibility.  Unless something happens nationally things are going to get very difficult, particularly for services like this with relatively small budgets and rural areas.”

Interim Chief Fire Officer Jon Foster told members on-call recruitment remained a challenge due to changes in people’s lifestyles and covid had further impacted on it.

He said the service was examining changing terms and conditions and flexibility of being an on-call firefighter as the system was very outdated, paying a small amount for being available and a larger amount to attend calls.

After the meeting, the panel’s chair, Councillor Carl Les said:

“I think the situation is bleak. The fundamental problem is the overall funding for the fire and rescue service.

“Arguments will be made that the government grant could and should be increased, but also the fact that the precept regime with the fire and rescue service is very limited.

“I think we need to lobby the government that for small rural forces like North Yorkshire it would be useful if there was flexibility to go above the two per cent increase cap and levy an extra £5 or £10.

“We know that delivering services in rural areas is more expensive than delivering services in cities.

“For a number of years resources have been difficult to find to allocate for things like buildings and machinery that are getting older.”

North Yorkshire Police vetting details set out following Sarah Everard murder

Vetting procedures for North Yorkshire Police officers have been set out in a new report that aims to reassure residents following the murder of Sarah Everard.

The report by the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner follows its chief executive Simon Dennis saying last month he was not certain about some legal rules regarding the issue.

Resident Susan Galloway had questioned whether the North Yorkshire police, fire and crime panel, which scrutinises the commissioner, believed there were sufficient background checks on new recruits and police staff transferring to the North Yorkshire force and if the processes were adequate.

The report highlights how North Yorkshire Police carries out checks on all new recruits, from officers to volunteers, and also enhanced the vetting of transferees a year ago “to ensure we know as much as can be disclosed about the transferee”.

Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, who murdered Ms Everard, had used his warrant card to falsely arrest her just two years after being transferred into the Met from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, despite having faced indecent exposure allegations.

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The concerns were raised hours before Philip Allott resigned as the county’s commissioner after saying Ms Everard “never should have submitted” to arrest by Couzens.

Contractors and staff roles

The report outlines how the force follows the College of Policing vetting code so that anyone working on police and fire service property, including contractors, and also those working remotely with access to police systems have their backgrounds checked.

It details how the force also re-vets transferees, regardless of when they were last vetted by previous current force.

The report says: 

“The checks on transferees are enhanced by more in-depth questions to their force regarding previous complaints, intelligence held on anti-corruption / integrity unit systems, and performance concerns. We only accept new recruits and transferees once vetting clearance has been attained.

“North Yorkshire Police enhanced our vetting of transferees about one year ago, to ensure we know as much as can be disclosed about the transferee. This included no assumptions over information provided by their existing force that everything would be within the history documents provided.”

The report says the force assigns a vetting researcher to undertake a series of checks and wherever there is “a trace”, more detailed research is completed, the conclusions of which are reported to the force vetting manager.

However, the report states while all applicants are required to declare spent convictions there is no requirement for an applicant who is applying to take on a police staff role such as a receptionist, rather than an officer, to declare a conviction or caution.

£1.2bn Knaresborough incinerator has never met recycling targets

Environmental concerns have been raised over the performance of a controversial £1.2 billion waste recovery plant near Knaresborough after it emerged it has never met recycling targets.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s transport, environment and economy scrutiny committee heard councillors question whether the Allerton Park Waste Recovery venture had turned out to be fundamentally flawed.

The council awarded a contract to private company AmeyCespa to create the facility in 2014. It can process up to 320,000 tonnes of waste per year from York and North Yorkshire councils.

Peter Jeffreys, head of waste for both York and North Yorkshire councils told the meeting that since the site was launched in March 2018 “it’s been a slightly rocky start”, but there were a lot of positive signs that the plant was moving in the right direction.

He said councils were paying £3 less per tonne of waste than was forecast before the plant, which takes 220,000 tonnes of public waste and 50,000 tonnes of business waste annually, became operational.

A report to the meeting detailed how the councils had set a target of recycling or composting five per cent of the household waste it received, but the amount actually recycled or composted was between one and two per cent.

As a result of missing the targets, the councils levied AmeyCespa with a total of £653,000 in performance deductions for the first three years of the operation alone.

