Agenda and draft minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies had been received from Councillor Read, who had sent Councillor Palmer as her substitute.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 25 September 2025.

The minutes of the meeting of Customer Focus Scrutiny Committee held on 25 September 2025 were taken as read and approved as correct, subject minor amendments as requested by the Chair.

Councillors are reminded of the need to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests that relate to business on the agenda and which have not already been included in the register of interests, before any discussion takes place on the item. Unless the interest is sensitive, you must also disclose the nature of the interest. In accordance with the Council's Code of Conduct, you must then leave the room and must not participate in any further discussion of the item. Councillors requiring clarification should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer prior to the day of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

Details of questions should be notified to the Democratic Services Manager via the democratic.services@exeter.gov.uk email by 10.00am at least three working days prior to the meeting. For this meeting any questions must be submitted by 10.00am on Monday 10 November 2025.

For details about how to speak at Committee, please click the following link - https://exeter.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/councillors-and-meetings/public-speaking-at-meetings/overview/

There were no questions from members of the public.

To receive questions from Members of the Council to the relevant Portfolio Holders for this Scrutiny Committee. The Portfolio Holders are:-

Councillor Bialyk – Leader of the Council

Councillor Asvachin – Housing, Homelessness Prevention & Customer Services

Councillor Vizard – Climate, Ecological Change and Communities

Councillor Williams – Place and City Management

Councillor Wright – Corporate Services and City Centre

Advance questions from Members relating to the Portfolio Holders should be notified to Democratic Services via democratic.services@exeter.gov.uk

There were no questions submitted in advance by Members.

To receive the report of the Strategic Director for Corporate Resources.

The Chair explained to Members that the Strategic Director for Corporate Resources was unable to attend this meeting and that this item would be deferred to the meeting in January.

To receive the report of the Strategic Director – People and Communities

The Chair advised Members that the report had not been published and allowed 10 minutes to read the report.

Councillor Palmer, under Standing Order 45, presented her Scrutiny Proforma and in doing so, made the following points:

• this was not a challenge and she hoped it would support the work being carried out;
• it would provide Members with a better understanding of the role of Human Resources(HR);
• she hoped that this would support Portfolio Holders and HR officers with their work; and
• she hoped this discussion would be supportive, and it could be agreed what might be useful to see in the future.

The Strategic Director for People and Community gave a presentation making the following points:

• there had been an independent HR review in 2024 to identify necessary structural, procedural and cultural changes;
• resources were focused on supporting the delivery of the Council’s objectives;
• HR had previously been a reactive service;
• there had previously been little data on council employees and uncertainty around overall people function;
• HR had seen a transformational change of their service, and she was proud of the team and what had been delivered;
• a huge amount of work had been carried out on iTrent and it was still improving;
• there had been a culture shift for leadership and organisation;
• Power BI was an easy way to view staff insights and would be very useful for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests;
• an Employee Hub containing policies and information about staff benefits, as well as an interactive communication portal would be made available to staff soon;
• the Council’s apprenticeship scheme had been reviewed, and apprenticeships in areas that would benefit the city were being prioritised;
• the Council were currently in a procurement process for a new occupational health provider,
• a new modernised approach to industrial relations had been agreed with unions and a reset JCNC was now in operation ;
• in areas where sickness absence was quite high HR was working with managers on specific areas;
• the vacancy rate was in line with comparators and the ‘time to hire’ was good and was likely to improve more following updates to iTrent; and
• the future priorities were to continue evolving work that had already started. 

The Strategic Director for People and Community and the Head of Service – HR, Workforce Planning and Organisational Development responded to Members’ questions in the following terms:

• there was a higher rate of long-term sickness in some service areas and the data allowed for a more in-depth view in these areas.;
• HR Business Partners were having discussions with managers regarding support for people off sick;
• the sickness and absence policy had been rewritten to be more proactive;
• HR had been meeting with managers to help manage sickness absence better and there had already been a decline in the level of sickness absence;
• the staff survey was 62 questions long, which may have contributed to the low level of participation for some worker groups;
• there was a framework for using agency staff that set  ...  view the full minutes text for item 90.

Please see for noting a link to the schedule of future business proposed for the Council which can be viewed on the Council's web site. This on-line document is a source for Members to raise issues at Scrutiny on forthcoming Executive agenda items:

Forward Plan of Executive Decisions - Exeter City Council

Also attached is a draft work plan of future scrutiny items.

Should Members wish to raise issues in respect of future business please notify Liz Smith in advance of the meeting.

The Chair proposed, to the approval of the committee, that:

• the Medium Term Financial Plan would be moved to January;
• Councillor Moore’s budget proforma would be moved to January; and
• the Leader’s Portfolio Holder Update report would also be moved to January. 

Following a vote, the draft Scrutiny Work Plan, as amended was AGREED.