Tower Hamlets Council's HR Committee Tackles Staff Sickness and Agency Spend
The Human Resources Committee of Tower Hamlets Council convened on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, to address pressing workforce concerns, notably staff sickness absence and a significant expenditure on agency staff.
Addressing Sickness Absence
Concerns were raised regarding sickness absence rates, with the Communities Directorate exhibiting figures higher than the council average. Mr. Mepham acknowledged these concerns, stating that metrics are being tracked and targeted interventions are being developed. Ellen Clarke, Director of Human Resources, added that a central HR dashboard will monitor these metrics, with efforts underway to improve data accuracy. The Communities Directorate is implementing several interventions to address sickness absence, including strengthening compliance with absence management procedures, providing dedicated HR support, implementing wellbeing initiatives, and undertaking service redesign and staff engagements to target improvements.
The central HR dashboard will track metrics such as declarations of interest and corporate mandatory training centrally.
While sickness absence and agency staff expenditure are being tracked, specific targets for reduction were not detailed in the provided information. However, it was stated that sickness absence, things like the mandatory training compliance, compliance of declarations of interest, all things we're tracking.
Reducing Reliance on Agency Staff
A significant expenditure of £2.1 million on agency staff within the public realm was questioned. Mr. Mepham explained this was partly due to historical recruitment difficulties and the availability of agency staff in this sector. The primary reasons for these difficulties include the historical nature of the workforce being agency staff, persistent challenges in recruiting to these roles, and a quite thriving agency market
for these types of services. He outlined a plan to phase out agency staff by advertising permanent roles.
Ms. Clarke confirmed that remaining contracts for leisure staff were due to be issued by the end of the week. The projected impact of these contracts was not explicitly stated, but it is part of a broader effort to address employee and operational issues within the leisure service, including contract issues, pay, training, and culture. The issuance of these contracts is a step towards stabilizing the service. Furthermore, 27 agency vacancies are being converted to permanent roles.
The council is moving away from agency staff
and is advertising permanent roles
with the aim for good agency staff to then apply for the permanent roles and become members of Tower Hamlets.
The meeting did not provide a specific projected timeline for phasing out all agency staff and filling permanent roles beyond the immediate conversion of these 27 vacancies.
Ensuring Service Continuity
Mr. Mepham also noted that some reliance on agency staff is necessary for services like refuse collection to ensure continuity. The council's strategy for ensuring continuity of services like refuse collection while reducing reliance on agency staff involves a phased approach to advertising permanent roles, encouraging existing agency staff to apply, and acknowledging that some reliance on agency staff will remain necessary for immediate operational needs, such as covering for staff absence. As stated, if somebody phones in sick that day, we can't not collect people's refuse. So, we need a mechanism. Sometimes that's over time. We can bring people in for extra shifts, but often it's agency.
Further details on the committee's discussions can be found in the Public reports pack and the Agenda frontsheet.