 I will lie down members. Good morning members, officers and any members of the public who are viewing the live stream of this meeting and welcome to this meeting of employment and staffing committee. My name is Salyann Hart and I am the chair of the committee. May I ask that anyone joining us remotely today to keep the cameras and microphones off unless they are addressing the committee. I will now invite each of you to confirm your title and the ward that you represent. As I said earlier, my name is councillor Sally Ann Hart and I am a member for the Melbourne Ward. My vice-chair is councillor Anna Bradman. Hello everyone, I'm councillor Anna Bradman and I'm one of the three members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. I'm councillor Sunita Hansraj. I'm Sunita Hansraj and I represent Hystian in Bington and Orchid Park. Thank you very much. I understand that councillor Mark Howe is being substituted by councillor Heather Williams today. Morning chair, morning everyone. Heather Williams, I represent the Mordans Ward and substituting for councillor Mark Howe today. Thank you. Councillor John Williams. I'm the league cabinet member for resources. I also represent Fendin and Fogelmore. Thank you. I can confirm that the meeting is correct. We have some officers in the room with us today starting with the head of transformation HR and corporate services. Good morning members, Geoff Mambury, head of transformation HR and corporate services. And the HR service manager. Morning members, Helen Cornwell, HR service manager. Also we have Lawrence, Damary Hoeman and Patrick Adams for democratic services. And I understand we'll be joined by presenting officers online today. I think they'll be joining us shortly. So members, first item on our agenda today is apologies for absence. Lawrence, can I ask if there are any apologies for absence today please? Thank you chair. I've just received a one apology for absence which was from councillor Mark Howe today. Thank you. Item two is declarations of interest. Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If any interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point? Councillor Heather Williams. I don't think it's definitely non-becunary but I was involved in campaigning for IVF to be given on the NHS. So obviously on the fertility treatment I have a lot of experience but I don't have an interest if that makes sense. But I thought it was best to be upfront about that. Thank you, that's appreciated. Thank you. Any other declarations? I see now we do have some officers online. Would they like to introduce themselves? Emma, I think I can see your... Hello, sorry. Hi Emma. Hello, I'm Emma West, an HR advisor. So I'm here to present the Resolution Policy and the Fertility Policy today. Thank you, thanks for joining us. And Chloe. Hi, I'm Chloe Whitehead, I'm a HR business partner. And I'm here because we have several HR items so I'm here to support. Thank you for joining us. And don't think I've missed anybody else? Okay. All right members, just moving on to the minutes of the previous meeting. This was held on the 15th of September 2023 and I hear for approval today. Are there any members that want to make any amendments or any comments on those meetings? Minutes, sorry. Yes, Councillor Heather Williams. Just on page six, with the paragraph that starts, Councillor Williams. It then goes on, I prefer to work from and how attendance. I think it's meant to be work from home because it doesn't make sense. Sorry. Work from? H6. There are two elements. You're on item four. Item four, second from last paragraph. On the second line, members start prefer to work from. And then it goes on how attendance should be work from home. Thank you. Can that be noted please? I've also got a comment on that item four. There's an abbreviation in there before that abbreviation has been explained. The CMT colleagues. Yes. If that could be in full. Thank you. Any other comments on those minutes? I raise one and I'd like to thank Patrick for looking into the minutes. The penultimate paragraph on item five didn't make any sense to me the way it was written. Councillor Dr Richard Williams suggested that the reported savings of 550,000 through replacing agency staff with permanent employees might be smiddleding because as opposed to the focus of attention where filled others might become. So it didn't make sense to me. I did ask and the minutes have been or meeting has been reviewed and recording there. And I'm going to suggest that the words replaced with Councillor Dr Richard Williams suggested that the reported saving of 50 550,000 through replacing agency staff with permanent employees might be misleading because other agency staff were being employed as other permanent posts became vacant. That's okay with with members. I'm mindful that Dr Richard Williams isn't here today, but I would like to ask that we have that and circulated if there are any comments that come back from that. So members with those comments. Can I take approval of these minutes by affirmation? Great. Thank you. Okay members moving on to item four on our agenda. This is the review of the four day week and we're being asked to note this report which Jeff will present to us. Although I believe Councillor John Williams did you want to say something beforehand? Thank you chair. I just thought I'd pass over to Jeff. I just wanted to say that this is the first report that this committee has had on the four day week. It's very encouraging report and it makes mention of our key performance indicators in quarter one of this year. We have since since this report was published. We have now published our KPIs for quarter two and I'm very pleased to say that they very much continue that trend in quarter one of improvement in our KPIs. So this wants to draw the committee's attention to that. That you should also be looking at the latest KPIs published which were for quarter two and you'll see that they continue the good performance in quarter one. But I'd now pass over to Jeff. Thank you. Thank you. I'd just like to note that Councillor Richard Stobart is into the chamber. I'll give you a moment to settle yourself Richard before introduce yourself. But thank you for joining us today. Jeff. Thank you, chair. Members will recall that in September 2022, Cabinet authorised the trial of the four day week primarily to try and combat the challenges that we and other local authorities are having in recruiting staff to fill out vacancies. Members might recall that we often found that we had 20% of our vacancies that we weren't able to fill and some months even more than that. When granting the approval for the trial, Cabinet asked that employment staff and committee receive update reports and this is one of those update reports. In the report to Cabinet, as well as mentioning the fact we needed to address the issues around recruitment, the report identified some of the potential benefits that had been seen in the four day week trial in the private sector in this country and in other countries and suggested that those benefits could potentially be delivered in the trial. So what this report does is look at those potential benefits and look at the available evidence to see whether or not the trial seems to be delivering upon those. The evidence breaks down into a number of different areas, the first one around health and well-being where the report identified that as well as the improved employee health and well-being, four day weeks often produce more motivated employees and reduces sickness rates. Clear this was particularly important because a lot of trials on productivity show that people who are well motivated, well rested and in good health are significantly more productive than average. So it's something we were wanting to see achieved through our offices. This was measured for the trial both by statistics on sickness and also a staff welfare survey which was taken before the four day week was announced and then again after the first initial three month trial had been completed. Three of the key areas around health, motivation and intention to leave, members will see from the colour coordinated part of the report showing the dashboards of the two of my apologies on page four and five, sorry three and four. We'll see that in those areas when the first welfare survey was taken before the four day week trial was announced, our performance in those three areas were below the benchmark average, although not significantly below. But since the trial has been in place after the first trial was completed, we've moved either to be above average in those areas or significantly above average, particularly the case in terms of productivity and intention to leave. The next area that the report to cabinet highlighted was the fact that the four day week would lead to better retention of staff and improved recruitment. Again, this is an important area because giving our residents and our businesses consistency in the people that they're dealing with makes it a lot easier for people to access services. A really good example of this is around a developer who might have a major planning application. When we're having trouble retaining recruiting planners, it means that that developer might have to deal with two or three different case officers over the period of their application, which makes it difficult to keep that continuity and build the relationship necessary. Whereas once we've got a permanent employee in place, it allows that to happen. The same can be said for people who are potentially vulnerable to homelessness having one person they can deal with consistently gives a better service. As members will see from the report, we've got improved retention, a figure of 36%. We've shown that again intention to leave has moved from us being above average to being in a position where we're above average for the benchmark. There's some information in there about our success in recruiting. I think particularly noticeable is that we've been able to bring in 97 external applicants into the authority over the period of the trial. It is noticeable that particularly in some of those areas where it's really challenging to recruit that we're having success in recruiting where some of our neighbours are finding that difficult and having to offer additional incentives. On productivity and performance, our main measure of productivity and performance is through our KPIs, which are reported quarterly. What we've seen in terms of the KPIs is that performance has been at least maintained. The variances that we have