Agenda and minutes

 Apologies for absence were received from:-

Cllr Richard Clewer, who was substituted by Cllr David Halik.

Cllr David Jenkins

Cllr Ricky Rogers

Cllr Baroness Scott of Bybrook OBE, who was substituted by Cllr Tony Trotman.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 6 March 2019.         (Copy attached)

Resolved:

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on 6 March 2019.  

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

The Chairman made the following announcement:-

HR Excellence Awards  It was announced that the Wiltshire HR team had been shortlisted for the following three Excellence Awards:-

·         Best HR Team

·         Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy

·         Most innovative use of HR technology

Presentations were due to be made on 2 July 2019 in London.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

If you would like to make a statement at this meeting on any item on this agenda, please register to do so at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting. Up to 3 speakers are permitted to speak for up to 3 minutes each on any agenda item. Please contact the officer named on the front of the agenda for any further clarification.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution.

Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named on the front of this agenda no later than 5pm on Wednesday 1 May 2019 in order to be guaranteed of a written response. In order to receive a verbal response questions must be submitted no later than 5pm on Friday 3 May 2019. Please contact the officer named on the front of this agenda for further advice. Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

There were no members of the public present or councillors’ questions..

To receive and note the minutes of the Senior Officers Employment Sub-Committee held on 27 March and 9 April 2019. (Copies attached)

Resolved:

To receive and note the minutes of the Senior Officers Employment Sub-Committee held on 27 March and 9 April 2019.

A report by the Director, Human Resources & Organisational Development is attached.

Consideration was given to a report by the Director, Human Resources & Organisational Development concerning proposals to change the ASYE (Assessed and Supported Year of Employment) policy and procedure. The ASYE policy had been updated and revised to change the way the Council dealt with performance issues for trainee social workers so that should action need to be taken, the probationary policy was used rather than the SOSR (some other substantial reason) procedure.

It was pointed out that the ASYE procedure was a 12-month programme that newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) needed to successfully complete in order to practise as qualified social workers.   It was designed to enable NQSWs develop their professional competence and confidence alongside their skills, knowledge and capability and to make the transition from formal study to practise.

The current ASYE policy used the SOSR (some other substantial reason) procedure should there be performance issues with a NQSW but after discussions with the legal team and HR operations team, it was felt that using SOSR was not appropriate as the ASYE is a probationary programme and the policy should reflect this. 

After some discussion,

Resolved:

To note the contents of the report and agree the revisions to the policy and procedure.

A report by the Director, Human Resources & Organisational Development is attached.

The Committee received a workforce report, excluding fire, police and school staff, for the quarter ended 31 March 2019.

The report showed that the current workforce appeared to be in a fairly stable position.  Staffing levels remained consistent, whilst voluntary turnover was seeing a year-on-year downward trend. 

Members were pleased to note that the proportion of staff under the age of 25 had seen a steady but consistent increase over the 2018/19 financial year and was now at its highest rate since 2015.

However, it was noted that there had been an increase in agency spend over the last 18 months but this increase mainly related to covering social worker roles in Support and Safeguarding and providing interim executive/director positions.

Resolved:

To note the Quarterly Workforce report.   

A report by the Director, Human Resources & Organisational Development is attached.

The Committee received a report by the Director, Human Resources & Organisational Development which provided a summary of the results of the 2018 staff engagement survey.

The Committee also received a presentation which set out the findings in some detail, a copy of which would be circulated to Committee members.  

It was noted that the response rate was 63.3% (2,729 individual responses), this being slightly lower than the previous survey rate in 2016 of 65.7% ((2,898 responses). However, it was explained that most of the reduced response rate could be attributed to receiving significantly less paper copy surveys in 2018. Just under 5% of responses (129) were received as paper copies compared to almost 8% (229) in 2016.

It was generally regarded that 63.3% represented a good return but thought was being given to the format of future staff surveys.  Consideration would need to be given as to whether to repeat a survey every two years or to break down the survey into a number of bite sizes.

Members were pleased to note that staff submitted over 5,500 free-text comments, compared with only 534 in the 2016 survey. Attention was drawn to the analysis of these comments which highlighted the main positive and negative themes.

After further discussion,

Resolved:

To note the contents of the report and to thank the staff for the huge amount of work that had been undertaken.             

To note that the next meeting of this Committee is due to be held on Wednesday 10 July 2019, starting at 10.30am at County Hall, Trowbridge.

Resolved:

To note that the next meeting of this Committee was due to be held on Wednesday 10 July 2019, starting at 10.30am at County Hall, Trowbridge.

There were no urgent items of business.