 Good afternoon, Members, officers and any members of the public for viewing this on live stream. Welcome to this Employment and Staffing Committee meeting. My name is Councillor William Jackson Wood, and I'm the chair of the committee. Can everyone present in the council chamber note that everything on your desk, including a laptop screen is likely to be broadcast at some point? The camera follows the microphone being switched on. felly cymaint o'r cyfnodd i'w ei wneud yn dweud o'r cyfnodd, yn ddiweddol i gael a'i ddiweddol i'n gobeithio'r cyfnodd. Can those participating in the meeting via live stream indicate that you wish to speak during the chat column? Please do not use the chat column for any other purpose. Please make sure that your device is fully charged and that you switch your microphone off unless you are invited to do otherwise. Please ensure that you've switched off or silenced any other devices so that you do not interrupt proceedings. ac mae hyn yn re— Pan ddod yn gwneud, mae'r hyn yn ysgol ar y gynedd, mae mwych nhw yn credu'r gŷl o'r wybodaeth, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio ar y gynedd, mae'n ysgol ar gyfer fy mfroedd gwneud. mae'n ddig ar ymgylch, gan ddiddorol, mae'n ddig ar y teimlo maen nhw ceisio, naill iawn yn ychydig pen yn y ch overweight, mae rydw i fy modd, mewn gwneud i fynd i ddyparu? Mae'n ddiddor yn ôl i fy hun, Fe ddweud i gyhoeddiol yn £50, ac i ni i'n meddwl hwnnw'n gallu'n cynnwys. Mae'n meddwl hwnnw i'n meddwl hwnnw, ac yn ei gynnwys am ystod, a'u meddwl hefydol cyfidaeth ar hyn yn ei gymryd. Roedd yng Nghymru, mae amser gweithwyr, ymddill yna Cyngor Sallianne Hart. Roedd yng nghymru. Beth gyntaf, mae'n Cyngor Sallianne Hart, ac mae'n unrhyw fydd yn yr ymddill yn ymddill. Roedd yr unrhyw yn yr dryf ymddill. I'm one of the members for the Milton and Water Beach Board. Councillor Mark Hamill. I think you've already introduced me, Chairman. Councillor Richard Stobart. Thank you, Chair. I'm Richard Stobart. I'm one of the members for Gertan Ward that includes Madingley and Dry Trayton. Councillor John Williams. Good afternoon, Chair. I'm John Williams. I'm one of the members for Fenditon and Fogelwald, and I also am to be the lead member for resources. Thank you. I can confirm that this meeting is now port. We have the Head of Transformation, HR and Corporate Services, Jeff Memberi, in person with us today. Jeff would like to introduce yourself. Yes, Jeff Memberi, Head of Transformation, HR and Corporate Services. Hi, Jeff. We will also be joined by a number of other officers throughout this meeting. So, the first point for today is apologies. Sorry, can I ask our democratic services prior, Laurence Damary-Hulman, who is joining us virtually today, are there any apologies of absence today? Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. We've not received any apologies for absence today. Thank you, Laurence. Second point is declarations of interest. Do any members have any interests to declare in relation to any items of business on this agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, would you please raise it at that point? Is there anything to declare at this stage? Great. Thank you very much. So, we then come to minutes of the previous meeting. Are members content to approve the minutes of the meeting of the committee held on the 10th of November 2022? Oh, sorry, one second. Cynllian Brannam, do you want to make a comment? Thank you. Yes, it's a really small thing. Just a typo that has happened at the very beginning of the minutes. Just immediately prior to the words South Cambridge agenda item through which is the minutes. There is a stray N. I think it's there accidentally. And it may not appear if these were printed because I'm not quite sure whether that's part of the bit that would be on the web page. But just to let you know. Sorry, just a moment. I just need to go and scroll down to look at that. Page five. Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see. I did momentarily wonder if I'd put it in there myself, but I actually picked the paper minutes up two different ways and it was still there. So I'm sure that can be removed. Okay. So do we actually need to get that and what do we need to get that amended? I'm sure we can prove the minutes with that amendment. Okay. So with that amendment. Are we okay to approve? Great. Perfect. Thank you very much. Okay. Our next item is update on the four week trial. We have our chief executive Liz Watts, which is joining us virtually to present the report. Thank you chair and good afternoon committee. Can I just check you can all hear me? We can do. Thank you. I do apologise for not being there in person. I'm at the district council network conference. And so I just make it the afternoon. I did a very brief introduction because I know a lot of members came to the member briefing that I did on Monday evening. What you've got in front of you in the report today members is the data from January for our performance and the pulse or check in survey health and wellbeing data. I would suggest that this is very early data. And so I don't know if we can draw any sort of robust conclusions from it. But broadly speaking, I think the direction of travel is positive in terms of performance and health and wellbeing. It has been a huge change for the organization. And as I said on Monday, the cultural change has probably been bigger than we expected, but in a very positive way. So people have really embraced measures to enable them to become more productive so that they can perform their work in fewer hours. So chair, I'll leave it there because I'm sure you've already a report and I'm very happy to take any questions. I should say I've got a slightly ropey connection. Thank you very much, ladies. And we really do appreciate you dialing in remotely when you're at a conference. So thank you very much for that. No problem. Do we have any questions for Liz on the progress in the four-day travel? Councillor Robin. Thank you, chair. I just wanted to congratulate the officers and the whole team for the preparation that you did prior to the trial. Because that set in place the small thing of auto signatures which identified when an individual member of staff who you might have contacted, which was their non-working day and who to contact if you happen to have contacted them on their non-working day. And that in the situation that I was in meant that I did get a response from the person covering that person's absence. And just what I wanted to point reiterate was the fact this to me has developed a really collaborative culture and even more collaborative culture amongst our officers to enable somebody who's off work on their non-working day, perhaps not to be landed with a whole pile of work when they arrive back their next working day. And the whole, I do feel that we've got a real change, a real sea change in the way people are feeling about their jobs. And I just wanted to congratulate