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 declerations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 8 February 2024 and the annual meeting held on the 15 May 2024.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 07 February 2024 were approved.

RESOLVED, with the addition of the above amendment, the minutes of the meeting of the Annual Meeting of the Committee held on 15 May 2024 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 7 on the agenda. There had been no objections raised to the HR Policy Review and the Local Joint Committee had indicated they were supportive of the recommendations being approved.

The Committee is asked to note the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 8 February 2024.

The Committee received and noted the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 07 February 2024.

To review and agree the following revised policies and procedure:

1)    Paternity and Maternity Support Leave Procedure

2)    Agile Working Policy

3)    Smoke Free Workplace Policy

4)    Maternity Pay & Leave Policy

5)    Organisational Change Policy

6)    Flexitime Scheme Procedure

7)    Managing Absence Policy 

The Committee received the latest revised policies from the HR Policy Review for consideration. The HR team have an established programme in place to review/update existing HR policies/procedures and guidance. As part of this process, policies and procedures are being consolidated, wherever possible, and new policies and procedures created to reflect changes to legislation or best practice.

The process for reviewing the policies had included engagement with; stakeholders, trade unions, the equalities group and DMT.

The following amendments had been made to HR policies:

Paternity & Maternity Support Leave Procedure:

·       Procedure created to consolidate different guidance documents.

·       Moved to new template, which includes the BFC equality statement.

·       Amended to reflect changes to legislative changes on the taking of paternity leave and notice required which are effective from April 2024: Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024.

·       Inclusion of reference to Parental Bereavement Leave – Section 9.0.

Agile Working Policy:

·       Moved to new template, which includes the BFC equality statement.

·       Guidance on working abroad (Section 12 of the policy) expanded to include the requirement for employees to check if the country is safe and that ICT may restrict countries from which it is considered safe to work due to security information.

·       The requirement that new starters/leavers are required to attend Time Square to collect/return ICT equipment being added, following cases where IT equipment has been shipped at the Council’s expense to employee’s homes.

·       Strengthened wording around departments that cannot Agile Work. 

·       Reference to Lone Working policy.

Smoke Free Workplace Policy:

·       The policy has been renamed from No Smoking Policy to reflect the greater scope of the policy. 

·       Moved to new template, which includes the BFC equality statement

·       Inclusion of other forms of smoking within the policy, such as vaping, e-cigarettes.

·       To reflect increase agile working, policy amended to include requirement to refrain from smoking/vaping when working away from office and attending virtual meetings on Teams/Zoom, etc.

Maternity Pay & Leave Policy 

·       The policy has been created to provide more concise guidance - previously two separate guidance documents existed.

·       Moved to new template, which includes the BFC equality statement

·       Amendment have been made to reflect legislative changes for the taking of  neonatal leave and parental bereavement leave.

·       Breastfeeding guidance incorporated.

Organisational Change Policy

·       Moved to new template which incorporates the BFC equality statement

·       Amendments to reflect legislative changes to give greater protection for employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave.

·       Clarification on the selection process and when At Risk letters are issued

·       A draft consultation document template and a Sequence of Events timeline added for greater clarity.

·       Guidance added on employee support and family leave protection. 

·       Organisational design principles included.

Flexitime Scheme Procedure

·       A procedure has been created to supplement the intranet page, which was previously the only source of reference/guidance for the Council’s Flexitime scheme.

·       Procedure is on the BFC standard template, which incorporates an equality statement.

·       Amendment to the requirement to take breaks which are in line with Working Time Regulations (1998) i.e. a minimum 20-minute break after 6 hours working. The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To provide an update on the 2024 Pay Award Update

The Committee received an update on the 2024/25 pay settlement for workers.

The trade unions had submitted their pay claim. This claim had included:

•  A £3k or 10% pay rise, whichever was greater

•  A reduction in working week of 2 hours

•  An additional day paid leave for wellbeing

•  A review of pay gaps to tackle inequality

•  A phased approach for to reaching a minimum £15ph wage for all staff.

In response the National Employers had given a final offer off:

• A pay rise of £1,290 per year for all NJC pay points 2 to 43.
• A 2.5% pay rise for all those above NJC pay point 43.

Following ballots UNISON and Unite had decided to reject the pay offer whilst GMB had agreed to accept the pay offer.

Following questioning the Committee noted the following points:

• It was normal for there to be delays in agreeing the pay award at the start of a financial year, with the previous years dispute having only been settled in November 2023.
• It was important to remember this was a national dispute, not a dispute between the Trade Unions and Bracknell Forest Council.
• The requested phased implementation of a £15 per hour minimum wage for local authorities could be overtaken by rises in the living wage set by the government.