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Employment Committee – ADVISORY MEETING 2 March 2022 7.30 - 8.20 pm
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Present:
Councillors Leake (Chair), Allen (Vice-Chairman), Bhandari, Dudley, Mrs L Gibson, Porter and Wade
Apologies for absence were received from:
Councillor Heydon
17. Declarations of Interest
There were no declarations of interest.
18. Minutes from previous meeting
The minutes of the meeting held on the 8 December 2021 were approved as a correct record.
19. Urgent Items of Business
There were no urgent items of business.
20. Update from the Chairman of the Local Joint Committee
The Chairman update the Committee that Local Joint Committee had been held
earlier in the afternoon and had covered the items that were on the Employment
Committee agenda. There were no particular issues raised.
21. Minutes of Sub Groups
The minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on the 8 December 2021 were approved as a correct record.
22. Workforce Monitoring Report 2021
Paul Young, Head of HR and Contracted Services presented the Workforce Monitoring Report 2021.
The Council had a legal duty to advance equality of opportunity, eliminate unlawful
discrimination and promote good relations between people. Part of this legal duty was to report annually on workforce composition.
The report had to be published on the Councils website by the end of March 2022, and Paul raised concerns about the timescales of the report as it didn’t give much time for the report to be discussed before publishing. Through conversations with a number of groups, it had been agreed that the paper would be brought forward for the next year, and it was hoped that it would be brought to the July 2022 meeting of the committee, so the data wasn’t out of date.
Paul highlighted the summary annex and the actions that the Council had agreed to undertake such as ensuring all new starters completed the E-Learning packages in the first four weeks of employment.
It was noted that a high number of the work force had not specified their sexual orientation and religion, therefore this affected the calculations. Staff may be asked to self-declare or an exercise be undertaken to ensure this data could be included. However, this could not be enforced.
Members wanted to make sure that staff members were not under pressure to include this data should they not want too.
Names were removed from application forms when the job closed, therefore the long listing and short listing was undertaken on the application alone. The wording of this would be amended within the report.
Ages were also removed from the application form, however It could be roughly worked out due to dates of qualifications.
The Employment Committee noted the summary data included with Annex A and the resulting actions at 3.5 of the report.
23. Annual Update of The Council's Pay Statement
Paul Young, Head of HR and Contracted Services presented the Annual update of The Council's Pay Statement.
It was note that due to the timescale of the reporting, this had already been agreed and signed off by Council. Paul would be looking to bring this to an earlier meeting in 2022.
The Council had a legal requirement to publish an annual Pay Statement. The Statement was also aligned with the requirements of the Transparency Regulations.
The Employment Committee reviewed and agreed the Pay Policy Statement for 2021/22.
24. Recruitment of Chief Executive Officer
The Committee received a report is to advise and confirm the arrangements to recruit a permanent Chief Executive to provide management direction in the delivery of the Council’s strategy and fulfil the statutory position of Head of Paid Service.
It was noted that the Members who would be on the Appointment Committee was set out within the report, and the appointment of the recruitment agency was also underway.
The Council hadn’t been in a position to have to appoint a new Chief Executive for a number of years, so it was expected that this would be a learning opportunity for all.
The timetable within the report had fallen back slightly but it was hoped that some of this time would be gained back once the recruitment agency had been appointed.
RECOMMENDED that
i. the process by which a new Chief Executive is to be recruited, as set out in
paragraphs of this report is noted.
ii. the proposals made to Council about establishing the Advisory Appointment
Committee be appointed to support the Council in this appointment process as set out in paragraphs 5.2 to 5.4 be noted.
25. Exclusion of Public and Press
RESOLVED 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 the consideration of the following items which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of that Act:
(1) Information relating to any individual (Item 11 & 12).
26. 2021 Pay Award
The Committee noted the update on the 2021 Pay Award.
27. Values and Behaviours
The Committee received and noted a presentation on the Councils Values and Behaviours.
CHAIRMAN