Redeployed staff are vital for council
Staff that have been redeployed to Powys County Council’s Social Services are vital and will remain in place for at least another month.
Councillors at the Health and Care scrutiny committee web meeting on Friday were told that the redeployed workers would need to stay in their new roles in case of another “surge” of coronavirus infections.
The discussion was sparked by a question from Councillor Ange Williams.
Councillor Williams said: “How effective has moving staff from other areas of the council been? And how long do you expect them to stay in their new roles?”
Director of Social Services, Ali Bulman, told the councillors that 194 workers from other areas of the council had slotted into different roles in social services.
Ms Bulman, said: “It’s astonishing really, we have no contractual way of compelling staff to do this, it’s being done by goodwill and commitment to the council, which is outstanding.
“We’re looking at recovery and those services that are currently not being done.
“At this time, we are so reliant on those 194 redeployed staff to cover our mission critical activities, that they will not be returning to their substantive posts for at least the next month, maybe six weeks.”
She added that the the activities would remain under constant review, as just concentrating on dealing with Covid-19 and not doing the day job was creating it’s own “risks.”
Ms Bulman said: “I don’t see any return to business as usual for social services for at least six weeks and it may be beyond that.
“We need to factor in any potential second surge of Covid-19 into our planning.”
Adult social services portfolio holder, Councillor Myfanwy Alexander added that number of staff affected by coronavirus also needed to be considered.
Councillor Alexander said: “We have a considerable number of staff who are unwell themselves or have a member of a household unwell, and some with long term health problems are shielding.
“Part of our balance for the mission critical work is to ensure that we have a team that can deal with that workload.
“Bearing in mind our own staff have vulnerabilities and we have an absolute duty their welfare.”
Councillor Alexander believed that as more testing for the virus takes place it would become easier for people to return back to work.
According to the council, 750 workers have been on their redeployment list.
They are now working in areas including childcare hubs, waste and recycling collections, income and awards, social services, domiciliary care and customer services.
