Issue - meetings

To consider an overview of the Council’s workforce data – high level summary of the workforce profile relating to equalities, employee relations and key HR measures.

The Head of Organisational Development introduced a report, providing information on the Council’s workforce. This included a high level summary of the Council’s workforce profile relating to both employee demographics and key workforce measures. 

The Committee was informed that in order to provide excellent services to the community and to support the vision, aims and values of the organisation, the Council needed to understand, plan and develop its workforce requirements for the future.

Further detail was provided, as set out in Annex 1a and Annex 1b of the report presented, and this was considered by the Committee. In response to questions, it was explained that this information had been updated following requests for additional data and/or slightly revised data following the Employment Committee meeting on 20 June 2019.

During the discussion a number of issues were considered including matters in relation to: employee sickness absence; employer turnover, recruitment advertising; employee relations; the gender pay gap; and data in relation to performance related pay. Issues were also considered in relation to the transfer of funded salaries from the Corporate Plan Delivery Fund into the Council’s Revenue Budget.

In response to questions about benchmarking the Committee was informed that this information could be provided but would need to be done with care, especially given the number of workforce measures available and the variety of definitions applied by different local authorities.

RESOLVED that:

(i)            The workforce data summary, set out in Annex 1 of the report, be noted.  

(ii)          The data presented, set out in Annex 1 of the report , be confirmed as the key data/HR measures to be reported to the Employment Committee on a regular basis.

(iii)         Data in relation to the Employee Demographic and Organisation Workforce Measures be reported annually to the first Employment Committee meeting of the Municipal Year, with the exception of sickness and turnover data.

(iv)         Sickness and turnover data be reported to the Employment Committee twice a year, at the first meeting of the Municipal Year and again after six months.