seen are those that we were seeing generally before the four day week was introduced. KPIs always vary depending on level of demand and circumstances. Many of our KPIs have actually improved and both compared to the previous year and in terms of the average since the KPIs were introduced in 2016. So performance has been at least maintained. Another area that was mentioned in the report to cabinet was the fact that by filling more vacancies we'd be able to reduce our dependence on agency staff who were covering vacancies. Obviously when you recruit agency staff you pay a premium particularly for those areas where there's a significant shortage. Because it was the start of the pilot and of course we didn't have actual information until now we had to do projections on savings and forecasts. The latest is shown in the report. It does have to be said though that projections are just projections. We didn't know at the start for example we knew how many hours we contracted agency staff but we didn't know whether they were going to work those hours or if they'd go sick or if they were able to take leave. We didn't know how the wage inflation for agency staff would vary compared to the wage inflation for our own staff. We didn't know which posts would be vacant and whether they'd attract market factor supplements. There are a lot of areas that we didn't know. So those figures are projections. We are now however 11 months into the trial so we're in a position where the finance team is starting to be able to collect information to provide actual figures and I know that's something that members are really keen to see. So but the next time we bring a report to you on the four day week we should be in a position to give you those actual figures. Overall I will briefly mention members will be aware that recently the waste trial has started. I think it's far too early to bring any meaningful data to this committee at this moment. We put a little bit of information in around those things that I know a lot of members get contact about which is miss bins and there's been no negative impact on miss bins performance since four day week was introduced there. But we will bring a more substantive report to this committee when we've got that meaningful data. Overall what the data shows in terms of the trial for the four day week is that for the office based trial which is continuing at the moment. Retention has improved, recruitment has improved, health and well being has improved whilst performance has been at least maintained and our projected costs due to agency staff covering vacancies has reduced. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you Jeff. Just before we go to questions if I can do them by Councillor Richard Stobart to introduce himself and if there are any declarations of interest you need to make. Chair, thank you. Apologies for lateness traffic on the A10. I'm Richard Stobart own councillor for one of the councillors for the Gerton Ward which includes the villages also of Dry Drayton and Madingley. Thank you and any declarations of interest? No declarations I need to make. Thank you very much. Thank you. So members, thank you. Members thank you and thank you Jeff. Any questions from members? Thank you, Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you chair. I have a series of clarification questions and then comments on the report. Would you like me to do that all together or take them in stages? Jeff, what would you prefer? It might be helpful to take them in stages. I'll do a few and then pause. Chair, that's okay. So, I'll start off on page seven. It says, refers to a range of organisations. Could we know if they are like for like organisations as in public authorities? On the staff turnover reducing, can we ask what that's compared to? It says since the start of the trial but if we can have a comparison. It says 97 new members but we don't have the figures from how many people recruited the first year. I appreciate that I have outside this meeting been given a copy of the explanation of the hard to fill. I would note that it doesn't actually reference any timescales where we've tried to recruit, which I think is not great. But 97 new members of staff, how many new members of staff do we have the previous year to compare that to? Because as we know there is turnover. When we have the sickness reduced by 33%, does that take into consideration that officers are working 20% less of the time? So, on your day off where traditionally if you're ill on a Monday and it's your day off, you won't be ringing in to say you're sick. So has there been a 20% reduction and if not then obviously we're looking at 13% and we can see from the waste trial that it's already 4%. So it's actually, if it's not having a provision put in it for the reduced working hours then it's not really a comparative figure. In relation to the number of agency staff, the 23% to the 9% are any of those proposed roles to be phased out. I've got two more on this picture on the projected net cost. When those calculations, those saving calculations have been made, is that just salary costs compared to agency? Or is that including pension costs and employer and I as well? Obviously that would make quite a big difference, you know pension is quite often like 13% in local government. So that would make a big difference which we don't have to pay for agency. And on those KPIs, the ones that are reported here, now the council has a lot more KPIs than the ones that are being looked at. How have they been selected and how many are based on quantity of output and how many are based on quality of the output? That's all I've got, some on the other pages but I've left it at that page to start with, Chair. Thank you, so I counted seven queries there and I think we might need to, well I might need to come back with you because I've made notes that have gone along. I imagine you do. So Jeff, I think the first one was to do with a comparison to like organisations. Indeed, if it's all right, Chair, what I'll need to do is answer some of these questions and then refer to my colleague Chloe Whitehead to answer some of the questions around the retention. The range of organisations compares us to both public and private sectors so it's not just public sector organisations. Talk about the agency costs, the comparison is with, is the agency salary cost compared to our salary cost plus on costs? That was done, I think if you're referring to the email exchange we had, what we did was total the salary cost that had a percentage on. We hadn't at that stage broken it down post by post which I'd needed to do now as people have been asking about that. Sorry, what was it about the nine agency? Sorry, I can't say the names. Yes, and just on the response that's given, so you're saying that 776 is now based on the post calculations or is that still with the percentage just on what you were saying? That's still a percentage, if we break it down to individual post, the savings go up but only by about £9,000 it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Okay, and I think you skipped about the 97 new members on the list, what was the one for the previous year? I'm going to have to refer some of the rest to my colleagues and then come back perhaps to the KPI figures. Can I refer to Chloe Whitehead, please Chloe, in a position to answer some of these questions? Thank you, Geoff, I will do my best, I'm afraid I did miss some of the questions so I might have to ask you councillor Heather to clarify some of them. The one on the 97 new members of staff that was comparing the nine month period immediately pretrial to the nine months of the trial that we've had up to this point. So that's from April 2022 to the end of December. We have successfully recruited 97 new members of staff from January to the end of September 2023. Were there any other questions you wanted to refer to me, Geoff? There was a question about sickness at Chloe with the calculation of the reduction sickness, did that take into account the fact that people were working one less day during the week? I'm afraid, Geoff, off the top of my head I can't actually remember, so if it's okay with you I will have to go and check how the figures were calculated and get that information back to you. Thank you, thank you Chloe. I guess councillor Heather Williams what I'm asking is some of these responses we need to be made in writing off because if they're not available now. Okay, but on the 97 new members of staff I was asking how many people recruited the previous year, we have no comparison for that figure. So if that could be noted in what was requested and we also have about the phasing out of the agency staff that was put in and how the KPIs were dealt with that hasn't been covered yet, Geoff. Geoff are you able to mention how the KPIs were selected? I believe that we have covered all of our KPIs. If councillor Williams say that's not the case I'll have to go back and check with our policy performance team who told me that that was our KPIs, not our business figures, just the KPIs figures, but I was told by policy performance that's the full lot. So you're saying to run the whole organisation that's just the KPIs or I thought these were the public ones that we get to see but actually officers and the council has a lot more KPIs. Right. If we only have that fewer KPIs to be running this council that is very concerning. Can I just qualify? I'm mindful and I'm again my memory rightly miss remembering but from our previous employment and staffing committee these were the KPIs that we were looking at and we asked for some more feedback on. So I agree we have a lot more KPIs in the council but these are the ones specifically the employment and staffing we're looking at from the last meeting. Yes indeed also that scrutiny and overview committee report but you're right we certainly do have a lot more management information. It was agreed that what would be reported was the public KPIs but I can for the next report I can include more management information but more granularly particular services that you're interested in councillor. Chair if I may respond to this point obviously I do still have further clarification from the rest of the report. I think it's important particularly later on when you go through because essentially if we're only looking at the ones that we're seeing there's a lot of other things that go into my pocket just fell off. A lot of other things going on and actually we're not getting the full picture of the organisation as a whole. So actually we should be looking