learning support assistant

teacher

school principal

teaching assistant

social worker

Hampshire County Council

My experience of working with Hampshire county council was a real eye opener.  I previously worked in the private sector where every process is fine tuned and written into a bible for all staff to work to.  So I expected the council to be equal in its efficiency especially as they are spending council tax payers money.  I was shocked at the out of date processes and procedures which means that staff spend far too long on tasks that could be completed quickly if only they had the correct technology and processes were assessed in light of new technology being available.   There is no testing of staff to see if their current knowledge of basic software such as Microsoft word and outlook is adequate and no training has been offered to me for this.  Perhaps this is because the council are still using Microsoft office 2003.  I was not even shown how to use the phone.

I also was put  into a job role with only generic training that doesn't really relate to the team I'm working in and to find that the way the processes are documented are sketchy at best.  I have spent weeks trying to do the job of three people with very little support and even staff who have previously worked in my team say that don't really know how to do most of the tasks as one particular team member always does that job.  For me this is a big no no.  There should always be more than one person who knows how to a task.  This has become apparent now that the person who knows how to these tasks has been absent from work for several weeks and these tasks are not completed in a timely manner because of lack of knowledge.

I rarely see my manager and was not issued with a training plan until I had Been working for over 3 months.  The HCC guidelines say that staff should have supervision once a month but I have yet to have one that is in private where I could talk about my personal development.  My manager usually only makes contact if there is a problem.  I get no positive feedback.  I have no problem with being managed remotely because this is the way I am used to being managed.  What I find I acceptable is the lack of contact and support, guidance, coaching and mentoring.  I do not think that there is much thought into personal progression from management.

Staff are stressed because high turnover of staff means that there are always staff shortages and management expect people to pick up the slack and still do their job. The high turnover of staff is usually because of lack of training and unrealistic expectations about our workload....it is a vicious circle.  Staff leave because of lack of staff which causes the lack of staff.

All in all, based on 30 years working experience in variety of sectors, this is the worst employer I have worked for.

I am currently an Administrative Officer for the Innovation Fund Project within Children’s Services at Hampshire County Council. The project is a transformation scheme which aims to prevent the number of children going into care by installing early interventions within various divisions of Children’s Services. My main responsibilities are to collate data such as recruitment and delivery statistics to analyse and present to stakeholders. I am also accountable for creating systems and processes for teams and external participants. For example, the formation of a duty system for Coordinators to manage volunteer support on a daily bases. Whilst being immersed in the seven dynamic teams involved in the project, I have demonstrated delegation, as well as prioritising tasks in an effort to meet the conflicting needs of the service users, service providers and colleagues. 

One core element of my role was to support the recruitment of 200 volunteers, this included processing applications, conducting interviews, inputting Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, assisting in training, and the organisation of ongoing supervision. This volunteering strand of the project has been particularly successful because of the wide range of skilled and experienced volunteers who have been enrolled within the scheme. As a result it has recently been agreed by the Children and Families Management Team that a creation of a volunteering recruitment strategy can be constructed based upon the Innovation Fund Project’s existing model, which will be adopted across the whole of Children’s Services, and in the long term county wide within the organisation. 

I have most enjoyed working alongside the Project Manager of the Innovation Fund programme over the last year following a structured project initiation plan, and identifying risks against the key performance indicators (KPI). For example an inadequate budget to meet costs is a risk to many projects, however within the Innovation Fund Project this was mitigated through detailed budget planning and early alert to issues for consideration by the Innovation Programme Board. in addition to this, I have thrived with producing and presenting project plans, finance tracking through Integrated Business Centre (IBC), and evaluations. I use Microsoft; Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Project regularly and in addition Visio to support in process mapping.

I am now ready to take on more responsibility and further progress outside my existing remit as an Administrative Officer.

