Local authorities in Scotland are facing critical workforce gaps in multiple areas, in particular in social care and social work, a new report has found.

Scotland’s Local Authority Workforce Report 2024 revealed that 97% of respondents were struggling to fill social care roles. Just over 90% said the same about social work.

Published by Solace Scotland, the report also highlighted the following roles as challenging to fill: mental health officers, planners, environmental health officers, occupational therapists, building standards officers and trading standards officers.

Most respondents (97%) highlighted competition from other sectors as a barrier to recruitment. Skills shortages locally (90%) and pay related issues (90%) were also flagged.

Limited and short-term resourcing (94%) were also cited as barriers, as were a lack of funding for development and ‘grow your own’ schemes (88%) and local labour market challenges (84%).

The research showed that for the vast majority of councils, workforce planning or workforce gaps appeared on council’s risk registers (94%).

Dawn Roberts, chief executive at Dumfries and Galloway Council and Solace Scotland lead for workforce said: ‘The sustainability of our valued local government workforce is critical to ensuring we can transform how we deliver our vital services.

‘This report sets out not only the challenges we are experiencing in local government, but also positive examples and innovative practices across councils which are helping to show the career opportunities we have in local government.’