even if you're not detailing each one by one out of all the KPIs that the council has how many are reduced, how many are improved, how many are stagnant. Because at least then we have a reflection of how everybody is responding and how the whole organisation is rather than just a select few because a select few might not give a full picture. And again councillor, I'll just go back to these are the things that Employment and Staff and Committee were asking about. Just before I go on to your other questions I'd like to invite councillor Bradman to make a comment or ask a question. Thank you Chair. I just wanted to point out that these KPIs were agreed at the very commencement of the four day week trial. They were agreed as we went into the planning session, the first three months of October, November, December and they were agreed as being useful KPIs to monitor as we went through the trial session and then the preparatory phase and then into the trial. So I'm sure if others were deemed to be useful then we could look at adding them in but that's to be discussed and agreed. Can I just ask are there any other members that have any questions or comments before I go back to councillor Heather Williams. Yes, councillor Richard Stobart. Chair, I have a few comments and I'll just run through them and then you can sort out how best to answer. I think the figures tell one story which is a massive increase in productivity which I think is learning from the four day week experience suggests that it is possible to achieve these very substantial increases in productivity and I think we're discussing things around the edge of that. In fact you've formalised in different ways but it's 20-25% improvement in productivity so in that sense it's huge. We've been debating issues of productivity in this country for a long time and the promise of IET and improved methods of working has remained in the background but this is a clear example of what can be achieved. But I'm wondering if, aside from the numbers, we're gathering the anecdotes and the stories because they are in a sense as compelling. They're not quantitative but they speak people's experience and I think it's vital that we capture that alongside the numbers. So the numbers are very important, they're the final arbiter of what we're doing but the anecdotes, the experiences actually tell the story of how this was achieved and I think it's very important to capture that. I know in previous discussions I remember Chief Executive saying that one of the ways in which document preparation is improved is by, and some groups have done this, I don't know how widespread it is, but by taking a different view of the drafting process and not going for perfection but going for what is a good sensible working document and then having a group activity to put the finishing touches and things like that which are very important as a way of communicating through the organisation and outside. So I would suggest that we should be adding to the numbers with a portfolio of those experiences, summarising quotations and little stories that can be told. That was my first point. Second is I was wondering over the continuing contribution of the Bennett Institute to the handling of the data and whether Bennett Institute were planning any publications, scholarly works if you will around the numbers that are being gathered but also again around the softer aspects of the experience which of course is what's touching on staff morale and issues like mental and physical health. And then finally I think we did have just a brief discussion of the linkages with other organisations but it would be great to hear of in a sense that co-working if you will with institutions and are we contributing to the broader debate on the four day week and how its implementation is proceeding and sharing that experience and joining if you will the four day week community. Thank you, thank you. Jeff, do you want to make any comments on the second points about the Bennett Institute and the other organisations? Yes indeed, first of all on the stories being captured, yes you're right that's really important and we've got a, on our intranet we've got a section for people, colleagues to capture their experience for the week, things that have gone well and identify any areas where they think things have gone as well. There's also a page for members of the public to any comments they've got around the four day week and of course if it's likely to progress if the trial continues to be successful there'll be a consultation that goes out to residents. As far as the Bennett Institute is concerned my understanding is that they will be publishing a report at the end of the trial, they haven't got any plans to publish any reports in the interim, whether they're going to publish any scholarly works in relation to this, I'm afraid I can't speak for them. So what's the third point? I'm working with other organisations, we've had a lot of interest but our focus has very much been on delivering for our residents and our businesses but we are being very public with all of the documents that we have, they're all available on our website, people are able to access them including the reports from the Bennett Institute. So that's available for other people, if you're asking whether being involved in consultations around the four day week or workshops around the four day week, no we haven't been, we've been focused very much on delivering it internally for our residents. Chair through you, thank you for the answers. I'm just going back to, sorry, I can't just speak to Andrew, did you have some questions? Thank you Chair, I just need to understand the question about sick leave because if somebody goes off sick on a day it's just the same as if they were working a five day week, that's my understanding and then it's up to HR to look and see if there's a pattern of sick leave or such like. There are rules about sick leave I expect in the council as there are in the health service so I don't quite understand the question. And Councillor Williams, are you coming back on that question anyway to explain what your question is? So I'll clarify that, so the issue is sick leave and I think actually what has been a good comparison and I'm sure can be achieved is for us to know previously how many days a week we lost per calendar day because if somebody now has a day off on a Monday and they were ill they won't necessarily be reporting in because they're not working that day. So they wouldn't report in that they are sick so of course if you're doing like for like well if you've got people working 20% less of the time naturally you're going to get at least what you'd expect 20% less of the sickness leave because they won't be reporting in in that manner if it's looked at in that way. That's why I'm asking for clarification as to how it's been calculated because there are lots of variables which mean that it potentially wouldn't be reliable to look at. Equally, other organisations and it would be good to know if this organisation is the same, sickness tends to be higher on a Monday or a Friday. I'm passing a comment as to why that is, but that is the trend. We know that most officers have a Monday or a Friday off so if there wasn't a provision made for the reduced hours or for that then I would expect the sickness to drop considerably because actually people aren't working on those days. So it all depends on how it's being managed and I didn't feel the report covered that. So I hope that's hopefully an explanation for yourself as to why I'm saying how do we know that's simply not just a reduction because of the reduction in hours worked and the particular days of the week. If I could just come in before we move on from that and I guess something else we can't measure is how less likely somebody is to become ill because they've got more time, their wellbeing is affected. So this, I agree there's lots of variables in there and it's not going to be an easy thing necessarily to measure. I guess that's where the wellbeing scores come in and start repeating their feeling better. So thank you for that. If you want to move on now Councillor Williams. Thank you. So just on page eight it says about the ongoing year long trial but obviously it's going up to March so it's beyond a year. So I just thought that needed clarifying and obviously for the Waste Cruise they would have done six months by the end. That's providing of course it doesn't get further extended as there wasn't a guarantee given that it wouldn't be a cabinet. And we can see on page 10 on the sickness leave that the waste, can I finish? I've already taken a significant interruption Councillor. Some of the page references don't seem to be tallying up. I think that's what Councillor, and if we can have some time for other members to find where you're going. I will slow down Chair. Yes please, could you just go back? Page 10. The last sentence shows that there is a reduction in sickness levels of slightly over just 4% in the Waste Cruise. So obviously and we would expect as well that as we're coming out of the pandemic some levels to reduce on the comparisons. So I'm just wondering how that's been appreciated and brought into those figures. Also on page, I'm going to try and really slow it down here Chair. Page 11, the second to last paragraph. It says about the 21 responses they have so far, 10 respondents selected the four day week as a reason they chose council and five were in hard to fill roles. Hard to fill, as was the explanation given to me, is where there's a national shortage or where it's a particular skill set but on that basis probably nearly every job could be classed as hard to fill beyond a certain level. And that's why I said I'm disappointed that in hard to fill it's not about the fact that we've advertised say three times or six month advertisement. But it does seem like a lot's gone through for five hard to fill spaces in there and that didn't quite tell you of what else was said. On page 12. This is my opinion that you're right. The parameters were set that at least as good a service from the councils before they started. I think for something that is so dramatic as the four day week residents would expect more than at least good service so that's very disappointing that that was set as a parameter. At the bottom of page 12 it goes on to say that there have been 12 improved, two unchanged and five reduced. Then below that it says of those that reduced all but one showed a reduction of less than five percent changes of plus five or minus five are usually