A MAJOR shake-up of the staff recruitment wing of City of York Council is on the cards after a stinging watchdog report.

The Government's Audit Commission highlighted a string of human resources headaches at the Guildhall.

The report says the authority lacked a clear corporate direction in human resources and had an "inconsistent" approach to staffing across departments. Decision making was slow in this area and impeded change, the report added, while "inadequate arrangements" were in place to ensure York council had the manpower needed to deliver goals.

The commission's findings last November followed a report in 2002 which revealed a "lack of corporate capacity" and an "underdeveloped corporate centre".

It comes in the wake of a groundbreaking trial - aimed at curing high levels of absenteeism in the 1,000-strong adult services department.

Now council chiefs have drawn up an overhaul of human resources - a 40-strong department dealing with recruitment, attendance, disciplinary matters and work-related law for the council's 7,000 staff - in a bid to tackle issues highlighted by the commission.

Plans due to be discussed by councillors include a restructuring of the HR department, with the report stating the current structure was "less than satisfactory". Ken Green, head of human resources, said this was because there was a significant overlap between work undertaken within the policy and strategy team and the services team to deliver staffing support across the authority.

This led to confusion among workers about where they should go for help and advice.

A revised HR strategy was adopted last September, aiming to provide clearer direction, but now the council has identified three priority areas as part of a restructure aimed at delivering this goal.

These include a clear policy to incorporate policy specialisms, so that expertise in pay, benefits and staff development can be shared better, making it clearer that support is available and focusing more on policy developments.

The report says that "new and innovative ways" of delivering staffing support will be part of the plans.

The issue will be discussed on March 22.

Updated: 09:15 Friday, March 18, 2005