Minutes:
Paula Marsh - HR & OD Strategic Delivery Manager, Wiltshire Council gave a verbal Covid Response update.
Points made included:
Policies and guidance
· That the COVID19 policy remained in place which allowed the council to alter working arrangements; allocation of staff to roles; attendance at work, temporary working arrangements, holidays and some pay arrangements.
· The policy remained whilst staff were working in temporary ways, for example working from home, and would also enable Wiltshire Council to make changes should they be required in the event of a local outbreak and lockdown.
· CLT made the decision that the temporary arrangements which were put in place in March 2020 to maintain normal pay for casual workers and staff on variable hours contracts who were unable to work where services were closed due to lockdown restrictions, would cease on 31 August 2020. These arrangements meant staff were paid based on an assessment by the manager of either: Planned working time – the hours of work they would have been expected to undertake over the next 12 weeks; Previous working patterns (e.g. an average of the last 12 weeks or the same period in a previous year) or a sensible estimate of hours (advice could be sought from payroll or HR if required).
· Initially the arrangement were put in place for 12 weeks but was extended as services remained closed due to national lockdown measures.
· However due to the fact that lockdown measures had now been lifted and services are starting to remobilise the council would revert to paying staff for hours worked with effect from 1 September 2020.
· Wiltshire Council had briefed unions and ensure their agreement to this approach and services have written to impacted staff to confirm this to them.
· For permanent variable hours staff contracted on zero hours they would revert to normal pay arrangements, i.e. they would be paid only for the hours that they actually worked.
· If these staff did not work any hours in September, because the location or part of the service they work in was not re-opened, they would not receive any pay in October 2020 or beyond for as long as the service was closed.
· For permanent variable hours staff with guaranteed hours specified in their contract they would be paid only for these minimum hours from October 2020 onwards, unless they actually worked any additional hours.
· As variable hours staff were paid monthly in arrears their September pay reflects August, and therefore would be based on the expected / average hours approach.
· For casual workers where there was no anticipated work they should have their working arrangements ended on 31 August 2020. They would receive a final payment that month based on expected / average hours.
· Where services retain casual workers beyond 31 August they would revert to being paid for hours actually worked during the previous month. Services would only retain casual workers where there was an expectation that work would be available.
Furlough
· As outlined at the last SPC in June Wiltshire Council made the decision to furlough staff in income generating services who were not able to work or be redeployed.
· In total Wiltshire Council had furloughed 583 staff across 828 posts, mainly in Leisure ops, City Hall and Library service. Of these Wiltshire Council had claimed through the scheme for salary costs relating to 511 of these staff, some would not had had claims made due to not having any salary costs for the period.
· Where staff had been paid during the period Wiltshire Council had maintained these staff on 100% contractual pay (i.e. not reduced to 80% as allowed under the scheme) for the whole period of furlough.
· Wiltshire Council had also supported Wiltshire schools to make claims for 120 people – mainly in before and after school clubs and catering.
· For the period March – June 2020 we have claimed a total of £988k through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
· The CJRS was extended until October, this included an option to “flexibly furlough” staff, meaning they could return to work for some of their hours. A part of the scheme extension the amount that could be claimed back reduced month on month until the scheme closure at the end of October.
· Wiltshire Council would continue to claim through the scheme where it were paying staff for contracted hours but they were unable to work. However claims would reduce significantly as services remobilise and as we revert to paying causal and variable hours staff based on worked hours.
Return to workplace approach
· In line with Public Health advice Wiltshire Council’s approach was still to encourage staff to work at home wherever possible. This enables it to ensure social distancing within our workplaces and so that we keep the staff who were delivering our essential services in and from the workplaces as safe as possible.
· Wiltshire Council had a significant number of staff who had continued to operate from our workplaces throughout lockdown.
· In addition from June, as lockdown started to ease, each directorate completed a checklist process to get approval where they wanted to bring staff back into workplaces due to this being essential for service delivery. Where these requests have been approved, managers had been supported to bring staff back safely through a return to work toolkit, which takes them through a step by step process for considering all aspects of a safe return to the workplace (e.g. social distancing, working practices, site operations, building checks, communication to staff and identification of vulnerable groups).
