Bringing the shared workforce priorities into strategic and operation workforce thinking on the Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight Council is the local authority for the Isle of Wight in England. Since 1995 it has been a unitary authority, having also taken on district-level functions when the county's districts were abolished. It is based at County Hall in Newport.

The Isle of Wight is a county of two halves. In the summer the island is very busy with a large influx of tourists. In the winter it is very quiet. For people working in social care on the island it can be quite hard to not bump into people you are supporting in a range of non-support environments. This can have both positive and not so positive impacts on relationships between people being supported and people who are doing the supporting. In addition it can be hard to recruit and retain people working in social care who are not local to the Isle of Wight.

The adult social care and housing team on the Isle of Wight has a workforce plan and has just launched its 2024/2025 refreshed plan; having completed and outlined successes in its 2023/2024 plan.

Here’s how the shared workforce priorities support that plan and gives them a simple framework against which they can test their thinking and progress.

Strategic workforce planning

The workforce plan has clear principles and values that are owned by the leadership team and wider workforce, this helps to empower each other's teams and make sure that they all feel included.

Partnership working is a very important part of the approach. Maintaining good relationship with system partners, providers, voluntary sector, carers is essential. This enables improved market intelligence, thus influencing how to think about sustainability and resilience.

Growing the workforce

Sustainable pay, in line with government announcements, is a key part of growing the workforce, alongside values based retention and recruitment.

The council has a range of ‘grow our own’ initiatives, careers links with providers, a developing leaders programme, a graduate scheme, and apprenticeships or traineeships across the whole department.

Rewarding career pathways are a key part of how to hold onto people and with strong links to learning and development programmes, the council can offer a bespoke approach to the needs of its workforce.

Increased use of technology

As part of its workforce plan, the council is focusing on digital skills, self-assessment, the role of AI and tech enabled care. It is supporting social work colleagues, the team who operate its community equipment store and its occupational therapists to develop and deliver alternative support solutions for local people.

By developing digital leaders, with support via the corporate team, it is aiming to deliver a robust understanding of the capabilities of digital support and digital solutions that enable its workforce to ‘think digital’ and support the use of different technologies, particularly around care and support at the start of someone’s social care support journey.

Improving wellbeing

The wellbeing of staff is of critical importance and in this area both practical resources and support are key. The Isle of Wight has developed a wellbeing app and nominated wellbeing champions. Regular conversations about wellbeing, including wellbeing as part of supervision and putting on learning days supported by the director of adult social services (DASS) are all part of its approach to the wellbeing of our workforce.

The Isle of Wight is evaluating impact of its wellbeing programme via action points in its workforce plan, planned supervision audits and sharing learning via a ‘So What Forum’ and its quality and performance board. It has seen a reduction in the level of sickness and absence across the department since providing a greater focus to supporting wellbeing.

Building and enhancing social justice

Setting out social justice as part of its workforce planning and working with pride in practice forum are part of its approach. The Isle of Wight is also focused on ‘So What’ in its policy and procedures to help ensure that its approach to social justice is making a difference.

Ethical practice is also an important part of its pride in practice forum. the ‘So What’ audits are specifically directed to focus on ethical practice and safeguarding. There are strong links with local safeguarding teams, the Safeguarding Adults Board and access to learning and forums to support all of its workforce.

One current action point in its workforce plan is addressing inequalities: exploring difference and celebrating individuals.

Supportive inclusive and enabling leadership

To support leadership the Isle of Wight worked with the Institute of Public Care to develop a coproduced leadership training programme. It is currently working on communication, strategy in the context of leadership. Additionally it is implementing a developing leaders course, via its corporate team. This programme is well attended.

As part of its diversity programme, it has a management tile on its 'Adult social care and housing toolkit' which is dedicated to diversity and inclusion and its DASS represented the department at the council's equalities and diversity board.

The shared workforce priorities help to frame what the Isle of Wight is doing to support and develop its workforce in collaboration with local partners. They help them think about how they are addressing each priority and what they could do differently and where they need to stay the same.

The Isle of Wight's adult social care and housing workforce plan has been developed with and by the leadership team and delivered by the department operationally.

Regular updates to test out progress and challenges and identifying solutions are key to making the workforce plan remain relevant and supportive of our departmental plans.

Close working relationships with human resources and learning and development colleagues, development of a dashboard as well as succession planning to future proof its workforce locally.

1. Make sure that the workforce plan remains a live document is key to ensuring it continues to be relevant to practice.
2. Ensure that the workforce plan is coproduced – it’s about doing with people rather than doing to them.
3. Engage the whole workforce in delivery – when the plan is owned by everyone it is a much stronger plan.
4. Celebrate the successes and make sure that inputs from individuals are recognised.

It’s important that national partners share regular updates and information about how the shared workforce priorities are being used by other organisations. This way we can link this knowledge into what we are doing locally, and it will help us test and develop our local strategic and operation workforce plans and actions.

Ian Thompson Principal Social Worker, Adult Social Care and Housing, Isle of Wight Council

Email: [email protected] 

Website: Isle of Wight Council