in usual in any set of KPIs due to the factors mentioned above. Why do we have an explanation as to the reduced KPIs but not of the improved KPIs and I think that's an imbalance in the report. So how many of those 12 KPIs are within this five percent margin of error and I think the fact that we're having one reported and not the other is not as open and transparent as we would like to make sure people on all sides of the debate have useful information. On that same notion on page 13 we talk about the reduction of complaints to two and a half percent but surely that would equally be within that five percent margin as well. Can I just stop you there councillor because I'm mindful there's an awful lot of questions here and I think we need to ensure that there's time given for written responses as well as verbal responses today. Chair with a great respect you didn't come back to me last time. I'm mindful councillor Heather Williams you're substituting here today we found that out earlier on just as you walked in today but awful lot of questions and I'm mindful that members may also have questions. I'm grateful that you've subbed today but I also think we need to ensure. Point of information chair. Point of information when somebody is substituting they're assuming the role of that committee place they are in no way any different to a committee meeting while they sit at that table. And to refer to them as a simple substitute or not in an equal part and the fact that I was a late minute substitute is of no consequence to my ability and my rights as a member of this panel. Thank you councillor but I'm also minded there's an awful lot of information that you're asking for and other committee members might have also had those questions to ask as well. Thank you for your questions and what I'm saying to you is I'm mindful that the very first one that you asked at the beginning here because I hadn't found the page that you're referring to I don't want to miss that so I want to go back to that as well. So thank you for your questions but I also think we need to take them in a way that they can be answered as fully as possible now but also that there will be some written answers I believe required as well. So can I go back to the very first question of the second section that you had I think you were referring to page eight. Have you got that noted that could you go back to that one and then we'll go back to I don't need you to go through it all again which is the first one and then I'll go to Jeff to answer some of those but also with that opportunity to have some written responses as well because like you I picked up some of those nuances with the plus and the minus. So yes would you like to go back to your very first comment from the second set of questions. Page eight year long trial for office based staff it will be longer. Do you refer to which paragraph you're looking at on page eight. The top of the page the very first. Thank you that's helpful to know it's at the top of the page. Thank you very first line a year long trial it will have been actually because we've had trial creep because it originally was three months then it was an additional 12 months. It will be longer than a year of a waste cruise. Excuse me excuse me. Order it never was. The point was it was always set up as a trial over three months. It was a preparatory period for three months and then a trial period for three months with a prospect that it would carry on as a trial for a further period. If the results indicated that would be a reasonable thing to do. The other thing I wanted to raise with you is you said that cabinet confirmed the trial would not be extended. That's not what they agree. That's not what I said. Thank you. Thank you members. I'm just going to pull this together. I think what we can see here is this this four day waking week there's been a timetable and whether or not we say when the trial started whether we would agree that it would continue for 12 months. And we are now at that stage where we're receiving lots more information. So if I could come to Jeff would you like to respond to a personal explanation. Thank you councillor. Would you like to explain? Thank you. So what councillor Bradlam just said is misrepresents what I said. I said that cabinet would not give us a guarantee that the trial would not be extended. I can provide the video evidence of that if councillor Bradlam wishes to see it. You said the cabinet your words were the cabinet's term for the trial. The term for the trial would not be extended. No I said that they would not give a guarantee that it would not be extended. Thank you. We have a recording available obviously that we can all listen to. So I'm now going to go to Jeff and see if he can answer some of those questions that you've already posed. On the first question about the ongoing year long trial was indeed was an initial three month trial that we moved to a year long trial. That's that that I'm referring to in that paragraph when I talk about the ongoing year long trial. A number of the other points that you've raised councillor will seem to either be points rather than questions or requests for information. So we'll capture those requests for information and we'll provide you with a written response so that we'll need our HR team to go in and interrogate the computer system to get the accurate information that you want. Thank you, Jeff. And again, I would welcome that some more clarification of those those hard to fill posts as you say, are they to do with the actual role? Is it to do with the fact that there were other times? I can answer that now actually hard to fill. Let me try and remember the councillor Williams did give the definition but I just remind myself of what it is. Generally when people talk about how to fill posts in the HR perspective, we're describing positions that are difficult to recruit for either because they require very specific skills or experience or because there's not enough qualified candidates. Now, in terms of this council, it potentially relates to planners, planning compliance officers, some other roles in the planning service, environmental health officers, project managers, business analysts and HDV drivers. It is important because actually those are traditionally hard to fill posts and you can be lucky and the first time you go out to recruit on one of those traditionally hard to fill posts, you might actually point someone. So it's not based upon how quickly you happened to appoint for one particular post, it's just posts that are recognised nationally as being particularly hard to fill. I think universally planners are the classic example that's used for the public sector. There's a national shortage of planners. There's almost sort of a joke that a planner can get a map of Britain, put a pin in it with their eyes closed, go to that place and get a job because they're in such high demand. Because we're in competition not only with other local authorities of course, but with the private sector and big national sort of infrastructure developments like HS2 that need to employ a lot of planners and they're particularly hard to fill. Now we have been lucky over the trial for some of those traditionally hard to fill roles. We've been able to go out and get a lot of applicants. I was talking to a colleague in the planning department the other day and they were telling me as I say, I think I mentioned earlier on, some of our neighbours are having to add extra incentives to attract planners because they're just not getting applicants for their jobs. Whereas actually our planning department now is receiving a lot of applications and good quality applications. I think 14 of the original list of posts that were covered by agency staff were in the planning department and those have all now been recruited into. When I got the latest bit of information from our planners, we don't have any vacancies that have been covered by agency apart from a couple that are separately funded where people are paying to particularly have agency people coming in and that's a really big step forward particularly with the challenges that we as a council face in terms of growth. So there's been some really positive things around recruitment particularly into those hard to fill posts. It's going to be interesting to see as we move into the trial for the waste based services whether one of those other areas around HGV drivers that have been difficult to recruit into see whether we see the same effect there. So there's a lot of fascinating information coming out of the trial and there's still a lot to learn from it I think. Thank you, thank you Jeff. I mean I was pleased to see that this report or the reports to employment staffing when we come on to item 7 HR recruitment retention absence data, the amount of applications that have been received for posts. Again I think it would be good to have some comparison with previous period and yes I just think it would be helpful to have that information that we've got the definition of what's hard to fill but also have we have vacancies that have been left unfilled for a long time not necessarily filling the hard to fill category because they don't meet that definition. Thank you. I can't say the words. Could you give me an idea of how many other queries you or questions you have or comments you have at the moment? Okay so I'm happy to take those and then also but also to put in that that they may well need to be written responses to those as well. So again if you could refer to the page number and the paragraph that would be really helpful. Yes perhaps on the difficulty paragraphs in planning we have the numbers given to each paragraph you may want to look at that when the agenda is put together chair. Thank you and that is something that is going to come up later on when we are looking at one of the reports so thank you for mentioning that. So on page 13 the paragraph above the bolded reduced cost of agency covering vacant posts it does say variations in performance will happen whether or not a four day week trial is in operation. It then goes on underneath the reduced cost and agency covering vacant posts it says a potential reduction and I give emphasis to the word potential and then when we look at page 15 the bottom three paragraphs the report itself makes it very clear that we cannot assume that some of the positive things that have been done put in the report are actually as a result of four day week. It can be suggested but it's very clear in those paragraphs that it can give indication but cannot be