Staff at Lichfield District Council have been left “tired and exhausted”, a local authority boss has revealed.
Chief operating officer Christie Tims said the impact of delivering additional support during the Covid-19 pandemic had pushed officers to the limit.
She was speaking to councillors about the three-year Being A Better Council project, part of which aims to look at how systems and processes can improve the way in which the local authority works.
The chief operating officer told the employment committee at Lichfield District Council:
“There is a lot of work and in some areas it has been increasing in the past few months in terms supporting the business economy and dealing with additional grant monies.
“People have been very, very busy. We do have a quite tired and exhausted workforce in many areas, particularly those involved in Covid response.”
Christie Tims, Lichfield District Council
The meeting was told that the council was looking at ways to introduce technology to free up staff time and create capacity through the Being A Better Council project.
“What this work stream is designed to do is unpick some of that in terms of what are the processes causing a lot of time and energy to be expended and how can we make them more efficient?
“We will consider how can we automate them so they don’t involve officers dealing with things that could be dealt with by other means.
“Alongside that we are also making sure we are giving staff opportunities to understand new technologies and finding new ways of working that can make what they do on a daily basis a lot quicker and more efficient.
“All of the little changes will add up to quite a substantial change in terms of the capacity we have that we can refocus and reinvest in place-shaping and doing the exciting things we as local government officers want to be doing in terms of helping and supporting our residents to lead better lives.”
Christie Tims, Lichfield District Council