the chief executive for her foresight in sort of championing this because I think it's going to make a real change in the way we work. And I wanted to say thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Bradman. So we have as Councillor Heather Williams in general, which I think would like to make a comment. Thank you chair for allowing me to speak. It's just a couple of questions and observations. So first of all on page 12 it says there are no financial implications for the trial. I just wanted to clarify because my understanding is we were going to be doing more sort of check-ins and surveys with staff as to how they are and that normally does come up at a constant. We normally bring in people from outside. I think through various budget papers I saw an increase in the amount of spend. So just wondering whether that's something separate, whether that's routine or whether we're doing extra and whether there's cost attributed to that. Then chair on page 14 on business rates collection. On the rag racing on the colours it's got 77 amber, 84 then in red, 93 which is higher than in amber. So I'm just wondering if that's because a threshold has changed for example. And then on page 18 and on page 20, I'm assuming it's, I'm pretty confident it's an error but we should really get that minute chair that strongly agree is twice. Now I appreciate we want good results but I think to have number one and number five strongly agree on three different occasions may not improve the accuracy of our data chair. So whether officers want to reflect on that. Thank you. Thank you councillor Williams. Liz or Jeff, would you like to make any comments on those points? I can answer on the survey that's helpful chair. We do scheduling staff surveys on a regular basis anyway councillor Williams. What we've done is just arranged the surveys for last year and for this year to be just before the start of the trial and just after the end of the trial. So they would have happened anyway but we've just changed the times in which they've run. So there's no additional cost in relation to the surveys. I can't answer on the other points perhaps Liz is able to. Thanks Jeff. Thank you chair. So you're absolutely right on the last question councillor Williams that should say strongly disagree and strongly agree. So apologies for that. On the business rates just looking at that data. The actual is the column in the left target is the middle column and intervention is the right column. So if you look at January actual that was 93.8% target was 95% and intervention is 93.59. So it's just tipping into amber. Actually it looks like December maybe 84.5 and 84.57. I think that maybe should have been amber as well December figures. But I'll go back to my colleagues in policy and performance and just double check that colour councillor Williams. Thank you very much Liz. Cancelor Williams pull it back to you because I think you had no idea. Yes that's what I'm clarifying that there doesn't seem to be between the colours that are highlighted and the targets. So I do think that's what I was saying about the numbers and highlighted the December number. So I think that probably does need to be looked into a bit. We'll do that councillor Williams. I think as I said, I think I said on Monday the data came out very quickly and normally we'd have a lot more time to kind of go through this on a quarterly basis. So I did really rush to colleagues in performance and policy to get this data out so that we could get it into this report for you. We will double check that figure but I mean I don't think the colours may be wrong. I think the numbers are right and broadly speaking you can see there's nothing kind of too alarming in those numbers. I think it's kind of the key message. That's great. Thank you very much Liz. Chair, thank you. So through you, Chair, I'd like to pick up on a comment that councillor Bradman made about this kind of transformation that's appearing in a way perhaps we as members are interacting with officers. And what's intriguing I think is that proposals of the sort that we're seeing around the four-day week are sometimes a catalyst for other things. And so there can be potential in the workforce that remains untapped. And you see it occasionally I think in things like sort of schemes manufacturing companies operate on identifying cost-saving measures and you can see the most spectacular things suddenly emerge. So I think this is something I'd like to underline following councillor Bradman's comment. I just wanted to have the kind of comments and questions. I think in that presentation on Monday evening we saw some correlations emerging and it would be interesting to see other correlations in due course. So I know that's part of the analysis process, but that might give us some insights into what's working well and what might need a little bit of a hand to make work better kind of thing. There's quite a lot of good practice that's already emerged. I think even in the planning process one of the things that Chief Executive pointed out was kind of iterative processes such as, you know, when you're preparing a document you might do it in draft and then revisit the draft on several occasions. And that's actually quite an efficient way of preparing things and that's the kind of things some people are adopting to help the speed of delivery of things to other colleagues. Then just on this, I think I refer to it as the free day phenomenon and I think Chief Executive kind of maybe agree with that something emerging as a surprise. The fact that Mondays and Fridays are for quite a number of people quotes a meeting free day and this represents a big change to the culture. I think often in organisations where, which are quite dynamic, the possibility of such open space gives freedom to do things which otherwise would have been impossible. And I think we had some nice feedback from Tom and Jeff on that, which is worth noting. On good practice, yes, it would be great to have some kind of record of how that's building up and perhaps that's part of the Bennett Institute research programme, perhaps it's anecdotes or perhaps it's something measurable. But in any case that comes onto the analysis process, which I think obviously it's very early days, so whatever analysis is taking place is very tentative. So I'd like to note an interest in the analysis process chair and a future report. Maybe I'd love technical detail, but it may be that something a bit technical in due course, but also addresses the main interests. So I just have one question to finish, which is, have the public expressed any more interest? I have heard anecdotes of, you know, public expressing some opinions, but I wonder if that feedback of information from the public has continued and what is its nature? Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Stavart. That's a good point. Have we actually had any sort of formal or informal feedback from the public to answer the last question? Thank you and through you chair. We are collecting customer satisfaction data and across services we have collected that for some time in different ways. So it was only at the very beginning of the planning period in October that we decided to approach that systematically with one single customer survey that's on our website that people get when they've received a service from us. It's a very short survey that people can fill in. So we have only collected that data since October. Again, so it's really hard to use any of the January data to say, you know, and therefore, but I shared a little bit of this at the briefing on Monday. There's a slight improvement in the January data compared to December, but I would really caution using that data as a robust measure, because those sorts of satisfaction surveys can really go up and down every month in terms of specifically the public expressing interest in the four day week. As I reported to you last year, there was a sort of flurry of responses, probably no more than a dozen when we announced that we were doing the trial for the public, all of which we responded to. We haven't had any more since then, certainly none that have kind of been specifically about the four day week. Occasionally, I see a little bit on social media about it, but nothing significant at all. Just going back to, if I may, Councillor Stobart's request for some more technical detail in the analysis. I think that will come at the end of the trial period, Councillor Stobart, and we're really lucky to have the Bennett Institute doing the analysis for us. They will be providing a more technical report on the key performance indicators, which hopefully will be useful for you. We've talked a bit this week with members about what good practice is emerging, and I think it's really important that we record that if nothing else so that we can share our learning with other authorities. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Liz. Yes, I think we're very much looking forward to seeing the reports and exactly what's coming through the outputs of the trial. Councillor Watt, did you have any follow up points on that? Just to reflect on that point that the technical analysis is quite involved. I wouldn't expect anything early. The research person involved really has to explore and understand, so we have to be patient about that, but in due course. I was just wondering, through you, Chair, how the relationship with the Bennett Institute is developing. It sounds as though it's going well. Does it all go well for the future for anything else that the council might do? Interesting. Just to get that general impression. Thanks, Liz. Are you able to... Absolutely. We've been incredibly lucky with the Bennett Institute wanting to be part of the trial and help us do the analysis, and it's a really strong relationship. There are two researchers who are working on it with me and with Kevin Ledger, our policy and performance manager. One of them comes to our project team every week and has the real insight into how things are developing, helps us look at what data we're getting ready, how can we refine that, where are the gaps. For example, we've identified a gap in terms of getting specific data from managers. Nina from the Bennett Institute is going to help us in March on some qualitative interviews with managers so that we understand from a management perspective what the impact of the four-day week is. That's a great relationship. I think in terms of future collaboration, I'm sure there's a lot of opportunity to do that. Thanks. May I make a clarification on the business rates? Yes. I'm not sure whether the information that's gone out to members is perhaps different to that that's in the public pack, but looking at the collection figures for the business rates, in December the collection was 84.5, which was both below the target of 86.3 and the intervention level of 84.57, which is rights-coloured red. Whereas in January, the figure was 93.8, which is below the target of 95.5, but above the intervention level of 93.59, which is why it's coloured in amber. I don't know if the copy that's gone out to members has either got different figures or different colours, but that's the final version, so the figures and colours look to be correct in the final version of the report. Thanks, Geoff, for clarifying that. Sorry, Councillor Stobart, did you have any further points on? No, Chair, no great answers, yes, thank you. Great, thank you very much. Councillor John Williams, you had a question? No, I'm sorry, Mark Howell, sorry. Apologies. Of course, John Williams and Mark Howellson are so similar, doesn't it? Identical, yeah. Thank you very much indeed, Chairman. Chairman, I'm like my colleague here, I'm interested in paragraph, I think it was 13, and what is said there with regards to the clear days, which are Monday and also a Friday. I remember reading a wonderful article once with regards to Professor Stephen Hawkins, who always said that the reason that he was so successful was that he didn't ever be last to sit on any committees involving health and safety, staff Christmas parties, or fire safety, anything like that, and he could just get on with his job. I just wonder sometimes how many additional bits and pieces that we put on to people that they could then take them away from their actual job. Admittedly they are important for the running of the business, I don't dispute that for a moment, but actually takes them away from what their job are. And therefore, if by their tenants that actually is putting more pressure on them now, because they only have a four days and also they've got to fit these other committees in. So I'm just asking, I like the fact that we have a Monday and a Friday's clear days, but at the same time should we also be looking at how we arrange the additional committees that we ask people to sit on, which are important, but take them away from their job. Thank you Chairman. Thank you, Councillor Howell. Good point, is there any sort of thoughts on that from this? Well I'm happy to come in there and through you Chair. I think that everybody is thinking more carefully now about how they're spending their time, and that doesn't mean to say that people are not going to things, but I think people are kind of asking themselves the question, am I the right person to be in this meeting? Is the meeting got a clear agenda? Is the meeting planned for the right amount of time? And everybody's asking themselves those questions now. So just to give you one example, the leadership team normally meets once a week for two hours. Last week we realised it was going to be very light agenda, and so we said that actually everything can wait till the following week, and so we cancelled the meeting. Now for the four day we wouldn't have done that, because we wouldn't have needed to, but actually it meant that the whole leadership team of eight people got two hours back