| Time: | 3.00pm | Place: | Committee Room 1, Council Offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth Garden City |
| PRESENT: | Councillor Tricia Cowley(Chairman), Councillor Judi Billing, Councillor Fiona Hill, Mrs D Levett(Unison). |
| IN ATTENDANCE: | Corporate Human Resources Manager Human Resources Development Manager Employee Relations Officer Committee and Member Services Officer. |
| ALSO PRESENT: |
| Item | Description/Resolution | Status | Action | |
| PART I | ||||
| 12 |
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Tom Brindley, Lynda Needham and Lawrence Oliver. Apologies were also received from Christina Corr and Chris Carter (SCF). It was proposed and seconded that in the absence of Councillor Brindley, Councillor Cowley be elected as Chairman for the duration of the meeting. |
Noted | ||
| 13 |
MINUTES Minutes It was agreed that the Minutes of the JSCC meeting held on 26 June 2013 be confirmed as a true record of the proceedings and be signed by the Chairman, subject to the following amendments: - Under Chairman's Notes: "The Chairman advised that input was welcome from all present, officers and Members"; - In Minute 6 at the top of Page 3 "Business Plan" should be replaced by "Report"; - Six paragraphs below that, in answer to a question, it should read: "The CHRM said that turnover figures represented all staff departures, except those on fixed term contracts and the last retention update had identified that a higher proportion of . . . "; - In Minute 7, the last line of paragraph 2 should read: "and subject to this, any increase . . . "; - Then at the bottom of page 3, the last sentence of the last paragraph should read: "One Member enquired about variations to national Terms and Conditions applied by Local Authorities and was told that there were a significant number, like NHDC, who are chosen to determine some local variations"; - Minute 8 should read: "The CHRM went through the key points made in the document entitled Taxpayer Funding of Trade Unions: - Councils should save taxpayers' money by significantly scaling back on the cost of trade union facility time; - Employees should not be spending all, or the majority, of their working hours on trade union duties; - Time off for trade union activities should be unpaid; - Restrictions should be placed on the use of office facilities for trade union representatives; - Councils should charge for collecting union subscriptions or end the practice completely; - Councillors should declare payments and sponsorship from trade unions and ensure there is no conflict of interest." - The words: "and office space had been significantly reduced by mutual agreement" were to be added to the end of the next paragraph; - The words: "and no employees spent the majority of time on union duties - the average allocation being only 5%" was to be added to the following paragraph." |
Agreed | ||
| 14 |
NOTIFICATION OF OTHER BUSINESS No other business was put forward for discussion at this Meeting. |
Noted | ||
| 15 |
CHAIRMAN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS The Chairman welcomed all Members and officers to this meeting of the Joint Staff Consultative Committee. She explained that the start time of this Meeting of the Joint Staff Consultative Committee had been put back to 4.30pm due to the lack of District Councillors available on this particular day. It was only by changing the time of starting the meeting to 4.30pm that the Meeting would be quorate. The Chairman then read out the following statement: ‘Members were reminded that any declarations of interest in respect of any business set out in the agenda, should be declared as either a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest or Declarable Interest and they are required to notify the Chairman of the nature of any interest declared at the commencement of the relevant item on the agenda. Members declaring a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest must withdraw from the meeting for the duration of the item. Members declaring a Declarable Interest which requires they leave the room under Paragraph 7.4 of the Code of Conduct, can speak on the item, but must leave the room before the debate and vote.' |
Noted | ||
| 16 |
STAFF CONSULTATION FORUM SCF - 3 July and 7 August SCF - 4 September (draft) The Corporate Human Resources Manager (CHRM) referred the JSCC to the Minutes of the meetings of the Staff Consultation Forum (SCF) held on 3 July and the Draft Minutes of 4 September 2013, for details of the meetings, actions taken and the items carried forward. She explained that on 7 August there had been no business to discuss, so the meeting had been cancelled. She provided a summary of the main points from each meeting as follows: 3 July 2013 The CHRM touched on the SCF Review update and the possibility of making the meetings more interesting. She also confirmed that monthly SCF meetings would continue, but if there was not much subject matter for discussion at a meeting, it may be cancelled and what subject matter there was would be discussed at the next meeting. One addition to the SCF was a regular item on any HR Policy Reviews. The CHRM then reminded staff of the forthcoming locking of timesheets which would start from later in September 2013. Under NHDC Update the CHRM informed the Committee that the newly-published Comprehensive Spending Review had brought yet further budget pressures to light and Corporate Business Planning was being examined for 2014/2015. 