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Australians give up beach life ... for a job at Croydon council
Katharine Barney, Evening Standard6 Aug 2008
A London borough has been so desperate to hire new staff that it has launched a recruitment drive on the other side of the world.
Two officials flew to Australia to conduct a series of interviews. As a result, four planning and building control officers have agreed to give up their life in the sun Down Under - and move to Croydon.
The recruits, signed up on two-year contracts by Croydon council, are expected to arrive later this summer.
The interviews took place in Sydney and Melbourne in May, with two of the successful applicants coming from Melbourne, one from Brisbane and the other from Sydney.
After social workers, planning staff are the second hardest to find for local authorities in Britain, and Croydon says it has been struggling for years to maintain a full team.
The council says traditional advertising channels proved ineffective and the constant engagement of temporary staff was inefficient and costly.
Rather than continue competing with other British town halls for scarce home-grown professionals, Croydon hired an international recruitment consultancy. Councillor Jason Perry, cabinet member for planning, said: "The recruitment of planning and transportation staff has been an enduring problem for several years.
"The cost of constant, ineffective advertising and the expense of finding and engaging temporary staff is extremely high.
"Therefore the option of international recruitment, although expensive in the short term, was something we felt obliged to try. It's an innovative approach for the planning profession and I am delighted it appears to have paid off." He said the initiative had attracted interest from other councils that were experiencing similar problems with recruitment.
Croydon says the cost of the process will be fully covered in the first year.
This includes one-way flights to England, relocation payments, work permits and visa processing.
If the council also offers positions to two reserve candidates, then overall it expects to save £85,000 a year through recruiting Australian staff on contracts rather than continue taking on temporary help.
Croydon says that while the Australian initiative was successful it is pursuing other ways of recruiting planning staff.
These include schemes for apprentice and graduate placements as part of a wider process to help staff develop and secure professional qualifications. Market supplements are also used to help reduce turnover as experienced staff are lured away to private-sector jobs.
Reader views (9)
Why Australia? Why not Nigeria or Zaire which are, after all closer. Probably
cheaper too.
Australia is more likely to have a planning system likes ours.
- Ian, Cambridge, 07/08/2008 12:28
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I agree with you Fred. They had other motives for visiting Australia. They should have tried the United States as well if they could go all the way to Australia.
- Madge, Ontario, Canada, 06/08/2008 23:35
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I will gladly swap places with any Aussie who wants my home&life here.
Preferably an Aussie from Queensland-sunshine/gold coast.
Please forward your details to thisislondon.
- Billybob, London, 06/08/2008 14:49
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They don't need retraining, they don't want the jobs.
We are not unskilled, nor Mickey Mouse trained graduates, just because we have chosen a different career path. I studied hard for my qualification and from this gained a great job which has helped me to develop a prosperous and rewarding career. A rather narrow minded and bitter comment you made; probably from someone without job satisfaction, unlike those Mickey Mouse graduates.
- Katie, London, 06/08/2008 14:24
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Why Australia? Why not Nigeria or Zaire which are, after all closer. Probably cheaper too.
- Fred Kite, Sutton, UK, 06/08/2008 12:51
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At least the weather in Melbourne is a on a par with that of Croydon.
- Sheila Bruce, London, 06/08/2008 12:40
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Sorry, I'm from Melbourne, and I would hardly call St Kilda Beach a sunny paradise. Ok, definitely a nicer place to be than Croydon aesthetically, but you can get the same nice cafes as in St Kilda in other places around London and the Home Counties.
Many of us Aussies, believe it or not, love the UK and prefer to be here. Some of us enjoy the cool weather, buzzing atmosphere, the parks, the cafes, the proximity to Europe and the fact that you can leave one town and ten minutes later, you've arrived at another. I did not move here just because of a job.
- Dave, N10, 06/08/2008 12:21
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If they knew Croydon they would probably not be travelling to the other side of the world to work there!
- Lisa, London, 06/08/2008 12:02
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It's a sad fact that there are tens of thousands of Media studies graduates in the UK who need retraining in order to be able to apply for these sorts of jobs.
Until our unskilled, mickey-mouse graduates are re-trained, UK companies must look abroad to India and Australia for quality employees.
- Marc, Hammersmith, 06/08/2008 11:18
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