Recommendation 5

HM Government Acknowledged

We are working to improve recruitment and retention of DDaT specialists, including the review of pay measures. However, the scale of the challenge is broad and the result of a combination of issues: • The demands on the traditional IT functions within a provider are shifting from being purely managing the BAU technical infrastructure, to one which requires an equal focus on service transformation enabled through digital enablers (requiring broader technical skill sets and more of them). • Providers traditionally have not invested in the pipeline development of DDaT specialists. • Across the UK there is a DDaT skills shortage affecting all sectors, which intensifies competition. • The sector struggles to attract DDaT talent in comparison to other sectors due to pay points, unclear career progression, and a lack of a professional structure that supports technical and specialist expertise. It is not uncommon for DDaT staff to either leave a role to take up a similar role at a different (higher paying) role with another provider, or move to an industry which pays more for a similar role. • Existing NHS funding mechanisms that are commonly used for funding the staffing on major digital projects are often Revenue vs Capital based, which makes it difficult to plan the workforce requirements beyond a single financial year, despite the programme extending well beyond this funding window. This often forces providers to resort to contingent labour to meet the skills gap. • It has historically been difficult to accurately baseline and workforce plan for this segment of the workforce because the DDaT roles are poorly coded in the NHS Electronic Staff Record (these roles are coded as ‘Admin’). A similar issue was raised in the recent Hewitt Review which recommended action be taken to allow competitive salaries to be paid for specialists in fields suchs as data science, risk management, actuarial modelling, system engineering, and general and specialised analytical and intelligence. The Government’s response explained that the Agenda for Change (AfC) framework does currently allow for certain pay flexibilities, such as the use of Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRPs), which can either be applied nationally or locally, where market pressures would otherwise prevent the employer from being able to recruit and retain staff they need. These can be worth up to 30% of basic pay. Awarding an RRP may allow for competition with the private sector for DDaT roles. However, any RRP would first need to be suitability assessed and approved via the appropriate process. NHS England recently carried out an extensive stakeholder engagement project and found that despite these flexibilities, there is an issue with attracting and retaining talent, which they attributed in part to inflexibility within AfC banding. The project found that budgetary issues are often an obstacle to the utilisation of local RRPs as these have to be locally funded, but also that even where they are applied, salaries are still not as competitive as industry and so are having limited impact. Despite these findings, we would still encourage trusts to use the available flexibilities where possible. We would also direct the Committee and readers of this response also to the Long-Term Workforce Plan which will help ensure that we have the right numbers of staff with the right skills set to transform and deliver high quality services fit for the future.