7 August 2013 As mentioned previously, this meeting of the SCF had been cancelled due to lack of business to discuss. 4 September 2013 (Draft) This SCF Meeting was held jointly with the Health and Safety Committee. It was held in two parts, with the Head of Financial Services chairing the Health and Safety part and Chris Carter of SCF chairing the second part. It was decided that every quarter there would be a joint Health and Safety/SCF Meeting, to inform each Committee of what the other was discussing and keep them up-to-date. The Head of Financial Services declared that he would not go through the Minutes of the Health and Safety Committee in detail and updated the meeting on the decision made to purchase the District Council Offices and informed them that a programme of refurbishment would start in April 2014. The CHRM commented that it was very useful to have Health and Safety and IT officers attending this meeting. The Office Accommodation Working Group would be set up again and the heading of Office Accommodation would again be added to the SCF Agenda. The CHRM advised that there had been some significant changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme and these are due to come into effect in April 2014. She gave the website link so that officers could examine the details for themselves at http://www.lgps2014.org on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) website, lgps.org.uk On the subject of apprenticeships, those present were informed that the Council was about to move into the second year of the Apprenticeship Scheme. It had been well-supported to date. The jobs were temporary and NHDC could not provide permanent jobs to all the apprentices however it was hoped that a few suitable vacancies may arise. It aimed to provide paid and meaningful work experience over 12 months to those young people who had been chosen as apprentices or interns. The Human Resources Development Manager (HRDM), on being invited to speak, explained that apprentices were well supported at NHDC, even those who were not successful in finding employment here. They were all assisted with writing CVs, looking for jobs and helped to prepare to move to another post elsewhere. The meeting was informed that additional storage space for the bicycles of those cycling to work was temporarily available at Town Lodge. 14 staff had signed up to the Bikes for Work Scheme. The staff dress code at work was discussed and it was agreed that smart/business dress should be worn at work. The CHRM offered to inform senior managers that this subject had been raised at SCF in September. Finally, the CHRM reminded those present that the statutory days had been added to staff's leave record. She stated that a message would be sent out to staff to remind them to book these days as early as possible. It was agreed: That the information provided in the above sets of Minutes of the Staff Consultation Forum be noted. |
Noted | ||
| 17 |
PEOPLE STRATEGY UPDATE Report The Corporate Human Resources Manager (CHRM) presented the Committee with the latest quarterly update on the progress made to the People Strategy 2011-2015 Report, which also incorporated the Council's Workforce Development Plan. She explained that the new payroll service which would commence when NHDC joined the Herts County Council framework agreement provided by SERCO, had ensured that Human Resources had been extremely busy working on this significant project. In addition, the Assistant HR Manager was about to commence her Maternity Leave in September, would have an impact on the HR staff who would cover her work, many of whom were part-time. The CHRM stated that Human Resources (HR) had an extremely intensive work load at present, and went through the highlights of the recent project, touching on the salary sacrifice bikes for work, childcare voucher and staff discounts schemes, together with the excellent return (98.7%) of appraisals returned by the deadline. She also touched on the Herts Member Development Joint Programme, the response for which had been disappointing resulting in the first two events being cancelled. A brief discussion followed. The CHRM declared that it had been a good year all round and that Learning Management System courses such as Coaching and Mentoring and Speed Reading had been very useful to those who had taken part. She informed the Committee that shared training spreads the risk of participants not turning up. Also if there was a distance to travel for Members' training, would less Members attend? The Council were considering signing up to a regional coaching and mentoring scheme. The Committee were taken through Appendix A, starting with the Key Performance Measures - Appraisal Completion, Turnover and Absence Rates. August 2013 was not recorded, but the CHRM reported that it had been a good month with long-term sick being recorded as cumulative 1.69%, while short-term was 2.7%. There were three members of staff who were currently long-term sick, and this was down from five during July. In fact, there were generally extremely low rates of long-term sickness at present. It was agreed: That the Committee notes the progress against the People Strategy and HR People Strategy Work Plan for 2013/2014 and that the NHDC People Strategy supported the achievement of the Authority's key priorities. |
