The Planning Inspectorate

A major new government initiative, the Planning Portal, http://www.planningportal.gov.uk is a general planning advisory service for the public, business and other users of the planning system.

New Wave has been working with the Planning Portal since April 2002 and has successfully recruited for a variety of positions, to become the Planning Portal’s preferred method of hiring IT staff. We have been using the Assignment model, which aims to address the key issues faced by public sector organisations when recruiting, such as:

• Cost of using agencies or advertising.

The Assignment model operates on a fixed fee of £3,000. This is less than an average advertising campaign.

• Lack of Quality Candidates from press advertising.

The New Wave Database covers more than 3 times the number of IT candidates than can be reached by advertising in the Guardian or Computer Weekly.

• Time involved in filtering response.

New Wave filters the response so that you receive a shortlist of the best candidates.

• Time involved in recruitment campaigns.

Rather than undergoing a 2 month long advertising recruitment campaign, the Assignment model provides you with a qualified shortlist after two weeks, so you can organise interviews to be held immediately afterwards.

• Inability to compete with commercial sector salaries.

New Wave only forwards candidates who have expressed a strong interest in working in the public sector and have seen the full details of your organisation, the salary and benefits package.

Working with the Portal Director, we have recruited:

Post                                                      Total Cost to Recruit*

Technical Operations Manager                 £2,500

Technical Support Manager                     £2,500

Technical Support Consultants x3            £2,500

GIS Applications Support Consultant        £2,500

Content Editor                                       £2,500

*The Planning Portal received a discounted rate due to the volume of Assignments.

"New Wave have delivered a very good service at a reasonable cost, within our time scales which have been tight. The outcome of each job advert has been good and we have picked up some very good individuals in a number of different roles"

Marie Emler.

HR Manager, The Planning Portal