Agenda item

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 out approved providers, standardised rates of pay, and terms and conditions;
• payment for agency staff outside of the framework needed to be agreed by Directors;
• the Council’s biggest opportunity was its staff, and it was important to maintain morale through Local Government Reorganisation (LGR);
• AI was a complex issue:  and was already making it more difficult to tackle employee relations cases;
• degree apprenticeships were changing at the end of the year; and
• job descriptions and equal pay for jobs would be covered as part of TUPE.

The Chair thanked the Strategic Director for People and Community for her work on this, and Councillor Palmer for bringing this proposal to the committee.

The Strategic Director for People and Community with permission of the Chair, left the meeting.

The Head of Service – HR, Workforce Planning & Organisational Development gave a presentation on the Staff Survey responses, making the following points:

• 51% of staff participated, which was an increase on 25% in 2023;
• it is possible that the staff that felt like nothing had been done as a result of previous surveys and therefore did not complete the survey this year;
• the strengths highlighted were:
  • health and safety;
  • managerial trust;
  • fair treatment; and
  • knowledge sharing
• areas for improvement were:
  • workplace progress;
  • follow up actions from the survey;
  • career development; and
  • cross-team collaboration
• these results had been shared with Heads of Service who would be meeting with HR Business Partners to develop action plans for their teams.

The Head of Service – HR, Workforce Planning & Organisational Development responded to a question from Councillor Holland, confirming that staff were able to complete the survey during work time.

Councillor Fullam felt it was positive that the survey enabled year on year changes to be seen, and that it was very refreshing and the council were making good progress.

In moving the recommendation to note the report, the Chair proposed, and Councillor Holland seconded that the committee appreciate the openness and transparency in order to meaningfully scrutinise now and in the future and note the transformation within the service. Following a vote, this was CARRIED.