· More recently a process to allow staff “ad hoc” access to workplaces assessed as COVID-secure had also been confirmed and communicated.
· The process enabled employees access to workplaces for short periods of time on a regular basis – for example this may be to allow them to print documents, scan in paperwork, collect post, pick up equipment etc.
· It also enables staff to work from council workplaces as a one off in exceptional circumstances – for example should their home internet access go down for a day. These ad hoc requests were confirmed by Directors and were not intended for employees having regular access to workplaces, any regular or permanent return to workplace arrangements still need to go through the checklist process for agreement by the Chief Executive.
· The staff survey indicated that for some groups of staff, working from home for a prolonged period of time was adversely affecting their wellbeing. Areas of concern include social isolation, distractions in the home and lack of a dedicated workspace. Some staff may also be in difficult domestic situations meaning that home was not a safe or pleasant environment for them. Wiltshire Council had therefore put in place a process for staff to be permitted access to work regularly in one of the three main council hubs for wellbeing reasons.
· Any requests to return for wellbeing reasons must be confirmed by Directors. Access support from the council OH&S team, and had also been provided with a toolkit through the council’s Flourish intranet site – as in many cases simply returning to the office would not, in itself, provide the support required.
· The next steps for return to workplace would be led through the Organisational Recovery Programme to ensure they were aligned with the future vision for the council.
Workplace capacity
· Wiltshire Council workplace capacity had been reduced by approx. 50% due to the social distancing measures in place. Normal capacity across the three main council hubs was around 1600 staff, so this was currently reduced to around 800. Staff numbers working in hubs each day had increased since the RTW processes had been rolled out and currently the daily average figures were 178 staff accessing County Hall, 48 in Monkton Park and 65 in Bourne Hill.
· Around 75% of these were staff identified as essential workers who had been accessing the building throughout. Not all essential workers may access each workplace each day, or even week. Around 20% of visits were from staff in services later granted permission to return to workplaces in order to effectively deliver services following lockdown and around 5% are ad hoc/wellbeing access requests.
· Wiltshire Council were continuing to receive requests from services to bring some staff back into workplaces where it was becoming necessary to support service delivery. It also saw new ad hoc and wellbeing requests come through each week. Our approach currently would continue to be that staff who could work from home should continue to do so in line with public health advice. This helped to ensure social distancing could be easily maintained and protects staff and customers in our workplaces who had no choice but to be in them.
Risk assessment for vulnerable groups
· As outlined at the last meeting Wiltshire Council developed and communicated an assessment to support managers to have discussions with staff, or for individual staff to use to help them to identify if they were in a higher risk group in order to flag and discuss this with their manager. This was also adapted and rolled out to schools. With effect from 1 August 2020 the government’s advice is that people in vulnerable groups can return to workplaces as long as they were COVID-secure.
· This risk assessment had been updated to take into account these changes.
· Wiltshire Council’s approach was that, wherever possible staff should work from home, regardless of their risk level. Where staff were in roles which could not be carried out from home, and fall into one of the higher risk groups, Occupational Health would work with the managers and member of staff to conduct an assessment and explore if any reasonable adjustments could be made to enable them to work safely in the workplace. However if there was no role that could be undertaken safely the current approach was to continue to pay staff their normal contracted pay. Wiltshire Council were only aware of a small number of staff who currently fell into this group, however it does anticipate some queries as schools return in September.
· Wiltshire Council would also need to develop a clear approach if and when more teams start to return to workplaces in the future.
Salary Finance
· Wiltshire Council launched Salary Finance to employees on 17 July, as outlined at the last meeting Salary Finance offer financial education resources, savings products, advances on salary and also loans.
· As outlined at the last SPC the decision to accelerate the launch of this benefit was in response to evidence from the wellbeing survey that staff were worried about the financial impact of COVID and the associated economic downturn on their families.
· The scheme had a very high engagement level in the first few weeks after launch with around 20% of the workforce accessing the portal. Wiltshire Council had already had 31 loan applications in the first 4 weeks, this indicated that we do have some staff who required financial support and were making use of this benefit. Wiltshire Council would continue to monitor the numbers and rates of loans being offered to staff.
The Chairman thanked Paula Marsh for her update.
Resolved
· That the Committee noted the update