Meeting documents

Councillor N Naylor entered the meeting 18:36

The Committee received an update on key employment data and HR Projects, and noted the following key points:

·         The number of leavers throughout 2017/ 2018 and 2018/2019 had been at a consistent level.

·         Upon leaving, members of staff were asked their reason for leaving. Thus far, the decision by the Secretary of State to proceed with a single unitary authority model of governance for Buckinghamshire had not featured as a reason for staff leaving.

·         Absence levels had decreased this year.

·         The health and wellbeing programme was ongoing, occupational health providers had been invited to the Councils to provide a variety of workshops for staff.

·         The HR Team were looking to develop their social media presence to support the recruitment process.

·         The vacancy portal for all staff across the 5 Buckinghamshire Councils was now live. Staff can now view all job vacancies at the 5 Councils in one central place. These vacancies will be advertised internally for 7 days prior to the vacancies being publicised externally.

·         There had been a response rate of 66% for the 2018 staff survey. 100% of staff responded that they were aware of the Councils’ values and behaviours. A report would be brought to the next Committee meeting with a comparison of the results to the 2017 results.

·         The second cohort of staff on the management development programme had now completed the programme. A certificate presentation ceremony was due to be held on Thursday 31 January 2019. Members of the Joint Staffing Committee were invited to attend the event if they wished.

·         The Waste Team restructure as part of the customer experience programme was now complete. It was noted that staff on fixed term contracts would not be replaced, and there had been no redundancies. There had been some internal movement in the Facilities Team. Members were advised that Phase 1 of the programme was progressing well.

·         In relation to unitary governance, the HR leads from each of the constituent Councils met weekly and were currently defining key work streams going forward. Work relating to what the Councils must do to continue to be safe and legal was the focus for the HR Manager at Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils. The HR leads were also coming up with proposals on the process to appoint to the post of Chief Executive for the new authority.

Members recognised that the sickness absence figures presented were positive, but were concerned that the way the figures were presented, if read literally were misleading. The layout would be reviewed by officers for the next update.

It was noted that the average time to hire column in the table at 2. 1. 2 indicated the average time between a post being advertised and an offer being made and accepted by a candidate.

Members suggested that a commentary be provided within the update report to further explain any data presented, as well as the successes and challenges that face the HR function at the Councils. In addition, that any chart axis include a comprehensive explanation for complete clarity.

The Committee were assured that future reports would contain exception reporting, as well as include information relating to specific departments where appropriate to explain the figures. By way of example, to include a brief explanation as to why a position had not been filled, in order to highlight hard to fill positions.

Members were pleased with the health and wellbeing programme, and initiatives around resilience through change.

A Member enquired as to whether the Councils were reducing the establishment figures due to the customer experience programme, and it was advised that there was no plan to reduce the overall number of staff beyond the approved business plan. However, it was noted that numbers of staff had reduced marginally as some staff on fixed term contracts had come to the end of their contract.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.