Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

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.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 08 February 2023 and the minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Committee held on 24 May 2023.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 08 February 2023 were approved

It was noted that Councillor Gillbe was Vice Chair of the Committee and not Councillor Frost as detailed in the minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Employment Committee held on 24 May 2023. These would be amended accordingly.

RESOLVED, with the addition of the above amendment, the minutes of the meeting of the Annual Meeting of the Committee held on 24 May 2023 were approved.

There were no urgent items of business.

A verbal update from the Chairman of the Local Joint Committee.

The Committee was advised that the Local Joint Committee had discussed item 8

on the agenda. There had been complimentary comments on the HR Policy Review and Unison was supportive of the proposed changes.

The Committee was also advised that Unison had made a formal request that the Council looked at reconstituting the Health and Safety meetings, Paul Young had advised that work on this was already underway.

Unison had also informed the Local Joint Committee that their ballot on strike action had closed on 03 July 2023. Paul Young would inform the Employment Committee of the results once they had become available which was expected in the coming days.

The Committee is asked to note the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 8 February 2023

The Committee received and noted the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on

08 February 2023.

To receive an overview from Paul Young, Assistant Director of HR and Organisational Development on the Employment Committee role and responsibilities.

The Committee was informed that in place of this presentation a separate Employment Committee training session had been taken place on 29 June 2023. The training session was recorded for any member who had been unable to attend to watch back.

To review and agree the revised policies for;

·       Shared Parental Leave

·       Trans and Non-Binary

·       Adoption Leave

·       Right to Request Flexible Working updated policies

The Committee received four HR policies – three which have been revised plus the introduction of one new policy. This was part of an ongoing rolling review of HR policies by the Human Resources team. The process for reviewing the policies had included engagement with stakeholders across the Council and Trade Unions.

The four policies which had been revised were: 

•           Adoption Leave Policy

•           Shared Parental Leave Policy

•           Flexible Working Policy

•           Trans and Non-Binary Policy – this being a newly created policy.

The following amendments had been made to the Adoption Leave Policy (detailed within section 5.4 of the policy):

The policy had been moved to new template. An equality statement had been added, changes had been made to wording for clarity and the use of more inclusive language. The following amendments had been made to the Shared Parental Leave Policy (detailed within section 5.5 of the policy):

•           The policy had been moved to new template.

•           An equality statement had been added.

•           Changes had been made to wording for clarity and the use of more inclusive language.

•           Terminology had been updated from mother/adopter to birth parent/primary adopter.

•           A link to flexible working policy had been added.

The Following Amendments had been made to the Flexible Working Policy (detailed within section 5.6 of the policy):

•           The policy had been moved to new template.

•           An equality statement had been added.

•           Changes had been made to wording for clarity.

•           The appeals procedure had been updated and appeals would now be heard by a different manager to the line manager who had originally made the decision if refused.

Furthermore, the Committee was informed of the following amendments to the Flexible Working Policy had been brought forward from later in 2023:

•           Employees would be allowed to request flexible working from day 1 of their employment as currently flexible working requests could only be made after 26 weeks of employment.

•           The requirement for employees to explain in their applications what effect they thought it would have on their employer would be removed

•           Employees would be able to make two flexible working requests per 12 months instead of the one currently allowed.

•           The deadline for an employer decision on flexible working requests would be reduced from three months to two months.

Finally, the new Trans and Non-Binary Policy had been created to demonstrate Bracknell Forest Council’s commitment to openness and equality. The policy was intended to help any trans employees through any transitioning process and ensure that they would be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace. The Committee was also informed that an eLearning training course had been created for all staff members.

Arising from the Committees comments and questions the following points were made:

•           It was confirmed that there were already several family friendly policies in place for new parents and dependants including access to additional leave.

•           It was confirmed that parental leave is in place  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.