House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Nineteenth Report

3 Retention of key public sector workers

14. One of the objectives of low cost home ownership assistance is to help with the recruitment and retention of certain key public sector workers. Since 2001 over 23,000 key workers have received assistance from both the Key Worker Living Initiative and its predecessor, the Starter Homes Initiative (Figure 2).[19] The benefits arising from the improved recruitment and retention of such staff can be significant, such as the savings of £90 million for each 1% reduction in the turnover of nursing staff.[20] The Department does not separately identify the impact of this assistance from the effects of other measures public sector employers have been taking to improve recruitment and retention. The employers considered that the assistance had helped as part of an overall package of benefits but that it needed to be targeted.[21]

Figure 2: The recipients of Key Worker assistance

Number of recipients Per cent

Health 9,206 40

Education 8,273 36

Community Safety (1) 3,364 14

Other (2) 2,321 10

23,164

Note (1): Includes Police, Fire Service, Probation Officers and Prison Officers
(2): Includes local authority planners, social workers and clinical staff

Source: The Department

15. The Key Worker Living Initiative defines a key worker as someone who is: employed by the public sector; in a frontline role delivering an essential public service; and in a sector where there are serious recruitment and retention problems.[22] The initiative will achieve maximum value for money when targeted at workers in those public sector institutions where the benefits of improved recruitment and retention are greatest. The successful targeting of assistance to, for example, individual hospitals or police stations is dependent on the quality of the relationship between the HomeBuy Agents and public sector employers at a local level. However, the quality of these relationships can vary, with some employers being much more open to helping their staff receive this assistance than others. There is also a risk that the take up of this assistance at a particular police station, for example, may be greater simply because police officers are more aware of the availability of this help than officers at other stations, rather than because the police station has the greatest difficulty in retaining officers. The Department and the Housing Corporation lack information on the take-up rates at individual institutions and on the reasons for any variations in these rates.[23]

16. There is also a risk that Key Worker Living assistance is being used for too many categories of worker to have the intended benefit. Since the introduction of specific assistance for key workers in September 2001, the types of key worker eligible for this assistance has increased from three categories to twelve, including amongst others: all clinical NHS staff; prison and probation staff; local authority planners; social workers; and educational psychologists.[24] In addition, from April 2006 Regional Housing Boards have been able to designate other categories of key worker as eligible for assistance in their region and, in two small instances, Boards have subsequently chosen to do so.[25] As demand for this assistance outstrips the amount of assistance available, the expansion of the types of worker eligible for help has resulted in some unmet demand among the original key worker categories of nurses, school teachers and police officers.[26]

17. To maintain the effectiveness of the Key Worker Living initiative in tackling the public sector's retention problems, Key Workers are required to repay assistance should they leave eligible employment. To date, no assistance has yet been repaid, although there are a small number of cases where repayment is due.[27] Both the individual recipient of this assistance and their employer are required to inform the relevant Registered Social Landlord on leaving eligible employment but the National Audit Office found that some Registered Social Landlords and employers were only starting to consider implementing the necessary controls.[28] The Department and the Housing Corporation have since taken steps to address this problem, acting on two out of three of the National Audit Office's recommendations; and a recent audit by the Housing Corporation of a sample of 100 Key Workers who had received assistance found that all were still in eligible employment. The Housing Corporation did not mention any steps it had taken to improve controls in employers.[29]



© Parliamentary copyright 2007	Prepared 27 March 2007