Mr Jeffreys said: 

“Whilst we are levying those reductions it doesn’t give us any satisfaction. We would far rather they hit the targets.”

Mr Jeffreys said the environmental targets had been missed partly because the mechanical treatment part of the plant had not been reliable. He said Amey had reconfigured the plant to push more materials through the mechanical treatment process.

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He said covid had led to staff shortages, which had seen the mechanical treatment area bypassed on some occasions.

25-year contract

In response, some councillors questioned whether the system was proving as much as a success as had been forecast when the scheme was approved amid a public outcry.

Cllr David Goode, a Liberal Democrat who represents Knaresborough, said the situation did not appear as positive as the council was making out, having missed key targets since the operation launched.

He said he was “struggling” with the initiative, bearing in mind the authority’s carbon reduction strategy, the government’s revised policies over waste management and the drive towards reducing reliance on single use items.

Cllr Goode said: 

“And then I look at a 25-year contract that seems to encourage us to maximise that amount of waste we are putting through to get the financial returns that we’re looking for and a government strategy that seems to indicate we would have to fundamentally change the nature of the contract that we have currently got.”

Mr Jeffreys said the authority was not “incentivising maximising waste”, but rather was finding a good end destination for business waste that could otherwise end up in landfill.”

‘Fantastic asset’

The committee’s chairman, Cllr Stanley Lumley, a Conservative who represents Pateley Bridge, said:

“Allerton waste plant was very controversial when it was going through the process of council and planning. I think it’s proved to be a fantastic asset for North Yorkshire.”

The council’s waste executive director Cllr Derek Bastiman said after visiting the site he was encouraged to see the amount of cardboard and plastic that was recovered from general waste.

He said: 

“It’s still the families that need educating on keeping their waste clean, whether that’s plastic bottle or cardboard.

“If they did that then we could recycle more than we do. If families could just be a bit more considerate when disposing of their waste that would certainly help with our figures.”

Call for government to reconsider Harrogate district school closure

Senior North Yorkshire county councillors have urged Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to reconsider a decision to close a Harrogate district primary school.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive has agreed to appeal to Mr Zahawi to give Baldersby St James Primary School, between Ripon and Thirsk, a 12-month stay of execution just three years after it became an academy and five years after the authority spent £400,000 of taxpayers’ money creating new classrooms.

A meeting of the council’s executive heard the Hope Sentamu Learning Trust had successfully applied to close the school next August. Councillors were told if the closure goes ahead the school would become the first academy in the county to close.

A spokesman for the trust said low pupil numbers “show no prospect of improving for many years ahead”, with predictions for demand for school places showing a steady decline until 2031/32.

The trust has said the reason for its decision was that the school currently had 22 pupils in two classes, one for key stage one and the other for key stage two. Some year groups have just one student

Helen Winn, chief executive of the trust, has said potential options, including speaking to other local multi-academy trusts, had been examined, but none were practically viable.

She said: 

“Due to the low intake at Baldersby St James, it has proved impossible to deliver the broad, balanced curriculum the children deserve.”

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The announcement comes just months after the North Yorkshire Rural Commission called for action to halt rural school closures, highlighting that children who attend small rural schools achieve better educational outcomes than urban children.

The meeting was told only nine children from the school’s catchment area were attending Baldersby St James, and numerous parents had taken their children elsewhere for many years, so the prospect of closure was “a consequence of parental choice”.

Parents campaign to save school

However, some parents and residents are battling the move, saying the school is a crucial community asset and that the decision was made behind closed doors before the school’s viability could be publicly examined.

Senior councillors said they felt it would be “very premature” to close the school given the exhaustive lengths the authority had recently gone to in an attempt to keep village schools open.

They highlighted how the school’s financial situation remained unclear as it was an academy, and said a lot of consultation should be undertaken before the doors of the grade II listed Victorian building close for a final time.

They agreed the closure should be delayed for 12 months to enable a credible business plan to be established.

The authority’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said it seemed “perverse” that the council was being asked to endorse the closure of a school that it would not have considered for closure as it was already maintaining village schools with fewer pupils.

