Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors G Barton and M Parsons.

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

Councillor J Jackson declared she was a member of GMB and Councillor D Flude declared that she was a retired member of UNISON.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a total period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the Committee on any matter relevant to the work of the body in question.  

Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide at least three clear working days’ notice in writing and should include the question with that notice. This will enable an informed answer to be given.  It is not required to give notice of the intention to make use of public speaking provision, however, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours notice is encouraged.

No members of the public in attendance wished to speak.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 26 January 2017

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 26 January 2017 be confirmed as a correct record.

To inform the Committee of a decision taken by the Acting Chief Executive under urgency procedures

A report was circulated for information at the Chairman’s discretion informing the Committee of a decision taken by the Acting Chief Executive, in consultation with the Chairman of Staffing Committee, the Group Leaders and the Mayor, under urgency provisions in relation to the statutory appointments of an interim Monitoring Officer and S151 Officer. 

To receive an update on progress with the Council’s People Plan 2016/17, including Health and Safety, Human Resource and Organisational Development items

The Committee considered a report on the progress with the Council’s People Plan 2016/17. 

The report provided details on the progress with the main priorities for each HR service area in the People Plan, and on HR performance Data for Quarter 4 which included headcount and employee turnover, voluntary redundancy and working days lost to sickness absence.

The report also provided a summary of accidents and incidents in Quarter 4 and details of the RIDDOR  reportable accidents.

The Committee noted that there were concerns about the retention of social workers in the children’s area. It was reported that the Cheshire East Health and Wellbeing Board was the committee overseeing the continuous improvement of children services and the retention issue was part of its work.

It was suggested that the employee turnover data provided could include benchmarking data to make them more meaningful.  The Head of Strategic HR agreed to look into this.

It was asked if the number of teacher redundancies and costs were reported anywhere.  The Head of Strategic HR agreed to look in to this.

It was queried if settlement agreements and costs were reported anywhere.  The Head of Strategic HR agreed to look in to this.

The Committee requested an update on the position of the review of the Council’s redundancy terms and that work should re-commence on reviewing the voluntary redundancy multipliers.

In relation to the Staff Survey, the Committee requested that an update on the actions plan and work of the Corporate Governance Group be brought to the next meeting.

RESOLVED:

1        That the report be noted;

2        The Head of Strategic HR to look into the reporting to the Staffing Committee of teacher redundancies and costs, the reporting of settlement agreements and costs and the inclusion of benchmarking data in the employee turnover data; and

3        a report be brought to the next meeting in relation to the review of the Council’s redundancy terms,  and on the Staff Survey action plans.

To receive the report of the Attendance Management Project

The Committee considered a report on the outcomes of the Attendance Management Project.

A cross party Working Group had been established to carry out a review attendance management and identify key issues. 

Details of sickness rates, short and long term absence, trends and reasons for absence, current reporting arrangements and Occupational Heath support were reported to the Working Group.  The Corporate Audit Team had been  commissioned to undertake an audit of the reporting, recording and management of sickness across the Council.  Benchmarking had been undertaken against other local authorities and ACAS and CIPD good practice. 

The Working Group had agreed a suite of sickness absence reports and a HR dashboard had been introduced across the Council to enable monthly scrutiny and review of attendance.  The Group had also agreed that a robust sickness absence target should be introduced and reviewed annually by the Chief Executive and be included within the annual performance review objectives.

The Committee agreed that there was an urgency to take forward the actions from the review and asked that an update report be brought to the next meeting detailing progress. 

RESOLVED:

That the outcomes of the Attendance Management Project be noted and a report be brought back to the next meeting detailing progress with the work.