A typical day at work. West Street is able to provide emergency criss and assessment accommodation for adults with learning disabilities. The crisis unit can can accommodate up to 10 individuals. West street has a 6 bedded house which can provide a group living environment and 6 self contained flats where individuals can live on there own. We can then find the services users a new home. Good person centred approach is important. This could be supported living, residential unit, shared lives, renting there own flat depending on there needs and wants. Service users coming to west street may have autism, dementia challenging behaviour or other complex needs. 

While supporting the services users I help them with the house work, laundry, give out medication, making appointments when needed,  making beds,cleaning and helping them cook their own food. Good team work, communication and respect is needed to staff and service users to complete these tasks daily. Helping support the services users live a happy normal live before they move on to there new home. Supporting them to cook, clean, pay there bills,open new bank accounts going out to college or work. Support people teaching them skills they may not have or struggle with. Skills they may need for there placement.

As part of my job role I am shift leader. Being shift leader I work in a team of 6-7 staff and delegate jobs to the staff out fairly. Making sure the jobs on the day are completed appointments are attended to, health and safety issues are reported and the shift runs smoothly as possible. During my shift I am required to communicate with care managers, social workers NHS support, private care organisations, GPS, Occupational therapists, estate agents and many other organisations helping the service user meeting needs and wants though there stay and West street.

Often I am required to go into the community to do assessments. Assessing why the person is in crisis and if they need help and potential move to West Street. Often the problems can be resolved before the need of anyone moving. Being up date with the current legislation understanding the care Act 2014 and the housing

The main part of my job was flood data collection involving contacting local authorities across Hampshire, water companies in the region and the Environment Agency. Creating, populating and monitoring an Excel based database to hold the flood data collected. Map production using ArcMap (9.3.1.) to show flood risk and concerns for majority of local authorities in Hampshire, including using appropriate logos and discretion with sensitive data on each map. Each area had to be fully covered and printed at appropriate scales to display the data collected, and suitable map symbols had to be chosen for each type of data. Map production timescales were very tight making time keeping a vital skill. Drafting sections and diagrams to be included in Surface Water Management Plans (SWMPs) and also Preliminary Flood Risk Assessments (PFRAs). Finalised the setup of a secure website portal for sharing data amongst all parties involved in project. Investigated UKCIP website using new interface created for analysing and predicting future climate change. Also provided feedback to UKCIP on website and how Hampshire County Council felt about usability of the data created. Skills: Extended GIS skills using ArcMap, good communication and time keeping improved due to working in small team of two people, passed Defensive Driving Course
Working with only 2 in a team made it challenging to keep to the very tight timescales but really urged me on to make the deadlines and push my skills to the limit.

I strongly support the Ethos and values of Hampshire County Council and appreciate the extensive and comprehensive training I had access to.

I feel I had five wonderful years as a valued member of the Waste and Resource Management Team (no longer in existence), and a few good positions thereafter.

I do sadly believe that the current economic situation has led to extreme staff cuts, leading to excessive workloads and responsibility, as well as constant restructuring, leading to job insecurity and role change without consultation. 
This leaves one feeling that there is not the time or resources to do the job properly.
Probably the most affected area for staff, though, is the loss of experienced managers through voluntary redundancy and the ensuing poor management has affected staff morale and team spirit.

I really loved the job I had for the last three years, in spite of it being high responsibility and high volume, it was varied and interesting and I had good relationships with customers and suppliers. 

My decision to leave HCC was not taken lightly but another role restructure, enabling the further increase of my workload while dropping my grade and therefore my salary, led me to rethink how I wanted to spend my next ten working years.