reliably guaranteed on and I stress that because there's a tendency to look at this and go oh look isn't everything marvellous and actually it could be other things it could be ways of working. This trial has happened at the same time that the way of working has completely changed so how do we know it's one or not another and I think there is a fundamental flaw in the way that it is being looked at in that we're not making those comparisons and we don't have the right data, right reliable data in my view. I agree anecdotal things are important but what we can see is that when anecdotal things have been given in the past this council has asked for the removal of those in reports and you can huff you can sign you can yawn but that is the reality. So anecdotal anecdotal stuff great but it cannot be cherry picked by this council and have independent reports from the Bennett Institute to be honest I will not trust potentially what is in front of me after what has gone on. Councilor Heather Williams I'm going to stop you there I didn't hear any huffing. I didn't hear any huffing and puffing. Please can I ask you do you have a question to ask now that can be answered and if not it can't be answered now it will be answered in writing. There's as we've had information earlier on of saying that we're now 11 months in, we will be able to not talk about projections. I'm really looking forward to the next report that comes in. Do you have a question to ask now? The committee is not just here to ask questions. We've had comments, we've had lots of comments. Could you then please round up your comments and if you've got any further questions please ask them. I think that a lot of work needs to be done on the data to make it reliable and to make it something that is substantial. The only thing that can be drawn from this report is that four day week cannot conclusively been told is successful for the outcomes that have happened. That is the only thing that is certain in this report and members should be mindful of that. Thank you for sharing your opinions with us, Councillor Heather Williams. We all have a number of opinions. I would really like to ask members and touch on what you're saying anecdotally. I think we have a responsibility to gauge with officers and to ask them questions and I think maybe if we all took on that responsibility to be able to feed some information back before the next meeting. Thank you, Geoff for mentioning the opportunities for residents to comment as well and I would welcome some of that information being collated for the next meeting. I think you've had a question or comment to make. Chair, thank you. Yes, in reference to just that last discussion of course we've been often looking at what I call seasonal variations or external factors and I think it does behave us to look at those external factors and their effects. I think this falls into the remit of the more detailed analysis that the Venice Institute is doing and the scientists and engineers of course this extraction of external factors and understanding whether what you've done is actually influencing the outcome as opposed to some external factor is crucial. So the techniques are all there and I think the data gathered is very rich and I think we could add if it's not already in the brief of the Venice Institute that extra analysis which says let's separate out the effect of truly external factors to see what the effect of internal arrangements around the four day week have actually produced. So I think the analytical process is in place and we can expect and perhaps even ask and to line the request to the Venice Institute to make sure that that is done. Thank you as noted. Thank you. I just wondered when you say hard to feel post where they actually covered by agency stuff before you did and if so did any of those agencies take on permanent job with you when the four day week was enough. Sorry. I can answer some of that now and I'll come back with some of that information. Of those posts that were covered by agency in July 22 when we did the first snapshot, 14 were ones that we would consider to be hard to feel. Of course all the others that the fact that they were covered by agency stuff means that there have been difficulties in recruiting into those posts but they weren't ones that sort of let that definition I told you about earlier on. Certainly we've recruited 14 of those but the rest I have to ask Helen to get the information and write you with the answer because that's about whether agency have moved in to fill some of our permanent posts. Thank you. Thank you. So members, we're invited to note this report. We've had an in depth discussion and yet there are some more things to answer. So thank you for noting those and look forward to reading the responses. So members, can I take it that we noted this report? Agree. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Okay. Members, we now move on to item five on the agenda, the resolution of policy and toolkit. Officers are seeking to replace the old grievance policy with a new resolution policy and an accompanying employee toolkit. And this committee is being asked to signal our approval for officers to proceed with the policy change. I noticed that joining us online we have Emma Weston, HR adviser and thank you Emma for presenting this report to us. Thank you, chair. So myself and a colleague, Bethan Gregory, he's also a senior HR adviser, have worked to produce the resolution policy in place of the grievance policy. The key highlights, I won't go through the whole report, is to bring the policy up to date for ACAS code of practice as the current policy is not in line to look at a best practice solutions focus approach and to outline a clearer process for employees to follow when they do have an issue to raise. We've also produced a company and toolkit, which is included in the report, to support employees as they go through the process. We have looked at producing a flowchart, which is included in the report, although the flowchart isn't in the report, so that's an addition to be added at a later date. I'm happy to receive any questions. Thank you. Councillor Jordan, did you want to make any comments of this before we go to questions? No, no, I think the report talks, yes I do. Thank you. So members, any comments, any questions on the policy and toolkit? Councillor Anna Braden. Thank you, Chair. I welcome this as a very... It's important that people try to resolve this, their concerns and issues, rather than go through a sort of adversarial approach, which briefings tried not to be, but often was. So I'm very keen that we should be working in this way, in a very much more collaborative way, to resolve issues between members of staff and whoever they have an issue with. So I think it's very positive. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Williams. Thank you. So I'm actually looking at the linked grievance policy itself, and 11.0 on confidentiality of proceedings. I'm just wondering how this is going to be balanced. I welcome a revised policy on this, but I am aware of a case at the council where a member of the planning department reported somebody for how they felt, I wouldn't say they were being bullied, but they felt bullied, and part of the process was then that that person that they'd raised the complaint about was told, and actually that's not always the best solution to happen, because that person then felt actually very, very vulnerable once they knew that their manager had been informed of their complaint. So how are you going to balance within this policy supporting the person that's raised the complaint, whilst also taking a probe and making the person aware? Is it necessary for if someone's been told a complaint about them to know who the complainant was, or is that something that can be managed within this policy as it's revised? Thank you, thank you. Chloe, are you able to respond to that quick question? Sorry Emma, I'm going to mic Chloe. So it's in the best scenario, obviously we wouldn't share confidentiality, but in some circumstances that stances depending on the detail of the complaint or the issue, there are identifiable elements that may prevent confidentiality in those situations. What we have got is an assessment meeting after a complaint is received, and in that meeting it can be identified the best route to provide a solution or look at solutions which are viable in that situation. So it would be on a case-by-case basis as to the best route to remedy the situation. Thank you. Cats head the Williams. That's good to hear. I'm just wondering if part of the process actually what ultimately led this person to leave and what upset them is the person was told without their knowledge and then approached them to discuss about it. So I think the person that's complained, if you do need to disclose who it is perhaps they should be told so they can be prepared for that. As obviously it didn't go very well in that situation. Thank you. And yes, thank you Emma. I mean I'm interested to ask the idea of this being solution-focused sounds very positive and welcoming. And I guess it's very much needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. And I'm just looking at the way things are numbered here and trying to, you know, I'm hoping it isn't a situation that you work your way through the numbers as such or the numbered interventions but it is done on that case-by-case basis. Is that something that's correct? Yes. And there's just a comment I think that my colleague here, it might be helpful in the document if there's some cross-referencing between the numbers on the resolution procedure on page 26 and then how the things are itemised following. So what is an assessment meeting that correlates with 2A so if that's possible to add in. I tried to click on the hyperlinks that are in the document. The one that explains the differences between a facilitated conversation that's page 27 that went through straight to a Word document. However, the one in the bottom line click here for information on coaching that seemed to take me back to councillor online and I couldn't access it so I don't know if there's, if that could just be looked at. Apologies, that's hyperlink to our internet and I think the move from one to the other I think the link's got lost so I would look at that thinking. Thank you very much. Yes, councillor Richard Slovart. Chair, thank you. So a few minor questions but I'd just like to endorse the point that councillor Bradenham made about moving away from an adversarial model to a corporation