Slivers-of-Time Working for Local Authorities
Local Authorities around the UK are beginning to cut overheads by using Slivers-of-Time Workers. It’s usually for low-level work. But, channelled through a Slivers marketplace, it can dramatically improve life chances of local people.
In the longer term, these ultra-fluid workers can be a better way of delivering personalised services such as domiciliary care, street wardens or response to Public Realm concerns.
Getting started
A Council keen to engage local people through this new form of employment will typically start with the sort of tasks in the table to the right.
Some of these tasks require Slivers-of-Time sellers who have additional vetting (a CRB check for example). This is usually the responsibility of the agency that supplies the Council.
Expand table.
Longer term
Using Slivers-of-Time Workers to plug gaps in the postroom or to carry out resident outreach is Step One. After that, a far sighted council may want to consider whether trained pools of Slivers workers may be a more responsive and cost effective way to deliver services. There is also the potential to "double devolve" control of services to accountable local budget holders at the ward or street level.
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What are the barriers to Councils using Slivers-of-Time Workers?
A Slivers-of-Time Worker in LB Newham does research for her council.
There are two issues we see repeatedly in Councils that inhibit the buying of Slivers-of-Time Workers:
1) Exclusivity with an agency or Managed Service Provider.
A Local Authority may have awarded the sole contract for supply of contingent labour to one organisation. That Managed Service Provider (MSP) is likely to resist a new style of bookings outside the original agreement. They may believe that their existing processes and platform can handle 2 hour bookings if that’s what the council needs. (They probably can for sporadic bookings, but with enormous non-scaleable overheads.)
The deciding issue will be how much control has been ceded to the external company. Some councils sign away any right to launch local employment initiatives. Others are able to tell their MSP that they want to do Slivers type bookings where that’s a better way of getting the work done. The MSP can then choose whether to offer the marketplace or allow another agency to do so.
Slivers-of-Time Workers clear up a Huddersfield Community Centre for Kirklees Council
2) Caution about initiatives
Whitehall pressure to cut council spend on temping has left an understandable wariness of “initiative-itis” in its wake. The problem is often that managers conflate wholescale changes such as transfer to a Managed Service Provider with the much lower key, more peripheral, process change needed to get Slivers-of-Time Working going.
Adoption of an MSP involves the Council’s entire temping budget across all sections. The spend required to get Slivers-of-Time Working off the ground in a particular area can often be found in just three Council departments (for example: Communications, Facilities Management and Community Engagement). Only those managers need to be aware of the new tool initially. Invoicing data can be made compatible with existing approval/payment mechanisms, internal or MSP/agency.
How Local Authorities can launch a marketplace