Cllr Patrick Mulligan, the council’s education executive member, said the council was powerless to stop the closure as the decision would ultimately be made by the Schools Commissioner and Mr Zahawi.

He said there were sufficient school places in the area for Baldersby St James pupils to go elsewhere should the school close.

North Yorkshire combined authority could be created by 2023, says report

A combined authority for North Yorkshire and York could be created by 2023, according to a report.

Combined authorities bring together multiple councils to make joint decisions. Under devolution, they are chaired by a directly-elected mayor.

Ten have been created so far, including Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Tees Valley, whose respective mayors are Andy Burnham, Tracy Brabin and Ben Houchen.

A report by York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership reveals that informal talks with government had indicated the county’s first mayoral elections could be expected in May 2024 and a combined authority could be created during the 2022/23 financial year.

It says that creating a combined authority “as soon as practically possible” would position York and North Yorkshire for a share of the government’s post-Brexit UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which replaces EU structural funds and aims to reduce inequalities.

According to the report, other potential benefits of launching a combined authority before 2024 include developing investment projects, making them ready for approval when the mayor is elected.

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It comes as local authority leaders are to consider revising their requests from government as part of a devolution deal for North Yorkshire and York.

‘Devolution is a key part of levelling up’

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, said there would be no point in putting forward propositions that have not got a chance of success because they did not meet government criteria.

He said: 

“I think it makes imminent sense to make sure we are aligned to the latest government thinking on their investment priorities and also to identify where there are existing funding streams that we may want to tie into, like Bus Back Better, rather than negotiate with the Treasury directly for bus infrastructure funding.

“We need to be getting on with things, especially following Boris Johnson’s conference speech, as devolution is a key part of levelling up.”

Meanwhile, the paper calls for the introduction of an ask to stimulate town centre development, including Enterprise Zone-type tax relief.

The report says: 

“We will work together across local authorities, the LEP, Historic England and Homes England in a groundbreaking way to deliver an innovative transformation programme at scale across our town and city centres.

“This will bring historic and under-utilised buildings and spaces back into productive use, help to remodel and revitalise our town and city centres, and provide the flexibility for local priorities to come to the fore.”

 

County council considers return to face-to-face meetings

North Yorkshire County Council officials are to consider making councillors return to face-to-face meetings.

Authority bosses are considering the move despite online meetings leading to councillors claiming 131,338 miles fewer miles a year in expenses.

The county council is among a small number of local authorities which is continuing to hold its public decision-making meetings and debates online following the easing of pandemic restrictions.

The regulations which allowed virtual committee meetings to make decisions is no longer in force and the council’s leadership has repeatedly said it wants flexibility to hold some meetings online and others in person.

However, the government has given no indication whether it would support fresh legislation to enable local authorities to decide how they hold their meetings.

The council has calculated the pandemic measure led to 131,338 miles less mileage being claimed by councillors, saving £55,221, and an estimated 668 fewer working days being spent travelling to meetings.

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The authority, which is working towards becoming carbon neutral by 2030, has concluded resulting annual carbon dioxide emissions savings of online meetings add up to nearly 37 tonnes – the equivalent of taking about 70 cars off the road.

Nevertheless, it is understood some leading councillors are unhappy with continuing to burden the authority’s chief executive, Richard Flinton, with the responsibility for all decisions, particularly ones that are politically sensitive.

An officer’s report to the executive will say that it will be up to the executive to make a recommendation to a meeting of the full council in November.

It says: 

“The county council has a leadership role to play. As such, there is a question as to whether, as part of a return to more normal, pre- pandemic ways of living and working, the council should be leading by example and hold committee meetings in person once again.”

The issue has come under the spotlight just two weeks after the Government’s Covid-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021 was published, which stated if the NHS comes under sustained pressure the government would advise people to work from home.

Upper Dales Cllr Yvonne Peacock, who faces a two-hour return trip to attend meetings at County Hall in Northallerton, said online broadcasting of remote meetings had benefited residents in her area.

She said: 

“It saves taxpayers’ money and has kept everybody safe because we aren’t mixing. We know many people are double vaccinated, but the infection rates are still quite high in places, so at this stage I think we would do right to continue as we are.”

