Agenda and minutes

We were joined in the Chamber by Mr Peter Sutherland who wished to raise the following issues;

·         Over hanging verges and hedges in the area between Llanbadoc Church and Morris’s Garden Centre are making the footpaths unpassable.

·         On behalf of the Community Council, who are thrilled with the speeding signs through Llanbadoc, it was asked if County Councillors were involved with the decision to erect them.

·         The burger van at Usk Island car park has been broken into, with all of the stock taken. The owner of the van is willing to place CCTV cameras at the site and it was asked if MCC would contribute to the cost.

·         It was asked if local residents have been adequately notified of road closures for the Velothon.

Mr Sutherland was advised that his comments will be passed on to the relevant officer for response.

Members requested that People Services return to Strong Communities Select Committee to give more detailed answers to questions previously raised.

1.    The general consensus was that the report was poor lacked detail, and it was unclear who the report was aimed at.

The People Services annual report was produced for ”People Board” and it’s purpose was to monitor progress against actions outlined in the  previous people strategy. Today members will be reviewing the latest iteration of the people strategy “ People to Purpose” which aims to address the issues that remain outstanding and relevant from the previous strategy whilst addressing the key themes identified in the new strategy. The themes have been identified based on a range of evidence including :Hr dashboard. Staff survey: regulatory feedback, workshops; training and current and future operating requirements identified in the corporate plan and enabling strategies.

2)      The committee wants detailed statistical analysis combined                      with details of actions that are or are to be undertaken. 

Detailed Impromptu reports are written and accessed by HR officers to work with managers to reduce sickness absence in their specific areas. Quarterly reports are provided for HR officers via the Sickness Dashboards and SIP spreadsheet which can be used to forecast projected sickness, trends for all areas throughout the Council both in graphical and numerical formats. All final year sickness figures are subjected to internal and Welsh Audit office review.

Actions Undertaken include: (1) Policy training (2) HR Business Partner Meetings which enable discussion (3) Talent LAB courses/training/personal development/stress awareness (4) SKYPE sessions with HR and Managers/Head-teachers to help manage absence effectively – enabling Q&A, informal discussion, peer to peer support (5) new Occupational Health provision – more proactive approach between OH provider and MCC.

                  3) Questions were asked about the cost to the authority of the    very high level of absence. No answer was forthcoming. 

There is a report within the HR officers folder in Impromptu that includes nominal costs e.g. days lost x hourly rate, this doesn't show the full costs of acting up, additional staff etc. So a full cost of sickness cannot be accurately determined

                  4) Questions were also asked about turnover of staff and                         termination interviews. What % of leaving employees are            interviewed? 

Turnover figures are shown and reported on the Service improvement plan and this spreadsheet is quarterly uploaded to the HUB. ( turnover for 2016/27 for the whole organisation was 7.89% and 17/18 7.54 % and the attached shows breakdown of turnover across the organisation) Managers can review the turnover for their own service areas.

Exit interviews are not mandatory for those leaving the organisation, however we provide guidance to managers on how to carry out an exit interview although HR are not part of an exit interview process, unless specifically requested.  Staff leaving are asked to complete  a  form which provides the organisation with basic information of why staff leave eg promotion, moving area, better opportunities elsewhere etc and we can run a report that reflects this however not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

Context

“People to Purpose”, is the latest iteration of “Monmouthshire people” our current People and organisational development Strategy’, published in 2015. Building on “ Monmouthshire People”, People to Purpose, continues to build on our  belief that our people are best placed to identify, design and deliver the changes we need to make to effectively respond to continued austerity, rising demand and increasingly challenging demographics. As public servants, in Monmouthshire, we are committed to building a culture, founded on our organisational values and expected behaviours, which we believe, will enable our people to deliver against our purpose of “building sustainable resilient communities”

Key Issues

“Monmouthshire People “ our previous people and organisational development strategy focused on creating the conditions for the workforce to thrive and delivering impact in measureable outcomes. The strategy focused on the following key themes

·         Our Work Environment

·         Engaging our people

·         Building Careers

·         Training coaching and development

·         Diversity, Inclusion and well- being

·         And bringing it all together

Significant progress has been made against each of the themes and we have moved a long way to creating the conditions for people to thrive. The People Services annual report 2015/16 and 2016/17  outline  what we have achieved so far and below are some examples of the activities we have engaged in which has shifted the organisational culture to enable the organisation to respond to the challenges we face reflecting the values, and behaviours we are committed to.:--

·         Development of People Services hub to include a range of guidance, workflows, FAQs around a range of issues such as managing sickness,  workforce planning, to enable the workforce to have easy access to information at all times.

·         Key policy review eg Attendance and Managing sickness, Fairness at work( grievance);Disciplinary Policy, Volunteering. Each policy was revised or newly created to match the aims of the strategy and the needs identified by the organisation.

·         Development of Evolve leadership programme based on considering identified societal/organisational problems, in order to identify potential short and medium term solutions. Two cohorts involving 12 officers from across the council have come together, so far, to consider; Customer service which identified the overall problem of how we engage with customers. Main outcome has led to us working with a new start-up organisation to embed AI (Artificial Intelligence) into our customer service offer; Transport Evolve has led to Transport Review, Personal Transport Budgets being introduced making significant savings in home to school transport, Vehicle trackers to optimise routes etc and to identify how best we use our fleet including sharing of vehicles/pool cars etc.

·         In response to concerns regarding accountability and responsibility mandatory corporate training requirements for managers and all employees have been introduced including safeguarding, attendance management, induction, GDPR, to name a few, to ensure the workforce has a consistent level of skills and knowledge  needed to operate effectively and accountably.

·         Development of HR dashboard and My view to provide better workforce data around sickness, gender, age profile thus providing managers with the data and evidence to better workforce plan and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Context

To provide a performance overview of our compliance and recording systems in relation to the Welsh Language Standards that were allocated in line with the requirements of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011.

Key Issues

·         The Council was informed by the Welsh Language Commissioner of the standards that it was expected to comply with on the 1^st August 2016 and with the exception of a few time extension caveats was expected to have everything in place for the 30^th March 2016.

·         The Monitoring report details information recorded in relation to specific areas of the Welsh Language Standards allocated to this council. The Welsh Language Commissioner requests this information annually in order to be able measure our progress in terms of compliance with the Standards.

·         The report will be forwarded to the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Office by the 30^th June 2017. Once the report has been read and analysed by the Commissioner the Council meets with the Commissioners’ Office to discuss any areas of good practice and any areas of concern that require improvement. It will also be posted on the council’s English and Welsh web sites to allow for public scrutiny.

·         Fundamentally the Council is doing well in terms of compliance with these challenging standards. One particular area of concern though is the low numbers of fluent Welsh speakers that are employed by the Council (30) potentially making us susceptible to challenge as a result of our inability to provide or proactively offer any kind of frontline services to the Welsh speaking members of the public of Monmouthshire. A Workforce Planning process has been developed and led by the Welsh Language and Equality Officer and People Services and has been underway for the last year. This involves auditing the Welsh Language skills that exist in divisions, looking for any gaps and then designating posts as Welsh Essential when they become vacant. It is anticipated that the numbers of fluent Welsh speakers in the council will increase gradually but that will take some time to have the desired effect.

Member Comments

Members applauded community groups who receive funding for promoting the Welsh language, they were particularly interested in a baby yoga and massage group.

It was asked what provision we have for Welsh speaking social carers.

A Member asked if there were any local groups to encourage those learning Welsh to practice their Welsh together.

Members requested a Welsh language awareness training session.