Agenda item

To consider a report from the Director of Strategy and Resources setting out the Council’s approach to employee mental health and well-being support. This follows consideration of these issues in 2023/24 and a request for further updates to the Board.

Members considered a report from the Director of Strategy and Resources setting out the Council’s approach to employee mental health and well-being support. This follows consideration of these issues in 2023/24 and a request for further updates to the Board.

In attendance for this item were:

·  Mariana Pexton, Director of Strategy and Resources

·  Lisa Colver, Head of Health, Safety and Well-Being

To introduce the item the Board heard a presentation from the Head of Health, Safety and Well-Being, which covered the following points:

·  Bringing the vision for Health, Safety and Well Being to life in the workplace through additional well-being advisers, business partnering arrangements with chief officers, Director engagement with personal pledges to take action and the use of toolkits to facilitate support to staff.

·  Positive examples of good work being developed on the ground across a range of services for example in the Care Delivery Servicehas a "men working in care" support group and in City Development face to face sessions for 120 depot staff on a whole range of topics including neurodiversity, stress, and mental health support.

·  On Well Being the Board heard about Promote, Prevent, Support approaches focussing on leadership accountability, developing the workplace wellbeing community of champions and enhancing the management training offer.

·  On Mental Health, joining up internal mental health experts through the Mental Health Action Group, developing and supporting our community of Mental Health First Aiders and preventing and supporting mental health-related sickness absence were emphasised.

In response to questions and comments from Board members the following was discussed:

·  Members wanted to know if approaches to tackle staff absence were working across all services given that staff absence has increased based on the data provided in the performance report. In response the Board heard that some services are performing better but that in areas where additional support is needed this is provided. It was noted that approaches on health and safety and on well-being can take time to embed but through the business partnering approach and the additional support approach, positive changes are being and will continue to be delivered.

·  Members were concerned that Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) may not be represented across all services and whether efforts are made to fill any gaps where there are not any trained MHFAs, a suggestion being that they could work across services or directorates. In response, an assurance was provided that colleagues can seek support from any MHFA rather than just one within their service area. It was noted that there are some gaps and work is ongoing to fill those and to provide addition mental health first aiders where job demands make them more necessary. The role played by mental health first aiders was recognised as being hugely valuable to the Council along with the mental health first aid trainer who works for the Council. On a wider note, the Board were informed that the team attended extended BCLT this week about well-being and promoted the role of mental health first aiders and to emphasise the need to have enough of them, and that training is available in house for staff that are interested in the role.

·  The Board asked about mid-year appraisals and whether not having them in 2023/24 was a missed opportunity in terms of addressing health and well-being issues given that they are key parts of the appraisal process. The Board heard that a key reason for not doing mid-year appraisals was to balance workloads and to reduce pressure on staff and managers as a result of wider workload pressures resulting from budget challenges. There is an ongoing commitment to well-being through regular one to ones. In the past consideration had been given to a one size fits all approach to one-to-one supervision, but given the diversity and complexity of the council in terms of services it was believed it would not work. Re-introducing mid-year appraisals will be considered in the future and staff communications regularly emphasise the importance of well-being discussion in one to ones and the availability of support for staff through the Vivup service and other support measures.

·  Responding to questions on management development the Board heard about the Council’s approach to supporting and developing managers through the Be Your Best Manager programme. This is a key support programme offering training in key areas such as relationship building, project management and how to manage workload pressures in addition to key areas of focus such as equality, diversity and inclusion and training to support embedding EDI principles in the workforce.

·  The Board heard about accessibility to staff survey results for managers to understand how their staff are feeling, this was available to managers through the dashboard that was demonstrated to the previous scrutiny board, and enabled more detailed analysis of survey results, whilst still retaining anonymity. It was also noted that the Board heard in detail about staff survey results last year and it might be that a further update is brought back on the Be Your Best Manager Programme, in 2024/25 there is a focus on health, safety and well-being.

·  In response to member queries around comparison and collaboration with other local authorities the Board were informed that work is developing in this area particularly in respect of occupational health with positive relationships developing with other Councils on mental health support, stress and workloads. In addition, the use of data is an area for future development and that later in the municipal year more could be brought to the Board from a data perspective.

Resolved – The Board noted the content of the report and the ongoing work and progress to promote positive workplace mental health and wellbeing.