Agenda and minutes

Cllr Jacqui Lay and Cllr Helen Belcher - (Sub Liz Alstrom)

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 5 January 2022.

Decision

·         That the minutes of the Staffing Policy Committee meeting held on Wednesday 5 January 2022 were confirmed as the correct record

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

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

Ask Angela

That Kevin Fielding – Democratic Services had emailed Linda Holland and requested an update on the rolling out of further staff training for the “Ask Angela” campaign and would look to have an update at the next SPC meeting.

Proposed SPC Sub-Committees March 2022

That after Cllr Simon Jacobs had stood down from Cabinet, in October 2021 at Full Council he was taken off as a full member of Staffing Policy Committee and made a substitute. Cllr Ashley O’Neill was then made a full member of Staffing Policy Committee.

In light of this, membership of the sub committees would need to be updated.

The proposal was to remove Cllr Simon Jacobs as a substitute from Staffing Policy Sub-Committees and replace him with Cllr Ashley O’Neill.

Proposed Sub Committees

Senior Officers Employment Sub Committee

Cllr Stuart Wheeler, Cllr Richard Clewer, Cllr Helen Belcher                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Substitutes: Cllr Allison Bucknell, Cllr Carole King, Cllr Jacqui Lay, Cllr Ashley O’Neill, Cllr Antonio Piazzo, Cllr Ricky Rogers

Appeals Sub-Committee

Cllr Stuart Wheeler, Cllr Richard Clewer, Cllr Carole King

Substitutes: Cllr Allison Bucknell, Cllr Carole King, Cllr Jacqui Lay, Cllr Ashley O’Neill, Cllr Antonio Piazzo, Cllr Ricky Rogers

Grievance Appeals Sub- Committee

Cllr Stuart Wheeler, Cllr Allison Bucknell, Cllr Carole King

Substitutes: Cllr Allison Bucknell, Cllr Carole King, Cllr Jacqui Lay, Cllr Ashley O’Neill, Cllr Antonio Piazzo, Cllr Ricky Rogers

Decision

• That the changes were noted and agreed

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 2 March 2022 in order to be guaranteed of a written response. In order to receive a verbal response, questions must be submitted no later than 5pm onFriday 4 March 2022.

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 was no public participation.

Wali Rahman - OD Consultant Inclusion & Diversity Strategic HR & OD

Wali Rahman - OD Consultant Inclusion & Diversity Strategic HR & OD outlined theupdated annual inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report. 

Points made included:

That the council were required to produce this information annually as part of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in line with the Equality Act 2010.   

That in March 2021 Wiltshire Council published its inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report 2018/19 on the Wiltshire Council website.

That the council was required to publish the updated inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report for 2020/2021 by the 31 March 2022. The headcount figures in the report had been based on workforce data as at 1 October 2021 or, where monitoring information is reviewed over a year, the reference period used was 12 months up to 1 October 2021 (for recruitment, leavers etc).  There was no set reference date for the collection of workforce data as there was for the gender pay gap.

That although the national census was undertaken in 2021 the data was not yet available to use in this year’s report, so the report compared data with the 2011 census for Wiltshire which may not accurately reflect the current profile of the Wiltshire population of 2021.

The report contained  non-school council workforce data and then a breakdown of this information by each of the protected characteristics where information was available. 

Information on gender pay gap in line with the requirements of the PSED was contained in a separate gender pay gap report.

As part of its PSED, the council was required to publish equality objectives.  The council had identified several service and workforce (HR) related equality objectives, and these had been subject to public consultation and were regularly reviewed. The equality objectives were monitored by the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) steering group.

As part of its PSED the council was required to publish data on service users. This information would continue to be collected and published by the executive office support team.

It was also noted that Wiltshire Council had just been shortlisted for the Diversity and Inclusion award at the LGC Awards 2022 for working to create an inclusive workplace.

Points made by the Committee included:

·         A good and very readable report.

·         That the pandemic had made a lot of older people re-think what they wanted in life.

·         That most people were generally cynical re giving out personal information.