model for grievance resolution. Wrapped up in this and councillor Williams referred to this is around harassment and bullying where managers are involved. This is deeply difficult and it would be reassuring and I think Emma has clarified that that a manager might not be informed if it was going to make for a difficult situation. Now I just heard on the workings of the policy a few questions. I understand that in the assessment meeting and in the follow-up it is possible for the person involved to call in a colleague. Now that would be a work colleague I assume but it could be also a work colleague who's a union representative as well. Is that always the case that the person who's lodging the request can call in somebody to, as it were, hear them and listen to the proceedings. Emma. So as part of the policy I believe it's in the toolkit it does detail that the right to be accompanied is throughout the process and that would be described as a current work colleague or a trade union representative. Chair may I continue. Thank you for the reply Emma. Speed is also important in resolving this. I think there are some mentions of speed resolution but I think it would be important to know that or we could ask the question is there wrapped up in this notion of quick resolution. Now I know things sometimes take a little time to organise meetings and so on but to reach a quick resolution is very important for the morale and perhaps even the mental health of individuals involved. So is there a notion of speed and how that can be monitored? Thank you. I note Emma that there are some timings mentioned in terms of but are you able to respond to Councillor Stobart's query there? Of course. It's always the intention of the HR team and supporting colleagues of issues that are raised to have a speedy response. As you mentioned there are some time constraints within the toolkit which detail a time frame which we'd expect to either conclude an investigation or have meetings but it really would depend on the issue at hand as to how easy or how quick it is to respond to any queries sorry any issues that are raised. So yes the intention is to always resolve issues as quickly as possible but it would depend on the nature of the issue as to how quickly that could be. Thank you. Councillor Stobart. Chair thank you and thank you Chairman for that reply. So one more thing if I may who will maintain oversight of the process and its effectiveness and as the new procedure comes into play what kind of data will we expect to see at this committee? Thank you. Emma? At present I would have to take away to look at the most effective way to monitor the policy I don't have a planning place however other policies that we've launched we do ask for colleague feedback to ensure that it's working for everybody and I would suggest that that would be a good approach for this policy as well. Chair thank you and thank you to Emma. Thank you. Members don't see anybody else with any hands up to ask any questions so we are being invited to we have two options to approve the new style resolution policy and talk it to progress to union discussion and colleague feedback or option two is to review the existing grievance poly and update in line with current employment law legislation and ACAS best practice. What I think I'm hearing from this discussion is I propose that we're in the position to approve the new style resolution policy and talk it to progress to union discussion and colleague feedback. Is that agreed? Thank you. Thank you very much Emma. Thank you for the report and look forward to hearing the feedback. Just checking I haven't missed a number because I guess here we are. We're on to item six bottom of the agenda page the fertility treatment policy. So this item six we are seeing the officers are seeking to introduce a fertility treatment policy and an accompanying manager toolkit and the improvement staff committee is being asked to signal our approval for officers to proceed with the introduction of the policy. Emma, we're back to you Alice. John, what did you say anything beforehand? I just want to say that I'm very pleased that we're ahead of the game here that we're doing this ahead of the second reading of the bill in Parliament and I'm delighted and thank the officers very much for this. Indeed, thank you John. Emma. Thank you councillor. So as John just highlighted we are trying to take a very proactive approach on this. So we've looked at the policy and looked at ways that we can support employees undergoing a very difficult time. So to highlight we are looking at offering 30 hours paid time to undertake appointments and offer a flexible working around appointments which fits in with our hybrid practice and to also raise awareness company-wide as well to support employees that are undergoing treatment that feel that they're able to talk up and speak to colleagues and hopefully create quite a supportive network where they feel comfortable to share their experiences internally. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you Emma. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you chair. As many members know this is something that is very personal to myself and I am very pleased that the bill is coming through and government have listened to people that have been through the process like myself and very happy that the council is doing this. There are many things I could go into and say on this but there was just a few things and I do not assume that I'm the only person in this room that's done this process but I'm going to speak openly that I have and there are a few things that I think would be important to potentially including the toolkit about supporting people when they go through this and indeed I act as somebody through members of the public or people from the council or beyond there's someone that they do come to and speak to about things because they obviously publicly know that I've done it. The most important thing and it got touched on but I think it needs strengthening in the toolkit for managers is around when you know someone has gone through a cycle everybody around you is very excited for you and I don't think what they appreciate that actually the success rate is very very low you're very fortunate if you get through in three cycles the average. You will know normally ten days but sometimes soon after implantation whether it's been successful or not and that weight is incredibly tough but equally when around hasn't succeeded and people ask also how are you getting on and asking how you're getting on for you it's the only conversation but for that person they will have had that conversation with family, with their partner, with friends and it is hell and what I wasn't sure from the report was it says that pregnancy is recognised from implementation and then it gives about miscarriage and whether that counts for a failed cycle because technically we haven't had a viable pregnancy so whether that policy would then come in or whether they would need to have we might recognise someone's pregnant from implantation but when does that policy come in after a positive test or not and I just felt if I was looking at this going through the process I wouldn't be exactly clear on that the other thing is the 30 hours if you were to and I appreciate not everybody will have necessarily looked into this in the way that I have but in the guidance that's coming through and the built's going through the week and I would see a week as a 37 hours I appreciate we're trialling the 4 day week which will be 30 but equally not everybody at the councillers our waste cruise is doing 32 hours for example and I wondered whether rather than restricting on hours it should be their working week so that would future proof it whether we go back to 5 days, 4 days and actually would give people that are going through the process now some certainty about that equally that would make it simpler if you are part time because you know that you're going to get that weekly slot because this sort of says you'll get prorated it also said about operational staff would have to take annual leave if they couldn't go back to duties for an appointment and actually I disagree with that being part of the policy because I think that's giving an unfair advantage to one section of our staff and not another and when you think things like the egg collection some people can have that done through try to think what the appropriate term because mine was the opposite I had to have general anaesthetic some people can have it through no not local, no where you go dozy and you just essentially sleep through it sedation thank you that's the word I'm looking for I had to have a general anaesthetic so obviously the recovery time is different and when I went through this I wasn't sure if there was enough emphasis that it is a very personal journey and there will need to be it says about flexibility but actually there will need to be quite a lot of flexibility and I appreciate it's up to three cycles I did four cycles and I'm very lucky that I have my little gal now but I do think that's something that should be explored once it's in practice I get it's a financial risk but actually there should be some provision for discretion that if somebody needs to go for that extra round that they're not required perhaps it can be non-paid leave but they're not losing annually because equally it's not everyone will be doing the same the journey is very different and I think the more flexibility that there is I cannot stress how important that is if you're going through that process and just don't ask how it's going I mean seriously let them tell you when they're ready for me I didn't tell even my mother-in-law I don't think she'll ever forgive me I think I was sort of 16, 18 weeks I basically hid at home because there's an element of when's it going to go wrong and that stays with you quite often through a lot of pregnancy and we do know that often people get PTSD and more likely to get postnatal depression so I'm really pleased that we're discussing this as you can imagine it's difficult to discuss but it's important to discuss and actually it may be worth I know when we did the premature neonatal leave policy I spent time of officers going through how it was having a premature child and I'm not to say that there'll be more people than just me but if there are people that are in the organisation that want to talk about their journeys then you might want to start including them in the process I think I could talk for hours on this chair was not getting it