The award-winning benefits team have always looked to work closely with other departments where it has been beneficial to do so. With an increasing number of claimants coming through the door and demand for staff in this area increasing across the country there was a need to look to do things a little bit differently. Lynn Hall, Head of Benefits, Walsall Council, revealed, ‘The shortage of properly trained staff was something that was identified as a key problem at a regional meeting of service heads. We had already worked closely with Starting Point Recruitment to increase our access to trained and experienced personnel whilst reducing cost. However this time we wished to invest in the long term. We contacted the Agency Clearing House in Procurement to see what could be done and immediately the cogs started whirring and we were on our way.’

The council’s plan was to engage 8 temporary members of staff who would then undergo an extensive training scheme. Agency Clearing House Manager, Walsall Council, Steve Stuart, explained, ‘The ability to be able to offer training positions at this time was sure to attract a number of high quality applicants but no-one could have foreseen the level of interest in this position. One main consideration was that we worked closely with all interested parties, including procurement who facilitated the engagement of a training provider and Starting Point to source and contract the temporary workers within the timescale needed.’

Starting Point worked to design a quick and effective timetable for recruitment which involved the team undertaking the main bulk of the recruitment work.

We knew the positions would attract good quality candidates but both the Benefits Team and ourselves wanted to spread the net as wide as possible. As well as our usual procedures which include sourcing potential workers from our network of partner employment agencies we also advertised the opportunities in the local press, linked into Steps to Work as our parent company job search facilities as well as running the jobs as a Local Employment Partnerships vacancy with the local Job Centre Plus.

As a result we received nearly 1500 enquiries for the positions and over 650 formal applications. We assessed and filtered through every single application using a combination of shortlisting, telephone interviews and one to one interviews marking each applicant against the job description and specification until we were able to draw up a shortlist of 36 applicants to come forward to attend an assessment centre.

The assessment centre was delivered across three sessions and consisted of a number of tests from data entry to word processing along with a be-spoke ‘soft skills test’ specifically designed for this recruitment process. Each session was attended by Mick Bullock from the Benefits Team who provided the applicants with an introduction to the team and their goals along with the opportunity for them to ask any specific questions.

Having completed the assessment day all of the applicants were awarded a certificate as evidence of their skills to support them in future applications as well as us being able to link in with Steps to Work to provide additional support in their job search. For those that attended 16 workers were invited back following the assessment day for a formal interview with members of the Benefits Team supported by Steve Stuart.

‘The standard of candidates was extremely high’, enthused Lynn, ‘the eventual choice was exceedingly difficult as it seemed unfortunate to have to turn down so many quality options.’

Remarkably the whole recruitment from start to finish lasted no more than 3 weeks and now Rachel Ball, Matthew Dyke, Linda Hopkins, Yasmin Iman-Meah, Simon King, Stephen Mitchell, Emma Pearson and David Rowley have all completed their initial training and are working diligently within the benefits team. Even better each of the eight candidate’s lives in or within 10 miles of Walsall.

Simon King was one of the successful candidates, ‘I am very grateful for the opportunity to work in the Benefits Team, the assessment and recruitment process was very efficient and I was kept informed every step of the way.

I have been made to feel very welcome within the team and have received excellent training and support’.

Lynn Hall in summary said, ‘This whole process shows the potential benefits of working together, the links with Procurement, the Clearing House and Starting Point accessed specialised skills that we didn’t have within our department, the process was efficient and trouble free and, if you’ll excuse the pun, is delivering clear benefits not only internally but also to those citizens that access our service.’