each, which is more than two days for the council. So I think everybody now has an incentive to challenge themselves about how they're spending their time, and that is meaning that we are being more productive. I think it's important that we don't lose those peripheral roles, because they are really important. As you said, councillor, how? And we want to make sure that we don't simply become so task oriented that we lose the other important things in the council, even if they're not caught to somebody's task. Thank you very much, Liz. Yes, councillor, any thoughts on that? No, thank you, and I do think that if we can't contribute to a meeting, then we probably shouldn't be in there and read the mill, it would be enough. It's only the shame councillors couldn't have the same attitude. Thank you. Just a quick point that I've noted, that councillor, Sinita Hansaraj, has joined us virtually, so I apologise for not noting that before. Councillor Hansaraj, do you want to just quickly introduce yourself virtually? Can you hear me? We can indeed, yes. Hi, so I'm Sinita Hansaraj, councillor for Heston, in Bington and Orchard Park. Sorry I'm a bit late. Not at all, thank you very much for joining us, and apologies for not noticing you, joined earlier. Right, sorry. So, back to the questions. I think we've got another question from councillor Bradman. No? Sorry, what I was going to say is that I looked at those figures on the business rates, and I also concluded that what Geoff Mambury has said is what was meant, that the figures were correctly there and correctly coloured on the business rates, that's FS104 on page 14. Great, thank you very much. Good, is there any more comments or questions or further? Okay, so the committee are invited to note the contents of the four-day week trial report. Yep, thank you very much. Liz, are you leaving us? If you'll excuse me now, I need to get back to the conference. Thank you so much. No, thank you very much again for joining virtually, it's very good to be here. Nice to see all your members. Okay, so that brings us to our next agenda point, which is the pay policy statement. We're asked to be, sorry, the committee is being asked to consider the statement, and it's recommended it to full council. We have here Geoff, which is the Transformation HR and Corporate Services. Head, Geoff, can I have it to you? Thank you very much, Chair. It's the annual pay policy statement, which were required by law to, first we'll get agreed by council and also to publish on our website after that. The committee has asked to recommend it to council, therefore. I would perhaps draw members' attention to the gender pay reporting, which is something that I know that members have expressed interest in in previous years. We continue to compare very positively to the national position, where our mean gender pay gap is 10.51% in favour of females, and our median gender pay gap is 17.68% again in favour of females, which is a reversal of the position nationally. I think it shows that we are a council that treats equality appropriately. I'm happy to answer any questions that members may have. Thank you very much, Geoff. Do we have any questions? Yes, Councillor Hall. Just one question. Forgive me if I don't phrase this correctly. But is the actual figure skewed because the top two positions are both held by females? The main reason for our gender pay gap is that a lot of our waste operatives are paid relatively lowly compared to the other scales, and most of those are men. That's the major factor. But actually, when it comes to senior management, we do have a proportion in favour, so I'm just trying to give a report. We do have a slightly larger number of females than males in the senior positions. The fact that our two highest paid people in the authority are female will of course have an impact in comparison to the others, but the biggest impact is the fact that a lot of grade 1s, 2s and 3s are male. Thank you very much, Geoff. Do we have any other questions at all? Yes, Councillor John Williams. Sorry, I think it's in your microphone. Sorry about that. If you look at the table on page 33 at the top of page 33, that explains what Geoff is saying, that we have very few females in the lower quarter. Sorry, I apologize. Are we looking at the 1.1 on 26? Yes, it's the table at the top of page 33 on the agenda page. And it shows the percentage of female and male per quartile. And the lowest quartile, it's made up of 73% male and 27% female. And then if you look at the rest of it, we gain the upper middle quartile, which is not the top. Then, as you say, most admin staff are actually female. And then at the upper quartile, yes, there are more female, but the difference doesn't really account for the major difference between male and female. So it is mainly down to the operatives in waste. Thank you very much for that. Councillor, you're still up. Thank you, Chair. The reason for producing this report is the statutory requirement, as I understand. And it is obviously useful from the point of view of presenting the pay distribution and highlighting some of the points we've been discussing. But the practical use, if you will, could we explore a little bit, or my question would be, how is it put to practical use and do we use it as a benchmark against which to compare against other district councils, for example? And how would that comparison be helpful for setting perhaps procedures and policy in the district council? So it's a question about the utility of the report, even though it has to be a statutory way, it's required by statute. Thank you very much, Chair. How many thoughts on that, Chair? It is of limited utility for a council that's already committed to operating in a fair and equitable way. What it does potentially do, though, is if things start to drift out, it will start to highlight that. Now, as things stand at the moment, both in terms of the gender pay gap and also if you look at the gap between the highest and the lowest paid, actually that gap is relatively small, much smaller than the target of, I think, 17 times the difference. But what it does do is give us a year-on-year comparison. In terms of will this make much difference to us as an organisation next year, I think probably not, but we are required to do it. And it does show the public that we're being fair and equitable in what we do. Great. Thank you very much. Did you have any comments on that, Councillor? No, that's a good answer. