Regional focus: Scotland
Richard Gelder, Director of Hays Social Housing, provides an insight into employment opportunities for social housing professionals in Scotland.
Current concerns
A recent report, The Future for Social Renting in Scotland, raises the concern that the level of social rented housing in Scotland may house only 8% of households in Scotland by 2020. It also suggests that there will be a major shift in the type of people living in social rented housing, which will typically be young single adult households with some form of support need and no longer mirrors the general mix of households in Scotland.
These concerns, combined with reports of record investment levels across Scotland, stress the increased need for social housing professionals. Indeed, in March this year it was announced that Dunfermline will have a record £21.5 million investment for affordable housing in Fife over the next year and that housing in Ayrshire would receive a record £28.5 million spending.
Who's in demand?
As a direct result of this investment, we are seeing a more widespread use of temporary staff within housing associations and local authorities. Generally, this recruitment covers a variety of roles, from housing officers and assistants, to sheltered scheme managers and homeless project workers and caseworkers. Local authorities in particular no longer have the staffing capacity to be able to cover sick leave or leave a situation vacant while the permanent recruitment process takes place.
Over the past three years, we have also witnessed a steady increase in the use of temporary workers to work specifically on the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS). The majority of landlords are currently predicting that they are confident of achieving the SHQS by the 2015 deadline. Where we may have previously supplied maintenance and trades temps to the local authorities directly, more recently major contractors are seeing the potential of these long-term multi-million pound contracts and we are increasingly supplying temporary workers to them, rather than directly to the local authorities.
Since the transfer of Glasgow Council’s housing stock there has been a massive investment in kitchen and bathroom replacement programmes, for which we have supplied many temporary trades operatives, via the associated contractor partners. Over the past few years, these programmes have resulted in a steady increase in the use of temporary workers throughout Scotland. This is set to increase further across Scotland, as the deadline for the work gets closer.
Another initiative that is currently affecting Scotland is the 2012 deadline to get homeless people out of temporary accommodation. Generally, this has increased the demand for professionals with homelessness experience. It has also fuelled a growth in partnerships between private and public sector organisations, such as the recently linked Edinburgh City Council and Orchard & Shipman. As a result of this, professionals have been required for a number of roles, including property acquisition, benefits advisors and property management positions. Presently, many of the central belt local authorities are involved in tenders for this type of partnership. According to Suzanne Hamilton, manager of Hays Social Housing, “the private sector companies who are involved in this process are likely to require both permanent and temporary staff. They will undoubtedly need to increase their team size very quickly if they win a contract of this size and nature.”
However, this may add to the problem of skills shortages, which is already a particular issue within the area of supported housing. For example, homelessness caseworkers, project workers and support workers are all in strong demand. Experienced staff who are not yet at the management level or who are looking for the next management step are also highly sought after.
Across Scotland there has been a noticeable increase in Scottish candidates who are currently working in England or Wales, but who are looking to move back to Scotland to pursue their career. They are largely attracted by the breadth of opportunity, across local authorities, housing associations, charitable trusts and private sector partners.
Money matters
Generally, there hasn’t been much movement in salaries over the past year. However, since the Hays Social Housing Salary Guide 2006, we have received feedback from clients that salary increases have been necessary in some cases, to recruit the right calibre of experienced staff. It will become increasingly important for clients to stress the many benefits of working within the public sector and the overall employment package if they want to compete with private sector salaries.
For further information, please contact Suzanne Hamilton, Manager of Hays Social Housing Scotland, on 0131 226 6595.