A beautiful place to work, but management is poor, with lack of training and no advancement within organisation. Being run by a Council, it attracts many staff that ‘make their own nest’ and tend to bury issues under the carpet rather than address them. Most managers are unqualified with little experience of managing people and building a team. Discussions are held behind closed doors and communication is often poor. Job is sometimes stressful, juggling many balls at the same time with little support from management and hard work is not recognised - we haven’t had a staff or Christmas party for years and only get a ‘thank you’ occasionally from the director, never from line managers! No one is full time (only a handful of staff and gardeners) which leads to lack of communication and no cohesion in team - ‘divide and conquer is the motto’. A short lunch break means we have very little time to actually see the Gardens to recommend to visitors. Staff one2ones are few, l have had only one appraisal in about 5 years and that led nowhere! 
A shame, as it could be so much fun, but they would rather employ robots than people and l constantly get told off for talking with visitors and staff (which is part of the job, you would have thought!)

As Night Care Coordinator, I would first be given a handover then do a security check of the building, ensuring all locked up and that all the Residents were safe and well.  

I would then allocate my two Care Staff jobs for the night, then I would commence the medication round, once completed I would ask my care staff if they required any assistance with helping the Residents to bed.  Once all Residents were safely in bed I would start checking all the Care Plans, updating when required.

Hourly checks would then be carried out, ensuring to record and report and concerns.  On occasions I would have a Resident on end of life care, which was always the hardest part of my job, but always showed my professional side and did this with the dignity, respect and compassion they deserved and always ensuring that person was not alone.

Every night was different, I very much looked forward to going to work for my night duty.  I was also asked to act as Duty Manager in the day as we were short staffed, which was a very challenging but rewarding job.

It was a great shame when the home was closed in October 2012.

Hampshire County Council are a welcoming employer who do their best to accommodate all of the requirements of their employees. As a result, the working environment is not as stressful as it perhaps ought to be given the budgetary pressure the council is under and the understaffing of various departments. Job titles are approximate, and I ended up doing a different job from the position I initially thought I was interviewing for. I interviewed for a permanent position, was offered a 1 year contract, was told I would be made permanent and then extended for another year. This typifies the confusion and differing priorities at various levels of management. In IT this manifests as a relentless anthusiasm for projects without a corresponding ability to follow through fully on delivery, documentation and maintenance. I have been moved to a new department once and to new managers twice since joining, and each time unnecessary difficulties and confusions have arisen due to poor support from HR. Nonetheless I feel fully supported by my direct managers, and I feel that they are making the best of a difficult job.

Started full time employment for HCC at the tender age of 16 in 1979 - felt very proud to be working for an Organisation that seemed to care about their employees and wanted them to have opportunities to move around within sections/departments to learn new skills and move on up the ladder.

There was a great pension scheme the salary was good and Personnel were always there to support you.

Sadly during my last few years with HCC (2011), dramatic changes were introduced and people were treated very badly, with poor Management decisions made by those promoted because they could 'do the job' but had no people skills, people became numbers, with HR there purely to protect Management.

Redundancies made across the board and those remaining treated with no regard, very sad when those loyal staff who could always be relied upon were just cast aside, a reflection on the times?

The Hampshire County (UK) operations were four (4) municipal solid waste burning incinerators without heat recovery that were legally required to be shut down within a few years at the time of my undertaking of the role of Manager.  My responsibilities were defined as making sure all units operated reliably and without undue environmental impact during their last years of service.  At the time, other Hampshire Waste Services personnel were involved in their contracted responsibilities to site new waste-to-energy facilities within Hampshire County that would take the place of the treatment capacities that would be lost when the incinerators would be shut down; but the development of new facilities was being prolonged by a tenuous public consultation process featuring organized opposition to waste incineration in general.  The work culture was however amiable and the team possessed more-than-adequate competence for the work at hand.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Learning support assistant 91 salaries reported	£22,654 per year
Teacher 66 salaries reported	£38,042 per year
School principal 59 salaries reported	£75,816 per year
Teaching assistant 34 salaries reported	£23,715 per year
Social worker 3 salaries reported	£41,946 per year

Working at Hampshire County Council: company overview and reviews

Hampshire County Council

Hampshire County Council ratings

Popular jobs at Hampshire County Council

Salary satisfaction

Jobseeker tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected