THE huge tally of job vacancies within Dumfries and Galloway Council was this week described as “disturbing” by one concerned councillor.
Davie Stitt, who represents the Abbey Ward, highlighted how there are almost 400 posts unfilled within two large departments of the local authority.
He spoke up at the audit, risk, and scrutiny committee on Tuesday, saying: “It was quite disturbing last week when we were at education, community wellbeing and skills (committee) that we saw there are 55 vacancies under thriving communities (department).
“Also, under school quality and curriculum service planners, there are 326 vacancies.
“That’s two items from last week with just short of 400 job vacancies in the council. It’s quite concerning.”
His Labour colleague, Annandale East and Eskdale Councillor Archie Dryburgh, vice chair of the audit, risk, and scrutiny committee, added: “In many of the budget setting processes you see that ‘vacancies will not be filled’.
“But if we’re sitting at nearly 400 vacancies, are we going to get a template that says ‘this vacancy will not be filled’ if we are finding difficulties in education, social work and wherever else?
“There is an issue here. Potentially we may have to go to another committee to look at this.”
He added: “These vacancies are continuously monitored. Well, if they’re continuously monitored, why are they not filling them?”
Fraser Davies, the council’s improvement development officer, said: “The vacancies are monitored. It is a known challenge, and efforts are being made to fill the posts.
“Reference has been made to the ‘grow your own’ models to try and tackle recruitment challenges.
“I know the committee has been looking at recruitment and retention in social work specifically.”
Vlad Valiente, the council’s governance and human resources officers, added: “There are a lot of vacancies, there’s no doubt about it.
“There’s also a recognition of difficulties in recruiting across the whole of Scotland, not just in the public sector, but also the private sector.
“There’s so much that we can do to mitigate it – and we’ll do our best – but we’ll never solve the problem.”
