Health and support charity invests in historical pay rise due to reduced agency spend project

AFG supports people with learning disabilities and mental health conditions.

In 2022 the charity spent a significant portion of their expenditure on agency staff, with a peak of £150,000 a week in July 2022. AFG needed to reduce agency spend, increase Support Worker applications and invest in Support Worker pay to retain current employees. AFG partnered with a local agency to develop a multi-channel recruitment marketing campaign. Knowing that one key offering came via their Princess Royal award-winning in-house training team, AFG focused the campaign on drawing in candidates via their personal qualities, for example, ‘If helping others gives you a buzz... we’ve got training for everything else.’ This resulted in a 67% reduction in agency spend, from a peak of approximately £150,000 a week in July 2022, to approximately £50,000 a week in May 2023, saving the organisation approximately £400,000 a month. AFG achieved a 65% increase in Support Worker applications from 248 per month in April 2022, increasing to 861 per month in March 2023. This meant AFG could invest in its employees and increase pay by 11.1% for Support Workers to above Real Living Wage for the first time ever, setting itself apart from other similar charities.