New Recruitment Process & Vacancy Controls
This change is designed to:
Empower Divisional leadership teams to make local recruitment decisions
Support better budget management across Divisions and Care Groups
Reduce delays and improve visibility in the recruitment process
Divisional Leadership and Accountability
Decision making will now sit primarily with Divisions, rather than centrally with Kings Executive (KE), for roles within agreed limits. This approach gives Divisions greater control over recruitment decisions, but also greater accountability.
Divisional teams will need to:
Prioritise which roles are essential
Ensure recruitment stays within budget and workforce plans
Challenge whether vacancies or temporary cover are genuinely required
While decision making is being devolved, scrutiny is not being reduced. All roles will continue to go through a robust approval process.
Key Principles of the New Process
All vacancies must go through the LPC process (no exclusions)
Substantive roles must be submitted via Trac
Temporary staffing requests are managed via the LPC spreadsheet process
Divisions approve roles within establishment and run rate
Kings Executive retains oversight of:
Roles outside establishment or run rate
Temporary staffing and high cost requests
Requests exceeding limits are escalated via the Break Glass process
Recruitment to Substantive Posts
All substantive vacancies must be submitted via Trac
Requests are reviewed by all Authorisers (Finance and Finance Business Partners, Care Group Triumvirates, Divisional Triumvirates) in Trac and then they are reviewed at King’s Executive and ICB level depending on the request. All non clinical requests are forwarded to ICB for review (Triple Lock process).
All outcomes (grant or refuse authorisation) are recorded in Trac by all authorisation levels, ensuring progress visibility.
Roles within establishment and run rate are approved at Divisional level.
Roles outside limits are escalated to King’s Executive Panel via a Break Glass process.
Temporary Staffing (Bank & Agency) & Contractual Changes (FTC extensions, additional PAs etc.)
All requests must be submitted via the current LPC spreadsheet process on SharePoint
The Process
The process for managers to follow is:
The manager logs the vacancy request on SharePoint. If the manager does not have access to the specified SharePoint folder, they can request access when they try to sign in for the first time. This may take a few hours to become active.
The vacancy request is reviewed by Finance BPs, People BPs, Care Group and Divisional Triumvirates.
Following the Divisional Triumvirate meeting, a return is submitted to kch-tr.VAP@nhs.net.
LPC numbers, as well as progress updates, can be found in the Outcome Folder in SharePoint.
Exemptions for Temporary Staffing Requests
The following temporary staffing requests may be managed through local processes (where within agreed controls) and may not require escalation:
Bookings of less than 5 days for Clinical roles only
All other requests must follow the full LPC process and, where applicable, the Break Glass escalation route.
Break Glass Process
The Break Glass process provides a route for Divisions to escalate priority roles where they have reached their agreed establishment and are operating above run rate.
In these cases, Hiring Managers must complete a Risk Assessment, and the request will be reviewed by Kings Executives for a final decision.
Exemptions from the Break Glass Process
Fixed Term Contract extensions
Secondment extensions
Externally funded R&D posts
Nursing roles that are managed by the Centralised Recruitment Team
Resident Doctor roles that must be recruited to, to maintain safe and compliant rotas (Resident Doctors are defined as: NHSE/HEE trainees & locally employed fellows/trust doctors, equivalent grades to trainees but outside of a national training programme).
Requests that fall into the above exempt categories will still be reviewed at Divisional/Corporate Panels.
Required Forms and Guidance
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