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A local authority is to expand a successful care venture staffed by temporary workers, writes Derren Hayes.

It comes at a time when workforce development body Investors in People has warned that many employers lack the foresight to establish systems for managing and motivating temporary workers and are not utilising their skills properly.

Such an accusation could not be levelled at Brighton and Hove Council. In 2002, it recruited a small pool of temporary care staff to work across a variety of adult care establishments. Since then the scheme has grown and is being expanded into children's services.

Called Care Crew, it now has 230 registered staff and provides about 2,500 hours' of work a week for 22 council care services (five older people centres, 15 learning difficulty centres and two for older people with mental health problems). Care Crew saved the council more than £300,000 last year in fees for agency staff, who are often used to cover for permanent staff absence and during busy periods.

Care Crew's creator Lance Richard says the key to the service being so successful and popular with staff is the quality of training and flexibility the scheme offers.

"When we have induction days we attract a very diverse group of people that reflects our community," says Richard, who is recruitment manager, Brighton and Hove Council.

After applicants go through interviews they do a two-week induction course, which includes training on manual handling and health and safety issues, followed by a week shadowing workers in one of the council's centres.


"They are then registered on our database and are free to work as flexibly as they want and do shifts when they like. Ideally we would like them to go into working permanently and when permanent vacancies come up they tend to apply for them," Richard says.
The crew has become so popular that recruitment events are now run monthly at local hotels and there is a fresh group of people being inducted every month.

There are also big financial savings: Care Crew staff are paid £8.42 an hour but this is still £2.50 an hour cheaper than agency staff because there are no fees; and the running costs are low, about £70,000 annually for administration. The council is so impressed that it is expanding the scheme to children's residential homes.

If savings are replicated in the children's sector Care Crew is likely to be expanded to other services. And it is probably why Brighton is visiting other councils to explain the virtues of the temporary workforce.