Dean Shoesmith, president of the Public Sector People Managers’ Association (PPMA) and HR director at the London Boroughs of Sutton and Merton, told the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) conference on the public sector that some parts of the sector were looking at headcount reductions of 20-25%.

“We are doing it now, it’s already happening. We are not sitting around in town halls drinking tea,” he said.

Shoesmith said that one likely consequence was councils moving away from their traditional transactional role to one that was more strategic. As councils increasingly commissioned more of the services currently being provided by their own staff to third parties, this would result in more people “working with us rather than for us”, he suggested.

This would create opportunities for agencies to provide councils with staff with specific skill sets, in particular; leadership, strategic commissioning and project management skills, he said.

Shoesmith said that agencies that concentrated on niches where there was a shortage of candidates would be best placed to benefit.

“If we advertise for an admin role, we are deluged with applications,” he explained. However, where recruiters can really help councils get the talent they need is in roles such as project managers and child protection social workers, where councils don’t get such a good response. “These are roles we still struggle with,” he said.