too upset but yeah thank you for listening Thank you, thank you Councillor Williams and for sharing your expertise and personal experiences I realise it's not right to assume but any policy like this there will be ways of sharing it and with colleagues and picking up some of those points that were made I'd just like to refer to page 45 where it mentions the 30 hours and again pick up on what you're saying there in terms of if we could put that into a something that applies across the board if the 30 hours is the equivalent of a week then I'll be saying a week and then what that would be for part time stuff but I think in there it does talk about it can if it goes beyond the three cycles there or use up the 30 hours then there is flexibility or unpaid leave or something non-working days and welcome the fact that this is going to be seen as very individual you know different people are going to have different needs so thank you. Councillor Cyneter so I can microphone please, sorry I'll just say a couple of comments you make thank you for talking about your personal experience it's useful to know but everybody's journey is different and I agree that you know sensitivity is required around people who are having this treatment then that's that's a broad subject because some people like to talk about some don't and we can't really make a policy about who says what to whom this is one example where the four day week will be really helpful to the member of staff having that extra day off in my work experience we have to better service needs with personal needs I when I looked at this about operation stuff I agree that there will be a difference between the operations of another staff if the flexibility allows them to work half a day instead of in another at another time if they're able to then maybe they don't need to take it as a new leave yeah that's what I thank you I think that's what comes across here I mean if we put this in the context of the previous document it's about relationships, the relationships between managers and staff and being able to have those conversations it's working towards that supportive environment are there any other, sorry Councillor Richard Stavart chair thank you I'd just like to endorse Councillor John Williams comment about this being a step really ahead of the legislation I think it's very important in selected places perhaps but for the council to be in a sense class leading on such issues which are vital to the well-being of the workforce I'd just like to add something and I appreciate Councillor Heather Williams comments thank you for sharing that experience I was just thinking maybe more broadly about the role of partners and partners of individuals having fertility treatment elsewhere or partners within this organisation that it can be difficult for a partner once removed from the situation physically but actually very tied up emotionally and I would hope that in this culture of awareness that will grow around this partners can equally be supported I know the demands aren't so great but emotionally it might be important for that individual to be supported so I would hope that partners could also feel comfortable to discuss and I think allowances are made for partners in the arrangements but not to underestimate significance to partners but of course I think this policy is really about supporting the individual and that's the primary aim so yeah very warmly welcome it and the change of culture that's implied and I hope through the manager toolkit then that awareness grows there is the related area of course of pregnancy loss which I think is kind of my apologies but I think that's strongly related and the culture of openness around pregnancy loss is going to be perhaps one of the extra benefits of an ability to talk this through Thank you this was a very emotional topic and don't apologise for how these structures are always so I'm sorry can we just take a break Thank you Thank you, thank you members so I don't think we have any other questions or just one more from Salita Andrews When an employee comes back after a dreadful event like a miscarriage does the HR have any means to support them I mean I don't I mean do they have an appointment to see HR first and are you able to respond to that an employee returns to work that can't hear you at the moment Apologies to my knowledge we don't have a required appointment for them on return because we don't want to assume that they want to speak about what's gone through but we are always contactable to discuss anything an employee wishes to discuss May I suggest that this person might benefit from an appointment before returning to work and to identify means of supporting them there's I'm sure there's lots of things on the NHS that you can refer them to but just to have an event like that maybe the whole office knows about it and to go back in there and everybody trying to be discreet about them makes it so obvious and it's hurtful If it's not the right thing Can I just, I mean what I'm really mindful of is we've said before that everybody's journey is different and what I would hope we're building in here is that flexibility that employees will be offered the pathway that suits them that they get the choice in this because it's so important to feel that you have some control and perhaps a lot of control but thank you for their being in flexibility and I think we can obviously sign post services that are available and that there are people there that they can talk with Thank you Councillor Heather Williams, did you have another comment? I was just going to say on that that I think it's good to offer but we can't meet the mandatory equally if for some people they want to keep that private and they don't want to disclose that that's what they're going through you know I think sometimes you just you go to work for normality because you're having to deal with that privately and sometimes doing the two is just too much so I think we should just in general just be everybody being more aware of people's emotions and actually you don't know necessarily what's going on in someone's private life and if you keep that mantra then you're creating that flexibility but I wouldn't support anything that became mandatory because equally it might be that actually six months later or four months later that's when the person feels a place to talk about to make sure that your policy is known so if later on down the line I remember it was difficult when my daughter was born it took four months till my husband said that that was never happening again that was it, he was not going through that again and it took four months for him to say how he felt about the process to me and I think that's because he felt very much he had to she was in intensive care, I was in intensive care it was all going on and he had to be strong through that period so it can take time so I think nothing mandatory and just more awareness of what's available I agree totally and I imagine that that is part of the ethos of HR that the doors open when people want to talk so thank you The question that Councillor Hansar was asking is do we have a note in the time scale to contact them before they come back to work to offer an appointment if they want one and I think that's the point we just need to not lose that so that before they come back they have contact and gendered by the employer to say how do you want to handle this when you come back to work and do you have an appointment with us or not and would you like your colleagues to know or not is there anything you want us to say or not and give them the agency Emma are you able to respond to that if that's built in that there will be contact I'm also mindful that it may well be may well be through a manager as well just depending on the relationship so the process would be a manager led process obviously with the employee, the relationship HR was on hand to support either party but it would be the manager who would manage the communication and the relationship prior to returning to work but also as been mentioned we wouldn't necessarily be aware of why somebody was off so it would again case by case basis and as supportive as possible and ultimately being led by the employer what they require from us as support but obviously we do have a role of counselling employer assistance programmes in place so if we can't give that support directly we can signpost to other organisations that are able to provide that support Thank you, thank you Some members were invited to note this We approve this policy in talking I am mindful as it's been pointed out opening paragraph that the second reading of this bill will be on the Friday of 24th of November 2023 and I guess any changes that might need to be made following the bill will be incorporated but if I could just with members by affirmation follow that recommendation Agreed? Thank you very much Emma, thank you for your time and apologies Jonathan for not welcoming you earlier but I think you're here for the next item on the agenda Okay members We now come to item 7 on our agenda HR recruitment, retention and absence data and I said this feels like we're in a sort of HR sandwich this agenda today starting off and finishing with that so this, the data report covers June and July and once again as a committee we're being asked to note this report so welcome Jonathan HR adviser, would you like to present this report Oh sorry, happy Jonathan to Jonathan first, thank you Thank you, yes The data for this report comes from August and September just to clarify before I start just to go through the report throughout August the recruitment team advertised for 22 job opportunities and attracted 106 applications and one of the adverts was internal which was recruited to as a secondment throughout September the recruitment team advertised eight job opportunities which attracted 50 job applications two of the adverts were internal and one was recruited to and one is still being advertised In August a customer contact adviser role for transformation was two posts it received 36 job applications and successfully recruited into the two posts which were an internal and external candidate similarly the refugee loader advert received 44 applications and after 20 people being interviewed eight new members of the team were recruited gives you an overview of the recruitment activity over the last couple of months the next part of the report relates to an interviewe survey this is something new we have we sent out a survey in mid October for roles that were interviewed in July, August