Agenda item

To consider a report from the Director of Strategy and Resources which presents a summary of performance data relating to Council and city priorities that fall within the remit of the Scrutiny Board (Strategy & Resources).

The Board considered a report from the Director of Strategy and Resources which presented a summary of performance data relating to Council and city priorities that fall within the remit of Scrutiny Board (Strategy & Resources). This included the newly added Office for Local Government (OFLOG) indicators of which there are 8 within this Board’s remit, all within Financial Services, in addition to 21 Key Performance Indicators.

In attendance for this item were:

·  Cllr Debra Coupar, Executive Member for Resources

·  Mariana Pexton, Director of Strategy and Resources

·  Andy Dodman, Chief Officer HR

·  Emma Kamillo-Price, Senior Intelligence and Policy Officer

In response to comments and questions from the Board, discussion included the following:

·  Members queried the workforce statistics set against city wide demographics. In relation to staff over the age of 41 there has been a drop of 1.6% in those staff employed by the Council. The Board were informed that retirement of staff will have impacted on the data and that it is possible that the services concerned could have had a higher than normal volume of leavers to other employment.

·  Members requested additional data in relation to the representative workforce KPI, this related to including the grade of staff in the data that is provided in the breakdown.

·  The Board highlighted the impact of mental health on staff absence with mental health conditions accounting for 36% of absences. Drawing a link to the well-being work being done by the Council it was suggested that perhaps that work may need to be revisited given the high number of absences in this area.  The Board heard more about ongoing work particularly on the Promotion – Prevention – Support model. In addition, there has been a mental health first aiders conference which was attended by the Chief Executive and took place in December 2023.

·  On this issue it was noted that the figures for staff at the Council replicated societal trends. The Board also suggested that interventions made to support staff should be assessed if they are not already, to determine whether they worked or not or whether they should be revisited and improved.

·  A further update on this, following a report to scrutiny earlier in the year, was suggested for the March meeting of the Board subject to available space in the Board’s Work Programme.

·  The Board queried the gender pay gap which has remained in the same range in the dataset (marginal decrease), the concern being that if not addressed there is a possibility of the Council incurring costs in the future. The Board heard that the mean hourly rate has gone down to 3.8% with further reporting in March 2024 (showing the March 2023 figures) expected to bring more up to date information. The aim being to eliminate the gender pay gap. It was noted that this information will be reported at  future meeting of the Board. The Board did note that it would be preferable to have more up to date information if possible on this KPI.

·  In relation to absence by condition the Board asked for a comparison with previous reports to identify trends, this was agreed to.

·  The Board welcomed the improvements in services at the contact centre and in relation to information governance indicators all of which have shown improvement in the past year.

·  Returning to employee mental health, members mentioned the possible benefits of lower level measures such as socialising and walking together and other low cost or nil cost initiatives that could benefit mental health absence.

·  In concluding remarks, the Executive Board Member for Resources noted the aim to reduce the gender pay gap and also supported the need to improve and maintain mental health and well-being amongst staff and the complex nature of the issue not least work related and non-work related mental health.

Resolved:

Members noted the performance information contained in Appendix 1, and identified employee mental health as an area for further scrutiny work in the future.