Scoping Exercise into Workforce Planning Approaches in Local Authorities in Wales

The aim of workforce planning is to ensure that organisations have a workforce of the right size, with the right skills and diversity, organised in the right way, within an affordable budget, delivering the services needed to provide support and care to meet the needs of their citizens. This should be built on well-established service planning methodologies using the population needs assessments and area plans developed as a result. There are many layers of planning from department, regional and all Wales plans with three key three key aspects underpinning effective workforce planning1. Designing the future workforce: This is not just about redesigning a service and staffing it, but understanding the impact that the change will have on the current or future workforce and ensuring that these workforce implications are considered as part of the integrated planning process2. Developing the current and future workforce: Understanding what skills and competences will be needed to deliver planned services, where these skills and competences will come from and making provision to develop them if they are not already available within the current workforce3. Delivering the future workforce: This includes the management actions and those of partners which are needed to ensure that all staff are engaged, that new ways of working are achieved, that workforce development plans are delivered and that best practice is shared and adopted.What is required / ‘The Requirements’:We are seeking a supplier to work with the 22 local authorities in Wales to better understand the approach taken when workforce planning including making recommendations for the improvement of the workforce planning functions at a local, regional and national level. We require a scoping exercise to result in a final report outlining the findings and recommendations with indicative responsibility for actions identified and detailing any obvious cost implications.Aims and objectives:We are seeking proposals to undertake work with Local Authorities to answer the following questions: (We are open to other questions from the suppliers’ experience/background)- What structures and processes, including human resources, are in place to support workforce planning, including engagement approaches with key partners and stakeholders- What models (if any) do Local Authorities use to support workforce planning- How do the approaches taken link to, make use of and support the collection of workforce data?- What information do they use to support workforce planning?- What other policy approaches are taken into account when workforce planning- What collaboration exists with health and other key partners e.g. education, housing, for sharing workforce planning outcomes or undertaking joint workforce planning approaches- What account is taken in workforce plans of agency workers, volunteers and the needs of unpaid carers.- What support would Local Authorities value in supporting them to improve approaches to workforce planning- What evidence exists that illustrates effective approaches to workforce planning that the social care sector can learn fromPlease specification for more detail