·         That the labour market was definitely a buyers market at the moment.

·         The importance of Wiltshire Council working with schools and young people.

Decision

• That the Staffing Policy Committee noted the contents of the report and that this information would be fed into the action plan linked to the new Inclusion strategy

The Chairman thanked Wali Rahman for his report.

The Committee had requested further background on the “Unstated” figures included in the report.

The most obvious factor affecting our 'Unstated' percentages in this year's report is the staff that TUPE'd into Leisure on 1 October 2021.

The report of staff is taken each year on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

Laura Fisher - HR Pay & Reward Consultant, HR&OD

Jo Pitt – Director, HR&OD outlined the gender pay gap data and report required to be published on behalf of Wiltshire Council for the reference date of 31  March 2021.

Points made included:

That Gender pay gap reporting came into effect from April 2017 and required organisations with 250 or more employees to publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap – the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men’s earnings.

That these obligations had been introduced alongside the public-sector equality duty’s (PSED) existing publishing requirements for public bodies.

That Public Sector organisations must publish a set of figures via the government’s online reporting service each year. For Wiltshire Council, the figures must be based on the reference date of the 31March to be published by the 30 March the following year. 

The set of figures required include:

·         mean gender pay gap in hourly pay

·         median gender pay gap in hourly pay

·         mean bonus gender pay gap

·         median bonus gender pay gap

·         proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment

·         proportion of males and females in each pay quartile

That the figures must be published on the council’s external website to ensure accessibility to employees and the public. They must remain on the website for a period of 3 years from the publication date.

It was noted that different authorities published slightly different data when trying to compare how Wiltshire Council matched up to other Local Authorities.

Decision

·         That the Staffing Policy Committee noted the contents of the gender pay gap infographic report and action plan, and the obligations placed on the council with regards to the publication of gender pay gap data

The Chairman thanked Jo Pitt for her report.

Verbal update from Jo Pitt – Director, HR & OD

Jo Pitt – Director, HR & OD gave a brief verbal update.

Points made included:

That Wiltshire Council had been involved in negotiations with the Trade Unions since December 2021.

That the Trade Unions were currently consulting with their members.

That Wiltshire Council were looking to set up a working group re allowances.

The Chairman thanked Jo Pitt for her update.

Verbal update from Michael Taylor - Workforce Insight Analyst strategic,

HR & OD

It was agreed that Quarterly workforce report October – December 2021 would be circulated with the minutes of the 9 March 2022 minutes.

There were none.

Quarterly Workforce Report - July – September 2021

Stress-related absence had continued to increase this quarter, however the increase was less significant (+7%) to last quarter. The increase in stress-related absence was largely due to a significant increase in non-work related stress, with other stress-related reasons (depression/anxiety, neurological and work-related stress absences) all experiencing reductions compared to the previous quarter (April – June 2021). The increase in non-work related stress appeared predominantly in social care (both adults and childrens) and Joint Commissioning. Work was currently underway to deliver an action plan to reduce sickness absence in general across social care, with a particular focus on reducing stress related absence in these areas.

It was agreed that Jo Pitt would circulate to the Staffing Policy Committee further information on this issue.

Ways of Working Policy

It was agreed that the decision from the Ways of Working Policy agreed at the 5 January 2022 Staffing Policy Committee meeting would be circulated.

Cllr Richard Clewer advised that he was not comfortable to agree the Ways of Working Policy report presented to the Committee, and advised that Paragraphs 41-44 of the report were still being discussed at Wiltshire Council Cabinet level, and that the report should be deferred to the March 2022 Staffing Policy Committee meeting.

After a discussion it was agreed:

Decision

That the Staffing Policy Committee approved the amalgamation of the Homeworking and Flexitime policies to create the Ways of Working policy, with the exception of paras 41-44, (set out below) which would be discussed and agreed by Jo Pitt - Director HR&OD, Cllr Ashely O’Neil - Cabinet Member for Governance, Licensing, Staffing, Communities and Area Boards, and Cllr Stuart Wheeler - Chairman of the Staffing Policy Committee.