However, this advantage tends to be eroded for smaller authorities which have less flexibility of how their workforce can be deployed. According to a recent Skills for Care report, the turnover rate for adult social care in local authorities in 2023/24 was 13% (in line with the national average). However, the report also cited the current adult social care vacancy rate as being 8.3%, which is 5.5% above the UK average, thereby highlighting capacity pressures already existing within the system. Similar issues are observed in Children’s Services and SEND, and increased competition in the market will put further pressure on these current rates. Maintaining full coverage across the working week can also be challenging with a smaller number of staff employed in the organisation. Smaller authorities are likely to face further workforce pressures in their ability to provide and maintain specialist service areas, whose viability is often influenced by scale. One example of this is the distribution of Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMPHs). There is a legal requirement to ensure that an area has enough AMPHs serving it to carry out the duties set out in the Mental Health Act. Previous guidance (albeit now outdated) from the Social Care Inspectorate suggested a ratio of AMPHs to population of between 1:7,600 and 1:11,800. Developing relatively small and specialist teams, such as AMPHs, in smaller local authorities will both be more costly, in that it will require a greater overhead, and may be less attractive in terms of professional development and career pathways. The cost of this effect is not included in the financial analysis in this report. 13
Case Study 5
In one local area, the staffing expenditure in people services totals £115m for 2025, split at present between two local authorities. Under LGR, direct delivery staffing costs within people services in this area are projected to increase only in line with demand. However, leadership and management costs are projected to increase by £2.8m annually. Based on an average total staffing cost of £83,673 per annum per management FTE in this local area, this would represent an additional 34 management posts in this local area’s people directorates, under a proposal to move to three unitary authorities. Beyond the financial implications, finding sufficient, suitably qualified, experienced and willing individuals to fulfil these roles is expected to be a significant challenge for the sector. New roles could be even more demanding, with the requirement to manage the process and implementation of reorganisation, alongside the additional change, uncertainty, opportunity, and risk this brings. This is before any accelerated attrition is considered, which was highlighted through the engagement in this programme as a potential consequence of significant upheaval across the sector. Recruitment and retention challenges will also increase as more authorities are created, and as competition in the marketplace likely increases. This may be particularly evident in some areas due to the variation in geography being considered – the challenges of ‘hard to recruit’ areas in large geographies can be mitigated to a degree by recruiting to the larger geographic area and spreading the workforce.
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