Australians give up beach life ... for a job at Croydon council

A London borough has been so desperate to hire new staff that it has launched a recruitment drive on the other side of the world.

Two officials flew to Australia to conduct a series of interviews. As a result, four planning and building control officers have agreed to give up their life in the sun Down Under - and move to Croydon.

The recruits, signed up on two-year contracts by Croydon council, are expected to arrive later this summer.

The interviews took place in Sydney and Melbourne in May, with two of the successful applicants coming from Melbourne, one from Brisbane and the other from Sydney.

After social workers, planning staff are the second hardest to find for local authorities in Britain, and Croydon says it has been struggling for years to maintain a full team.

The council says traditional advertising channels proved ineffective and the constant engagement of temporary staff was inefficient and costly.

Rather than continue competing with other British town halls for scarce home-grown professionals, Croydon hired an international recruitment consultancy. Councillor Jason Perry, cabinet member for planning, said: "The recruitment of planning and transportation staff has been an enduring problem for several years.

"The cost of constant, ineffective advertising and the expense of finding and engaging temporary staff is extremely high.

"Therefore the option of international recruitment, although expensive in the short term, was something we felt obliged to try. It's an innovative approach for the planning profession and I am delighted it appears to have paid off." He said the initiative had attracted interest from other councils that were experiencing similar problems with recruitment.

Croydon says the cost of the process will be fully covered in the first year.

This includes one-way flights to England, relocation payments, work permits and visa processing.

If the council also offers positions to two reserve candidates, then overall it expects to save £85,000 a year through recruiting Australian staff on contracts rather than continue taking on temporary help.

Croydon says that while the Australian initiative was successful it is pursuing other ways of recruiting planning staff.

These include schemes for apprentice and graduate placements as part of a wider process to help staff develop and secure professional qualifications. Market supplements are also used to help reduce turnover as experienced staff are lured away to private-sector jobs.