7/7/23

More than 1,000 people secured a role working for Cardiff Council via its in-house recruitment agency, Cardiff Works, last year.

Cardiff Works provides temporary roles across a range of services within the authority and last year saw a 40 per cent increase in the number of individuals moving into placements via its pool, compared to the previous year.

The agency has supported directorates across the Council to recruit to a range of priority sector roles such as hostel support workers, HGV drivers and social care positions while at the same time, achieving excellent outcomes for people seeking work.

Following a full review in 2020, a number of changes have been made to Cardiff Works to ensure a better experience for both the candidate and the recruiting service within the Council, including digitalisation, streamlining processes, greater accessibility and greater visibility in the community.

As a result, the average time taken for a candidate to be accepted into the Cardiff Works pool has improved from the previous 40 days to now being 48 hours, there has been a significant increase in the number of BME applicants applying and successfully entering the Cardiff Works pool from 7%  in June 2021 to 37 % in March 2023 and overall, there has been a 12% increase in the number placements provided via Cardiff Works.

Cabinet Member for Tackling Poverty and Supporting Young People, Cllr Peter Bradbury said: "Cardiff Works has come a long way in the last few years with the chief aim of making Council jobs more accessible to our communities. We want to ensure that the Council workforce is representative of the communities we serve so there has been a lot of work taking place across the city to connect with communities that are under-represented in the current workforce.

"We want to promote the Council as a great place to work, including to younger people. But we know that some candidates will need a greater level of help than others through the application and assessment process, so there is a range of support within the agency to help people get into a role they're interested in.

"The team is closely aligned with the Council's Into Work Advice and Adult Learning services to ensure suitable candidates for roles are identified and upskilled as quickly as possible.  These teams did a tremendous job last year, helping 135 people secure a care worker role either with the Council or  contracted care providers via the Cardiff Cares Academy."

‘Cardiff Works Ready' helps more vulnerable individuals into employment and creates a pathway from unemployment into training, volunteering opportunities, temporary jobs and in many cases, permanent employment within the authority. The scheme assists potential candidates to overcome any barriers they may face to being successful in the recruitment assessment process by combining with Adult Learning support to help improve a person's communications skills and confidence.

And the new ‘Cardiff Works for You' initiative offers work placements to young people and people from under-represented communities, who may struggle to secure employment due to little or no work experience.

Cllr Bradbury added: "Such is the success of Cardiff Works that several other local authorities have either sought our advice about setting up an in-house agency or enquired about using Cardiff Works as their agency provider, which is testament to the progress we've made over recent years."

Cardiff Works' progress will be considered by Cabinet at its next meeting on Thursday July 13 as part of a report recommending the procurement of a vendor neutral brokerage service to provide specialist agency staff for the council.

Read the full report here: https://cardiff.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=151&MId=8208&LLL=0

If you, or someone you know, is interested in starting a career with the council, please visit www.cardiffworksrecruit.co.uk for more information and to register.