Active travel plans ‘should consider horse riders’ as well as cyclists and walkers

Equestrians have urged North Yorkshire County Council to consider horse riders as well as cyclists and pedestrians in active travel schemes.

The council, which is the highways authority, has secured funding for active travel schemes on the A59 between Harrogate and Knaresborough and on Victoria Avenue in Harrogate town centre.

The introduction of a low traffic neighbourhood on Beech Grove and Victoria Road in Harrogate also aims to promote active travel and reduce car usage.

A meeting of the council’s North Yorkshire Local Access Forum yesterday heard members raise concerns that such schemes focused specifically on walking and cycling rather than active travel generally.

Officers said it was recognised that horse riding had the same health and wellbeing benefits as cycling and walking.

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Forum member, horse rider and carriage driver Will Scarlett questioned how the authority had decided many urban routes would be unsuitable for horse riders, saying they were often left with no option but to ride on roads.

Discriminating against older people

Another forum member, Janet Cochrane, said she was concerned equestrians were being ignored by the council. 

She said many equestrians were older people and not providing for them highlighted “an element of discrimination” in the authority’s strategy.

She said: 

“I understand that you have to abide by national guidelines, but North Yorkshire is a predominantly rural county and there is a very high number of horses owned and used for leisure purposes. There has to be a way of incorporating them into the rights of way network.

“Although it is assumed that horses are mainly used for leisure purposes, in fact people do use them to go and visit their friends, they even use them for shopping, they use them to vote at polling stations.”

The council’s policy to focus active travel improvements on urban areas where schemes impact on the most people has been criticised by some rural residents, who say it leaves them with no option but to travel by motorised transport.

Caroline Bradley, of the British Horse Society, told the meeting the creation of new paths to increase active travel was to be welcomed provided that equestrians were included, as a minimum, to routes outside large town centres.

Ms Bradley said: 

“Many of the proposed routes will be in urban areas. However, many horses are kept on the urban fringe, so it is important that equestrians are not excluded from routes that exit the urban areas into the surrounding environment.

“Active travel and local walking and cycling initiatives should not in any way compromise the use of public rights of way by making them less amenable to existing lawful users.”

Gritting to be reduced to minimum on North Yorkshire roads

North Yorkshire County Council looks set to reduce its precautionary winter salt spreading to minimum levels set out in national guidelines.

A report before the county council reveals lowering the minimum salting spread rate to 8g per square metre could save the authority a further £75,000 during a “normal season”.

In recent years the council has faced calls to review its gritting policies amid claims that a lack of action has seen parts of the county suffer gridlock,

The proposed move follows the authority cutting the amount of salt it spread on the county’s 6,000 miles of roads last winter with the ambition of saving £195,000 of taxpayers money a year.

Under the Highways Act 1980, councils have a duty to ensure within reason that safe passage along roads is not endangered by snow or ice, while the Traffic Management Act 2004 requires authorities to do all that is reasonably practicable to manage the network effectively to keep traffic moving.

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The Local Government Association says with the salt and grit mix costing up to £40 per tonne, this duty can weigh heavily on councils, particularly when there are long, cold winters.

National guidance states authorities must determine their own spread rates that are appropriate for use on their own networks.

‘No negative impacts last winter’

The officer’s report states the further proposed cut follows the experience of last winter’s partially reduced spread rates, along with greater confidence in gritter accuracy, coupled with the recent £2.2 million purchase by North Yorkshire Highways of 18 new gritters.

It states: 

“As no negative impacts were observed or detected, we now propose to reduce the spread rates further in line with the national guidance.

“Whilst any definite cost saving is impossible to predict as it will depend on the prevailing weather conditions, it is expected that these reductions will save around £75k during a normal season.”

Cllr Stuart Parsons, leader of the authority’s Independent group, said residents “paid through the nose for the county council’s services”, so they should be able to expect some returns.

He questioned whether North Yorkshire’s geography would make it suitable for the national minimum salting levels.

Cllr Parsons said: 

“It is fine if you are looking at some of the home counties that are basically flat to go down to the national minimum level, but when you’ve got hill after hill, bend after bend, mile after mile of winding roads with little to no treatment on them they are going to bring the whole of the rural economy to a grinding stop.

“The last people they seem concerned about are the residents, who they now call customers.”