Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive.

The Committee received a report of the Assistant Chief Executive which presented progress against the council’s corporate basket of indicators (PIs), Council Plan and service plan actions and reported other performance issues for the this quarter of the 2015/16 financial year, covering the period October to December 2015 (for copy see file of minutes).

The Corporate Scrutiny & Performance Manager proceeded to run through the report highlighting key achievements and key performance issues for the quarter.

Councillor Hillary asked whether since the implementation of the new Sickness Absence Management policy, everyone who had been off on sick leave had, had a return to work interview and whether it was known whether all aspects of the policy had been fully implemented. The Corporate Scrutiny & Performance Manager advised that this information could be reported to a future meeting.

Councillor Hillary in referencing appraisals asked whether any action was taken against those managers whose staff hadn’t been appraised within the 12 month period. Councillor Armstrong commented that in some cases events will have led to delays in appraisals being completed such as Ofsted inspections.

Councillor Wilkes commented that he was disappointed that not all actions of the new sickness absence management policy had been implemented and actions surrounding mental health referral were still being scoped.

In response to comments made regarding appraisals the Corporate Scrutiny & Performance Manager advised that maternity leave and long term sickness absence were no longer included in the figures however it was still impossible to reach a 100% target as there would always be a reason as to why an appraisal could not be completed on time due to manager absence or unexpected leave.

The Head of Planning and Performance advised that Oracle now included a facility which would notify Senior Managers when appraisals within their department were due to be completed by where previously Senior Managers had only been alerted when overdue.

Councillor K Henig added that in her opinion members of staff should be appraised prior to going off on maternity leave and if that was done on time there was no need to exclude this group. She further suggested that it would be worthwhile asking a representative from the appropriate service to attend a future meeting to provide more detail on the subject. The Head of Planning and Performance agreed that this could be arranged.

Councillor Wilkes asked when the change to remove maternity and long term sick from the figures had been implemented and questioned whether this was the reason that they now appeared better than previously reported. The Head of Planning and Performance advised that the removal of these two categories had only made a very minor difference to figures.

Councillor Stradling commented that a review report on sickness absence was due in the coming months and with such suggested that the topic be discussed further at the next meeting.

Councillor Martin in referencing the performance of housing benefits and page 32 of the report, chart 5, suggested that it would be useful to know how many people were in receipt of housing benefit as the data presented only provided a partial picture. He also felt that this would enable councillors to determine how the council were dealing with this burden and what impact the economic situation had on figures over the last 2/3 years. The Assessment and Awards Manager advised that these figures could be provided. In addition she commented that figures were monitored internally by tenure type and annual comparisons were made with other local authorities. It was agreed that the further information should be presented as part of the Quarter 4 reporting.

Councillor Wilkes commented that councillors could not assume that if less benefits were being claimed that less resources were required in order to process them. His comments were noted by Councillor Martin.

Further discussion ensued regarding sickness absence and appraisals and it was suggested that these points be taken back to the appropriate officer and further discussed at a future meeting.

Resolved:

That the content of the report be noted.