Agenda item

To receive a presentation from the Lead Member for Organisational Development, Councillor Gill Blackwell.

81.1           The Mayor invited the Lead Member for Organisational Development, Councillor Gill Blackwell, to make her presentation to the Council.

81.2           The presentation covered the following main points:  

·         Portfolio Remit – Business Transformation; Performance Management; Human Resources (HR) and Organisational Development; Overview and Scrutiny; and Health and Safety. Business transformation and performance management were about delivery whereas the rest of the portfolio areas were about supporting delivery. Overview and Scrutiny ensured there was challenge, accountability and transparency in how the Council did things; HR and organisational development ensured the Council had the right people, in the right place, at the right time to achieve its aims in a changing and complex world; and health and safety ensured everything the Council did was undertaken in a safe manner with an additional focus on staff wellbeing. The responsibility for this rested with both Members and Officers and, through the remit of the portfolio, the Lead Member gained assurance where necessary that the right frameworks, processes and monitoring arrangements were in place.

·         Business Transformation – the programme, introduced in 2014, was overseen by the Transform Working Group. It looked at innovative and creative solutions and offered a strategic approach which was supported by five themes; partnerships, assets, technology, people and culture and commercialism. The programme had made significant savings of approximately £3 million to date. The Working Group saw Members and senior Officers working together to bridge the budget deficit which meant looking at things differently and creatively while, at the same time, delivering a balanced budget and Medium Term Financial Strategy. The business transformation programme was currently in its fourth year and it was fully expected that its success would continue – some of those successes included the commercial property investment strategy, the new garden waste system and the public service centre refurbishment. The range of projects on the programme cut across all Lead Member portfolios and, as the Lead Member for transformation, she was more than satisfied that the Council had the tools and ambition to build on its previous success and ensure that whatever it did was ‘better for customers, better for business’.

·         Performance Management – this monitored the Council Plan, service plans and staff appraisals. There was a robust regime for monitoring the Council’s priorities. Similar to transformation, performance was cross-cutting as it affected each portfolio and each service. It was important that Members could act as a critical friend when it was identified that something was not performing as it should. There were a lot of actions within the Council Plan some of which were more complex than others but, overall, performance was something to be proud of and delivered value for money services. In terms of service performance, each service produced a high level service plan which was presented at Executive Committee and the actions within them formed part of the Lead Member briefings. Three services were currently under review, or about to commence the review process; Revenues and Benefits, Planning and Environmental Health. The Management Team had now enforced completion of staff appraisals which it was anticipated would ensure staff had the right tools to do their jobs and understand their roles in conjunction with the priorities of the Council.

·         Overview and Scrutiny – Officers and Members were committed to ensuring maximum value of the Committee was achieved. The Committee had a varied work programme which covered key strategy monitoring such as Economic Development and Tourism and Housing and Homelessness; key action plans such as enviro-crimes and planning enforcement; and the performance of Ubico, and the Council generally, through the monitoring of the Council Plan. In addition, the Committee was just embarking on a scrutiny review of the recent water outages experienced in the Borough; this would fulfil the criteria within the Committee’s Terms of Reference for it to be a Committee for the community.

·         HR and Organisational Development – the Council was operating in challenging times and trying to do more for less so it was essential the workforce had the skills and competencies necessary to implement those new ways of working whether it be digitally or commercially. The Council had a committed and motivated workforce and working practices - such as flexible working, all staff working on one floor and having pride in their work - and their public service ethos helped towards this. Organisationally, across the board there was a good working relationship between Officers and Members which created a culture of ‘getting things done’. There were numerous supporting mechanisms in place for staff development, whether that be the appraisal scheme, corporate training budget, flexible working, team meetings or the empowerment to think creatively. The HR team was currently working on a Workforce Development Strategy which would encapsulate this along with an action plan for further improvements. A new HR system would soon be implemented which would make life easier for the HR team as well as managers.

·         Health and Safety – quarterly meetings of the Keep Safe, Stay Healthy Working Group were held and these were attended by the Lead Member. This was a corporate group which was represented by all services and received reports which covered all activities relating to the Council’s health and safety environment; this included ensuring adequate monitoring arrangements for key contracts such as Ubico and the leisure centre as well as internal processes such as completion of risk assessments, workstation assessments and policy related issues. The group also focussed on staff wellbeing and, in 2017, the Council had sought accreditation through the Workforce Wellbeing Charter which was an opportunity for employers to demonstrate their commitment to the health and wellbeing of their workforce. In terms of health and safety, the Council had been accredited as ‘excellent’ and similarly was accredited as ‘excellent’ for its absence management arrangements – overall it was scored highly across all categories and was awarded charter status. Even with this in mind, improvements were also made where necessary e.g. a new occupational road risk policy had been introduced.

81.3           The Mayor thanked the Lead Member for her informative presentation and invited Member questions. In response, a Member queried what the current trend was in terms of sickness absence levels amongst staff. The Chief Executive advised that the rates did go up and down quite a lot. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee considered the figures on a quarterly basis and challenged Officers on them. One of the main issues for the Council was its size and the way that long-term sickness absence affected the figures; there were currently a number of staff off on long-term sickness absence so the figures were slightly increased. The Council had good HR procedures in place to ensure it supported staff and managed absences effectively but, as part of its review of performance information, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would shortly be undertaking a review of the sickness absence policy to see if it could be improved. With regard to the reference within the presentation that the Council had purchased a new HR system, a Member questioned how this would help staff. In response, he was advised that the system was not yet live but, when it was, it would streamline the HR processes and enable staff to self-serve in a more effective way which would be helpful to the HR team as well as making the systems more efficient.

81.4           Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Lead Member Presentation be NOTED.