Agenda and minutes

Members are requested to declare any Personal Interests. Any Member  with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should  withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration  and should notify the Democratic Services Officer In attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 10 October 2012.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 10 October 2012 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Any other items which, pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Chairman decides are urgent.

There were no items of urgent business raised.

At the last meeting of the Employment Committee, members requested that the Director of Corporate Services be invited to attend this meeting to discuss the Action Plan in further detail.

The Director of Corporate Services reported that staff surveys were carried out every two years, the last undertaken in October 2011. After significant follow-up work with managers, the Council-wide actions resulting from the main conclusions of the survey were posted on the intranet. In addition, each Directorate had produced its own plan.

The Director of Corporate Services reported that the response rate to the survey had been 63% and the headline findings had been generally very positive. There had been a number of issues which the survey highlighted where improvements could be made:

·         Internal communications: staff who highlighted this as an area for improvement were predominantly staff who worked in remote sites or where they did not have easy access to a PC; measures were being taken to ensure that these staff were kept informed.

·         Different areas of the Council working together: predominantly staff who were required to work Council wide.

·         Increase in work related stress: Work with managers was in its early stages looking at this area.

·         Performance management: a programme of work with managers to improve competency in this area was underway.

The Director of Corporate Services reported that the management of stress would be linked to staff one to one’s. In addition, managers would be equipped with good practice guidance for effective one to one’s.

Members commented that given that the survey was undertaken at a difficult time for staff, with redundancies imminent and a great deal of uncertainty among staff, the positive results that were attained were encouraging.

The Director of Corporate Services reported that a staff satisfaction survey around ICT had recently been completed. A key area of concern was the number of log on passwords required. It was anticipated that this would be remedied as the organisation moved away from Novell to Microsoft.

Members’ queried whether the results of the Members Survey had been published as requested by the Member Development Steering Group. The Director of Corporate Services agreed to look into this.   

The Employment Committee is requested to endorse the attached 6^th Pay and Workforce Strategy.

The Chief Officer: Human Resources reported that this was the Council’s 6^th Pay and Workforce Strategy covering a three year period between 2012 and 2015. The Strategy intended to demonstrate how HR priorities for the Council linked into departmental priorities and to take into account local issues. It was not intended to be a resource allocation document but should be viewed as an outline plan on priority HR areas for the Council to tackle in the next 1-3 years.

In response to members’ queries, the Chief Officer: Human Resources made the following points:

·         Recruitment and retention across the Council was being monitored carefully. There were a number of areas where staff turnover had traditionally been higher than average, this included: leisure staff, ICT staff and children’s social care. Members could elicit greater detail on these areas from Quarterly Service Reports as necessary.

·         Non-monetary mechanisms to reward staff for performance were always being considered, this included personal recognition, greater responsibility and the annual staff achievement awards day. The job evaluation exercise would also be looking at performance related pay as well as time served incremental progression.   

Members requested further detail on the four actions which had not been completed, which the Chief Officer: Human Resources agreed to provide for the next meeting.

It was RESOLVED that the 6^th Pay and Workforce Strategy be endorsed by the Committee.

The Committee is asked to endorse the attached Pay Policy Statement, in accordance with the Localism Act 2011.

The Chief Officer: Human Resources reported that the Localism Act 2011 required the Council to create and publish a Pay Policy Statement, with particular emphasis on senior pay.

It was RESOLVED that in accordance with the Localism Act 2011, the Pay Policy Statement be endorsed.

The Committee is asked to note the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 20 November 2012.

The Committee noted the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 20 November 2012.

To consider the following motion:

That pursuant to section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended, and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for consideration of the following items which involve the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of that Act:

            (1)  Information relating to any individual  (Items 10, 11 and 12)

RESOLVED that pursuant to section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for consideration of items 29, 30 and 31 which involved the likely disclosure of exempt information under category 1 of Schedule 12A of that Act:

            (1)  Information relating to any individual

The Committee is asked to approve a report around the restructure of the Mayor’s Office.

The Committee considered a report around the restructure of the Mayor’s Office.

It was RESOLVED that the post-holder identified in the exempt Appendix A to the report, be made redundant with effect from 31 December 2012 in accordance with the terms set out in the exempt appendix.

The Committee is asked to approve a report around the restructure of the ICT function.

The Committee considered a report around the restructure of the ICT function.

It was RESOLVED that the deletion of the Information Security Officer identified in the exempt Appendix A to the report be approved with effect from 24 February 2013 and the post holder be declared redundant in accordance with the terms set out in the Appendix with costs being met from the Structural Changes Fund.

A report on flexible retirement is attached for the Committee’s consideration.

The Committee considered a report around flexible retirement.

It was RESOLVED that the flexible retirement application from the Senior Cashier be approved to take effect from 1 January 2013.

20 March 2013.

20 March 2013.