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Good. Councillor Williams. Yes, thank you. I'd just also like to point out that in part six, paragraph, well, section 6.1, you'll see there that as a result of this year's pay negotiations, IE 2022, our minimum hourly rate is now 11 pounds, whereas we had a policy of it being at least 10 pounds. Our hourly rate is now 11 pounds, which I think I believe is higher than the city. Minimum hourly rate is less than 11 pounds. So I think that's really good for us to be able to have done that. And obviously we'll keep that under review in relation to the living wage, the actual living wage, which I think at the moment is about 10 pounds, 45, I think, at the moment. But it's really good news that we are paying at least 11 pounds an hour, which is above the round tree, minimum living wage for outside London. Good point. Thank you very much for noting that. Did you have any thoughts on how we want to pay or anything on that point, Jeff, or not? Councillor, John Williams is correct that actually what this did was move us a year ahead of most other local authority employers in ensuring that we're paying a decent wage to our colleagues throughout the organisation. We also were able to afford a quite significant increase in the amount that we paid, our lowest level apprentices as well, to ensure that they're paid a decent wage and they're not being taken advantage of. So I think actually it is a reflection of the positive approach that we've taken. And unlike many other organisations, I think it's worth noting that we haven't seen industrial action or discontent at serious levels throughout the council. So I think there's lots of positive things to read into the report, but I suppose my position is where you would expect that from South Cambridgeshire District Council, wouldn't you? Point. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, I should have said minimum. Good. Thank you very much. Is there any other questions from the committee? Okay, so the committee is invited to recommend the reports to council. Are we happy to afford a recommendation? Agreed. Thank you very much. Good. Okay. So we come to our next point, which is... Sorry, I apologise. So we just came on to the next point, which is the workforce breakdown. We have with us Clare Lomahill, a HR advisor, which is here to present the report. Clare. Thank you, Chair. Hi. So this report is the equality workforce breakdown as of 31 March 2022, which under the public sector equality duty we publish each year. As HR, we provided the employment information, which was then fed into the equality and diversity team as Kevin Ledger, but unfortunately he's on leave today, so I'm presenting in his absence. So if there are any further questions I'm unable to answer, we'll take a note of them and follow them up. So just in summary, you've had the report as in per appendix A, and some sort of key points that our employees identified as Black Asian mixed ethnicity or other is pretty much unchanged from previously, and it represents about half of the... about nearly 6% while the rest of South Camryture is 11% in comparison. And the representation is broadly similar across all pay bands, and there's provided some examples where the biggest variations are. And our disability, who have actually declared it, is 9.3% lower than the 14.8% in the wider South Cams population. However, with a number of representation, is that how much is actually being monitored on assist, and how much are we aware of taking that into account. And the biggest age category across the council is the 45 to 54, and the biggest growth has been the age 55 to 64, so up 22.6%. In the 3% of the workforces identified as either lesbian, gay or bisexual, which is actually higher than the South Cams population. However, as mentioned just now, 14% of staff chose not to disclose their sexual orientation, so it's based on the data that we have. So just a sort of brief summary if you have any further questions, if I can answer them or take notes to respond and speak to Kevin. Thank you. That's great. Thank you very much, Clare. Do we have any questions on this report? Yes, councillor, so what? Chair, thank you. I think having asked the question about the practical application, this is required by statute. Does the compilation of this report help the HR processes? Does it highlight things? I mean, the data is fascinating, and as Jeff has said, you would kind of expect this from South Cams, but is it helping in some way? So very similar question to the one I posed earlier, statutory requirement, but does it help our processes? It certainly helps transparency. Thank you very much, councillor. Clare, I don't know who's the best place. I don't know if Jeff's the best place to do all that as well, but... It's a similar answer in so much as it's an annual touch point that enables us to look and see how that we're progressing. In some of the areas we are in a little bit, that there's the danger of the law of small numbers, where because a change of one person can make a big percentage increase, so we have to be a bit careful around that. But the way it can be useful is I think... Members will remember the fact that we're putting a great deal of effort into becoming a disability-positive employer, and it gives us some baseline information to be able to judge our progress year on year, following the reaching of our attaining of those levels. So it's useful from that perspective. Again, we perhaps don't face the same challenges as some other organisations, because we've generally been broadly representative of the people that we serve here anyway. But as you say, it's statutory, so we have to do it, and we'll use the information positively. Anything to add, Clare? No, I was just going to say, to add is that I will pass on to Kevin Ledger as well, as in we've reviewed and agreed this information, how we can use it going forward, just to add pretty much what you said. Thank you. Thank you very much, please. Councillor Mark Hull, you have a question. Thank you very much indeed, Chairman. Chairman, I might have missed it on this report, so forgive me if I'm asking a question, which is glaring me in the face here. But when this information is gleaned, is it anonymous, or is it with the person's name on the top? Thank you, Councillor Owl. Yes, Geoff, is that going to be you? Clare is better. Clare, yeah. Thank you. The information we provide is anonymous, so it's purely numbers. So we gather in HR, gather the data, which includes the personal information, and when we provide it, it's just numbers, purely numbers. Great, Clare. That's great. Thank you very much. Do we have any other questions? Sorry, just to clarify, and the reason for the slight delay before we start at that point is we've been asked to note this report, but we've been asked to note this report with an amendment, but I can't seem to find reference to the amendment. Is that correct or not? I'm not aware. Oh, it's okay. No, it's okay, fine. Good, thank you very much. First one point that's been floating around in my head, and it's to do with the number of our approach on disability profile, which is on Figure 2.1 on page 45. And I just wanted to say, I think that's remarkably good, given, as we've said earlier in this committee, that 75% of our staff in our lower quartile are waste service employees, who, by the nature of their job, cannot really have a disability. So given that we have that constraint on our staff, I think that's actually remarkably good, that we're up to 14.8%, is that right? Yes, 14.8% of our staff do declare a disability. So I think that's very good, even though the Cambridgeshire percentage is 16.4%, given that we have such a large number of our staff who are involved in a very physical job, I think that's doing quite well anyway. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, councillor, how? Just very quickly. Are members not included in this, or are we, is that separate? Claire, can I ask you to... Okay, this is purely employees. Okay. Thank you. Just a point back to councillor Bregman, or on that for us. Is that, when we say disability, is that an inclusive point of disability, or is this a physical disability? It would be any type of disability, so although councillor Bregman's right, that often it will be physical disability, it will include mental health issues, potentially and some other hidden disabilities as well. Thank you very much. Good, okay. Well, thank you very much. Is there any other questions or any comments in the room or online? Okay, good. So, again, we're invited to note the support. Are we okay to move ahead and note the support? Great, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Claire. Thank you. So, moving on to our sickness absence, which is our eighth and final point for today. We're being asked to note this report. Claire, I think it's back to you. I'm afraid to put you back on the spot, which you're presenting this report for us today. Okay, thank you. Oh, we are, sorry. Oh, my God. Sorry, okay. Apologies. I've skipped a point with my excitement. So, we've actually got the retention report to go through, which we have Bethan Gregory, which senior HR advisor, which is going to present that for us. So, apologies, Bethan. It's not meaning to skip you there, but you're right to go through the report, please. Yes, I can. Thank you, chair. So, as can be seen on page 54 of the report, I'm not going to talk through the whole report because you guys put time to read it, but you can see we're under target again in relation to both voluntary and involuntary. All leavers are under target this quarter, following being under target since the start of the financial year. We noted in the last quarter's report that there was a high number of leavers moving to the private sector, and we've seen that again in quarter three. One of the things the HR team are going to do is do a deep dive into the exit interviews to look for any trends within exit interview data and look at any recommendations or themes we can look at other than this wider move to private sector. We do have more in detail data we can look at. Following the submission of the quarterly report, one of our apprentices actually won the Working with People Award at the Cambridgeshire County Council Apprenticeships Award on 8 February. We also had an apprentice in housing who was awarded highly commended in the team working category as well. Since the writing of the report, we've also had a careers fair at Impington, which went down really well with a thousand students ranging from years 10 to 13 who might be potential future level three or level four apprentices. We've also had a small number of staff turn up to a presentation to highlight the importance of apprentices internally to managers and staff and their value and what they mean and what they can do. I also note in the minutes of the last meeting there seemed to be a request for more live data comparisons for turnover and recruitment. Unfortunately, looking at that for this quarter, the most recent local government data produced by LGA is actually for 2020-2021 and doesn't include our region, but we are in the process of signing up to use Infinistats, which would give us local comparative salary benchmarking data and recruitment data across other councils. I think that's about 300 councils that use Infinistats. So that will be coming soon and will help us with benchmarking our roles. I also note there was a discussion around what do we do for those people approaching retirement age. I just wanted to add off the back of that. We do also offer flexible retirement to anyone aged over 55, so flexible retirement means that they can stay in a job at less hours, start pulling on the pension pot, but also start creating a new one, so it's a good benefit that we have here to help retain that experience and knowledge of people that are approaching retirement age. That's it from me. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bethan. OK, so move on to some questions. That's all right. Councillor Mark Howell, you had a question. Thank you very much, Chairman. Chairman, in paragraph 10, it says there how we upskill staff now to fill the vacancies, and I just want to say that's fantastic because it's something that I've been going on about for a long time. It's very expensive to move to this area and for people to come in at whatever level. So the fact that people already here, they're already living in this area however that is, and we're upskilling in them. That's fine. I do appreciate that later on it says that we are losing staff to the private sector. I was always taught that people move to the private sector when the economy and everything is going well and when it's a recession, they come back to the council because they feel that that's the most safer place because we seem to be recession proof. However, I do think upskilling is good. I do think that's the best way forward and I just want to say well done on that one. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Hill. So you have a, I think, a question for me. Thank you very much, Chair. I just wanted to query on page 54 at paragraph 5. We're using the word to introduce the paragraph, the performance indicator and that is the title of the graph. So, for me, I would expect a higher number to indicate better performance and a lower number to indicate lower performance. And indeed, Bethan's sounded as if she was saying this was a shame that our performance was below target. But actually what this is illustrating is the number of levers, isn't it? What I'm saying is I'm not criticising Bethan. I'm just wondering if my understanding of the data is correct because to me, if we've got fewer, a lower number of voluntary levers and a lower number of total levers, that to me sounds like a good thing. So I'm just slightly confused. Can somebody explain what that is actually, whether the title of this actually is talking about levers? It's talking about turnover. So it's looking at the amount of levers versus the head count of the council. So we have a target PI figure set by, I believe, Kevin, the policy performance team. That's the grey line and we've been consistently under that target. So that means that we have good recruitment and retention for the last three quarters because we're below target. But I know what you're saying it's almost the wrong way around in