and September we received 21 responses which is about a 29% return rate when applicants were asked about why they applied for role there's lots of different responses they had the four day week trial pay and reward, a career opportunity and local government opportunity were all cited between 9 and 11 times each so they were the most common responses a few people also said that pensions and the opportunities to work part time were reasons for their applications when looking at the online process for applying for jobs it was rated as an average of 4.1 out of 5 suggesting that most people had a good overall experience of using the system and everyone as a follow up to that everyone said that they were confident they had enough information about their role before they came to an interview so that part of the process seems to be working well of those respondents four people suggested the recruitment manager didn't give them sufficient information to make them feel it was a suitable role during their actual interview one person said that this was related to a conduct of a member of the panel a couple suggested it was poor communication and not being told they were unsuccessful and one person withdrew for personal reasons it wasn't anything to do with their interview at all only seven people were offered the opportunity to receive feedback about the interview however all but two respondents would consider applying for the council again in future one person cited a lack of timely communication about whether they had been successful another person believed they had been shortlisted as a result of their agenda and the interview was too long just to give you an update the recruitment module of ITRIN has been launched and HR will review how we can incorporate sending out surveys at the end of each month using data from the system to see if we can make it more timely we also collected data about staff probation looking at employees induction experience through a quarterly survey so this is up to the end of quarter three we received 16 responses out of 33 almost everyone that responded were positive about the quality of their induction to the council all 16 respondents said the four day week tried impacting on their decision to apply and accept their role at the council common reasons were health and well-being benefits greater flexibility and the opportunity for agile working being cited less frequently only one person said the four day week had a negative impact on them due to the reduced time to learn their role and complete their work however they did add that this was a personal thing and the four day week was a very positive measure overall and they were complimentary of the fact we were introducing it a working group has also been set up initially within HR and recruitment team to look at improving induction and onboarding process to go through unsuccessful recruitment campaigns the next part of the report the HR and recruitment team meet with hiring managers when a role was not successfully recruited for the first time a notice was made to collate information and also discuss ways to improve this with the hiring manager the new HR software module for recruitment was soft launched in September there are currently 12 roles being processed through it we're speaking to managers to gain feedback and making improvements to the process this will allow more comprehensive monitoring of success in relation to recruiting to vacant posts data will be extracted from the system for all roles in future but we are unable to provide further data at this time we also have the next chart chart 2 voluntary turnover the voluntary turnover rate fell slightly in August to 0.6 and then declined again slightly in September to 0.59 there has been a continuation of a trend of a decline in turnover since June 2023 four employees accepted a new role with another organisation two left due to having a career break one retired and one relocated exit interviews took place with all but three of voluntary leavers the feedback from the voluntary leavers was a desire to leave due to a lack of career progression while two others left due to a career break HR team always encourages those leaving to share the information with their manager so that we can all seek to make continuous improvement on what we do on this occasion slightly less than half wished for an exit interview information to remain confidential within HR looking at the next chart sickness absence data chart 3 and chart 4 you can see sickness days per FTE first in shared waste and then in the rest of the council and then chart 5 shows the percentage of days lost due to sickness within the council chart 6 shows the sickness absence days lost within the council and shows a continuation there has been some fluctuation in the number of days lost but it is very similar to what was the level in July the level in September although there was a peak in August a scene in chart 6 the cost of the council for sickness absence days lost in August was higher than April to July 2023 but it returned to a comparable level the HR team are aware of the need for external benchmarking and are currently exploring options to provide this information corporately we are able to determine from LGA data that from 2021 to 2022 that the absence is a mean of 9.2 days per FTE looking at a comparable data set for the last 12 months the South Cams District Council data shows that the level of absence excluding shared waste is 6.35 days and in contrast the data for shared waste was 13.56 in the same period thank you very much thank you Jonathan I'm sure there'll be some comments and questions for you so thank you for staying for those members can invite Councillor Heather Williams thank you I think my question around what buffer and what allowance has been made for reduced working hours I've obviously come before I think it applies again here but I appreciate I need a written answer on the last item I'm going to need a written answer on this one but just for completeness the other thing was and this might just be myself but I think other members might appreciate as well on the graphs whether it be possible to have a line for each year because when I'm trying to compare sort of the months I'm trying to compare the two Aprils I'm kind of having to use my think and I got the line but actually if we had a line for each year it may make it a lot easier for people to actually make the comparison so I think that was that was when I was looking at it obviously because it's all sort of in grey scale as well I was trying to map it all out and actually for accessibility as well having a graph in black and white isn't the easiest thing to do some people because we've got dyslexia and what have you the colours definitely help is that something that will be possible Jonathan moving forward to be able to compare things by having sort of delineations and maybe colour it would be something we could look at just to clarify would you be looking to divide it up by calendar years as opposed to financial years I don't really mind when it is matter of its calendar however you break it down whatever it is you actually label it correctly as to which is which year it's just I think the colours definitely help and also if it's sort of layered as opposed to how it is because you've got to try it because like you say there are peaks any understanding what happened in August on the which chart are you looking at now I can't say the wins chart 6 we've got a very big peak in August which I thought most people would be taking holiday any information on that Jonathan I don't have the detailed information but I can take it away and come back it's interesting when looking at patterns and trends and if we can obviously we're comparing things with years which have been very different just before now so yeah thank you anything else Councillor Adams thank you Councillor Richard Stobart chair thank you I think this comes over as a very competent piece of work it's very helpful to have the data, the numbers, the trends notwithstanding some of the comments about data the ability to tease data apart and look at it I mean in this kind of environment is quite tricky what we'd like for somebody to sit to determine or say look at it this way look at it that way I hope there's some scope to do that although that's more of a personal wish but digging deeper into the data is getting easier and it would be helpful I think from the point of view of this committee to be seeing as opportunity presents itself more flexible ways of looking at the data but yeah I will only welcome the way it's presented and look forward to future developments I just wanted to comment about benchmarking which I think is really really important and underline the importance of like for like what are the assumptions made by other people who gather data and so sometimes benchmarking can be fraught with those difficulties but I think it's a very good thing to do and or as a comparisons but needs to be done with some care and I think that also applies to data coming through the four day week analysis that again comparisons and sensible comparisons are one in which the assumptions are being carefully considered and weighed that would be helpful too so yeah fully endorsing benchmarking but yeah again very good presentation of the data thank you and thank you John can I ask when and again I apologize if it's my naivety when we would next be expected to get a report on recruitment retention and absence data I would expect that we would report on that at the end of quarter four the next quarter ends at the end of December so be looking to get information in January lovely so that will be in time for our next meeting which we will pick up that benchmark so thank you so much it's a comprehensive report and I look forward to the next one as well so members we ask to note this report can I take that by affirmation agree thank you so that brings us on to the date of our next meeting which is 1st of February 2024 so we'll have a lot more information there to be reported on and just if I could just ask Jeff imagine we'll have information there from the shared waste service and the way before day week is progressing there that would be something committee would welcome and if there's anything else if we can feed that through to Jeff so we've got that in time for that February meeting is it too early to wish someone Merry Christmas I don't know but thank you members and thank you officers for the meeting and look forward to seeing you again after the festive season thank you