Noted | ||
| 18 |
RETENTION AND TURNOVER UPDATE Update The Corporate Human Resources Manager (CHRM) presented an update on retention and turnover and informed the Committee that turnover was rising. She ran through the purpose of the report, which was to give more detail on how turnover is measured, and what is included in, turnover and retention rates. The latest figures for this was displayed in the table at the bottom of page 19. These were general figures, but the Shire districts figures had been transpose, i.e. Mean was actually 12.8% and Median was 11.6%. It was emphasised that in the 15-month period between April 2012 and July 2013 there had been 13 redundancies and two other dismissals. Despite the fact that there was now no default retirement age (formerly age 65), staff were still seeking to take early retirement which also increased turnover. Staff were retiring early on a reduced pension or for those who qualified, using the 85-year rule. In some cases staff would just defer their pension to leave early to start retirement. The CHRM stressed that not all resignations were regarded as a poor outcome, in some cases it can be the best thing for both the Officer and the Council. From a career development perspective, staff are able to progress into the "role" left by the leaver and that person can then move on to employment that suits them, and their own career, better. Overall, there is not a great number of staff leaving via voluntary resignation. It was agreed: That the Committee notes the Retention and Turnover Update. |
Noted | ||
| 19 |
PENSIONS UPDATE Update The Corporate Human Resources Manager (CHRM) stated that she would not go into too much detail when presenting this report, as the visual information given was fairly self-explanatory by means of the table comparing the current LGPS 2008 and the LGPS 2014 schemes. One new option for staff was a facility called 50/50. This allowed people to opt to reduce their main scheme contributions to pay half the contribution paid in the main scheme and to receive half the pension amount in their pensions account. It was designed to be an alternative to opting out during tough financial times for individuals. 50/50 was not designed as a permanent alternative to the main scheme and every three years staff would automatically be rejoined to the full scheme. Members asked whether this could be repaid and if so when? The CHRM said this would be investigated. In answer to this question, the Committee were informed that there were two options for staff to increase their pension contributions. These were Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) and Additional Pension Contributions (APCs). Full details of these schemes were available on the LPFA website. |
Noted | ||
| 20 |
DISCUSSION - CARERS AT WORK Discussion topic The Employee Relations Officer (ERO) introduced the discussion paper and informed the Committee that this topic was becoming high profile at present, as a growing number of people were caring for sick or elderly relatives and/or young children. She went through the report and the main topics: definition of a carer; what support NHDC had in place; Policies for Special Leave, Time off for Dependants Policy and Home-Working; Occupational Health; the Employee Assistance Programme; Well@work Site on the Intranet and several other considerations, including benefits to the carer from NHDC's Policy. She declared that while employers in general needed to do more to support carers, North Herts District Council (NHDC) was advanced regarding job share, flexible working and home-working, and the Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Leave Policy, together with a salary sacrifice childcare voucher scheme. The examples she had emphasised (above) were in addition to what was legally required, and qualified as additional support. Further legislation was to be introduced, entitled Right to Request. Committee discussion raised the point that some Members felt that staff and Members were treated differently. It was felt that issues that needed to be handled carefully were generally the same, whether for a Councillor or a member of staff. Senior staff needed to be made aware of any such issues, as although not employees in the legal sense, Councillors shared many of their characteristics. Right to Request would be useful here, as Members also had a right to flexible working arrangements, if the Council was made aware of the situation at the time. The ERO revealed that in practice, not all employers provided these options and North Herts District Council had a good understanding of the needs regarding flexible working. The Human Resources Development Manager commented that it helped that NHDC had a good one-to-one process between staff and management. It was agreed: That the discussion paper on Carers at Work be noted. |
Noted | ||
| 21 |
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION TOPICS Suggested Discussion Topics The Committee discussed the list of Suggested Discussion Topics presented by the Corporate Human Resources Manager and the subject chosen for the next meeting was "Turnover - looking at current turnover rates, Council targets and the impacts of high turnover or turnover falling too low". |
Agreed | ||