relation to... I'm sorry, it's just the nomenclature is counterintuitive. As you were saying, if we looked at quarter three, so that's the quarter to December in 2022, we are under target. That means we're doing well, yeah. Exactly. Target is the point at which you get nervous, isn't it? It suggests to me that actually as time has gone on, our performance is increasing and our turnover is reducing, which is a good thing. Yes, we probably need to look at rephrasing that or that chart. I think that might be helpful. It's an interesting way of expressing it. I think it could be expressed more intuitively. Thank you. Definitely. I do agree. To me, it looks a bit awkward. It looks like down is good. Perhaps there is a way that we can change that report or perhaps just modify the way in which it's actually awkward. Councillor Richard Stobart, did you have a question? Chair, I do. It made me premature. Given all the warnings that the Chief Executive gave us about reaching too many conclusions early over the four-day week, but this little, I'd call it an uptick if the data was the other way around, but an uptick in turnover performance. This is the kind of thing that we might begin to expect once some of the effects and the internalisation of the benefits of the four-day week begin to have an effect. While it's too early to draw a conclusion, I guess this is the kind of thing that we'd be looking to see as the bounty, if you will, of the adoption of the four-day week. Is that a fair assessment, Chair? I would say that certainly was one of the goals. So thank you, Councillor Stobart. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on the Jethw or Bethan just on that, considering we are seeing that trend. You're absolutely right that it's too early to make any definitive statements on this. Certainly what we would expect to see is the number of vacancies that we advertise were not able to appoint. We would expect to see that coming down as the effect of the four-day week is taken away. Probably that would be a stronger indicator for the benefits of the four-day week rather than staff turnover, because that could be impacted by the fact that we, for example, had to take on extra staff to deal with the Ukrainian crisis or something like that, which could impact on that. But certainly some of the performance reporting that we're seeing here, we expect in the longer term to see improvements because of that. Is there anything you want to add to that, Bethan? No. Just a small thing that we are also updating our exit interviews to include a question around the four-day week and whether that's had an impact to leave. So that's included as well. I was going to ask the follow-up chair as to whether there are any new metrics needed to just get below the surface of this a bit more. But I think the response that Bethan and Geoff have given say, well, the existing metrics are pretty good. Maybe we just need to look at them closely or compound them in some way, but we seem to be well positioned to observe the data. Great. Thank you very much. Do we have any other? Okay, good. As mentioned before, we're due to note this report. Are we okay as a committee to note this? I agree. In fact, thank you very much. Okay, now, Bethan, thank you for joining us for that. Now we move on to the sickness absence report, which is our final report for the day. So this is for quarter three and we are being asked to note this report. Clare, I will now go back to you. So thank you for bearing with me on that. Can I hand it over to you to present the report, please? Thank you, chair. So in sickness absence, we have had the overall rates for the depot is actually there is an amendment of 3.9 days per FTE, which is still over target, and the rest of the council is 1.6 days, which is actually below target. And we were saying that the sickness has increased for the depot is over target, particularly due to infections such as cold and flu, which is an increase in sickness levels during the winter months is to be expected and follows previous years patterns. So the top three reasons for the absence were infections, cold and flu, stress anxiety, depression and a third was cancer. In line with previous quarter reports, we continue to work closely with team managers to ensure action such as counselling, employee assistance program, occupational health design posting to support them and continue with well being initiatives and ensuring managers have that support at an early stage. With that, the actions and training taking place is a continuation of previous quarters of providing free flu vaccinations on site, health MOTs and another thing that we want to add particularly as the sort of changing of the office with zones and hot testing to bring in hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes as we will be sort of using different deaths and different people will be sitting in different areas at Camborn Hall. Another introduction that HR has recently brought in is a health cash plan as part of the benefits that the council offers and this may help with support sickness absence in that they can claim expenses such as dental and opticians and it also gives them a 24-7 access to a GP helpline and online consultation which in this current climate may be very difficult to get through to a doctor or see a doctor. If people wish to take this up then that gives them that another opportunity. We have been sending out and communicating an amount of different information for our email, our HR newsletters, very much brought up in chief executive's vlog and also is available on Insight on Intranet and in a for the depot this information is shared via managers and notice boards where they won't have as easy access to the intranet. As previously mentioned things like counselling mental health third aiders wellness action plans in there. One thing to raise is the we have reviewed the attendance management policy in August and we have more recently made changes in January while the four day week trial is taking place. So in August the six month maintenance period was removed and informal meetings have been changed, renamed well-being meetings and then in January we are trialling it the changes during the four day week trial that well-being meetings replaced return to work and informal meetings and we have actually removed the triggers we use as part of the policy because we appreciate that these can cause anxiety to colleagues particularly if they may have a disability however managers are allowed to use discretion with their employees and how they carry out the work and any decisions are based on individual circumstances medical information, job role and the impact of the absence but if managers do have a cause for concern that continues to be a process for a formal meeting to occur and to issue improvement targets where appropriate. At the end of this trial absence dating well-being information will help to decide whether this new way of is working for colleagues and the organisation. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you very much Clare. Do we have any questions? Councillor Annabraim, do you have a question? Thank you. I hadn't previously realised it's on page 71 as Clare Langlehol has just gone through. I hadn't previously realised that we had a menopause policy and very glad that we have. It was only yesterday on radio on radio for more or less programme somebody questioned the number of women in the UK who are experiencing menopause and its symptoms and somebody had come up with an amazing number of 13 million in fact they realised they identified that was incorrect but what they did identify in that process was that women can continue to have symptoms of menopause for over 10 years and for some ethnic minorities the average is 15 years. So this is something that's really important and there needs to be a degree of understanding of that because I think a lot of people have had thought and have been told and have believed for a long time menopause happens over a number of years maybe one or two and that's it so I'm really glad that we have a menopause policy and I'd like to thank those who have been part involved in that. Thank you. Thank you for having a good point. I think was there any points or thoughts on that Clare or Jeff just in response to that actual policy or not? Can I just add I've actually been working on this menopause myself so I'm currently updating looking at our policy to make sure it's suitable for where we are now and up to date providing training support, awareness information and potentially we are looking at menopause friendly accreditation as an organisation so it's very much a topic that I'm personally working on with my HR colleagues and just to say at the council is if the average age is 45 to 55 one in four of our females at the council are of that age so very much topical at the moment. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you. Good, is there any other questions or comments or thoughts? Councillor John Williams? Yes, thank you. I've got on page 75 we've got the access analysis quarter compared to previous quarter. I know a lot is focused on waste but actually looking at these figures I'm a bit concerned about shared planning because you'll see that the absence instances has gone up by 50% in the previous quarter and the average days loss duration has gone up from about 1.9 to 11.46 I don't know if that's correct, you're obviously this correct. Do you know any more about this? It does seem to be from looking at the figures it seems that there has been a serious increase in sickness in shared planning and this could be if we have long term absence that could significantly increase the numbers if we have one or two people who had a lot of absence that could increase the number of days otherwise I'd need to look into more detail as to why this has gone up but it's likely to be due to long term absence because I've noticed elsewhere that our spend on agency staff in shared planning has gone up and assumed that so because of the increased cover but I would like a bit more information about that thanks. Could we brief you outside of this meeting councillor as we have to be very careful that anything we say doesn't reach the confidentiality of individual members of staff thank you Jeff but yes obviously I'm happy to follow up on that yes of course councillor Bregman you had another question This is just a matter of formatting if we just take the page that councillor John Williams was referring to since we're on it, page 75 I think you were on I just wanted to ask about the way that data is presented in the graph of variance and I just wanted to check whether a column above the zero line means an increase compared to what compared to last year or compared to something like this quarter last year I just wanted to know what that variance or is it compared to what we think would happen or is it just compared to naught if we had no change this formatting of graph occurs in a number of places and the one that I find most difficult to interpret is when we're talking about turnover of staff that's in a previous report in the previous item but here it would be useful if somebody could explain how we read that Thank you councillor Bradman I was looking at this earlier and it would be good to understand exactly what that variance was based on if you could It's based on quarter on quarter variance so whether it's increased or decreased based on the previous quarter So thank you Claire so if we take the graph and look at the variance for sickness on page 17 I think I'm on page 75 and we look at the one that John Williams was referring to purely for convenience we've got an increase so right here we are we've got shared planning it's gone Sorry I've just got to again be very careful The No I'm not trying to identify anybody No it's more about just very specifics It's utterly general It's just alright let's take shared waste since there's more staff in that we're less likely to identify anybody It's simply that the column the bar is above zero but it says 30 and then I don't know if that's a hyphen or a minus on the left hand side at a point at which it's got to and so we're saying that's 30 numbers or 30% more than last quarter Okay Ken's problem Would it be possible if we could perhaps to show you outside of the meeting what I ask members to remember is the version you've got is not the same as the public version which has restricted documents so that's one of the restricted areas so I will gladly give you the information outside of the meeting Sorry I forgot that Thank you Jeff for that confirmation and yes indeed you just need to be aware of some of those points just when we're reviewing that information but thank you for your question, Councillor Boveryn and thank you for the elsewhere Do we have any other comments or questions that we must go through on this particular Am I able to speak very quickly because I might be able to clear it up without advising of anything The easiest way to understand that chart is that if you look at the table red and green, red bad like red it's got worse from last quarter and it will help you identify with that chart just for looking now so green a green variance is a positive so seen an improvement and red is seen in increasing absence so I just thought that might help Thanks by the way Good, thank you very much Is there any other comments or thoughts or are we okay to note this report and move on? Good, thank you very much Okay so that actually brings us to the close of business for today The next committee meeting is due to be held on the first week of May However, this is still subject to consultation so I don't have a finalised date for that as yet, but hope that will be confirmed very shortly and that will be sent out So thank you very much Chrissy, thank you very much everybody that's joined us virtually very insightful and I'm going to move to close