Agenda item

Joint Report of the Assistant Chief Executive and Interim Corporate Director, Resources.

The Committee considered a joint report of the Assistant Chief Executive and Interim Corporate Director Resources which provide an update on progress made against the recommendations from the Scrutiny review of Attendance Management (for copy of report and slides of presentation see file of minutes).

The Head of Corporate Finance and HR provided a detailed presentation highlighting the key changes to the policy and what measures had been put in place to support Managers. He further provided a summary of progress against recommendations relating in particular to; targeting long term sickness absence, training, MyView alerts, review of OHS referral processes, staff surveys, better health at work and evaluation and review.

In summary he further provided an overview of current performance highlighting that Quarter 1 had indicated that performance was still slightly below target however there were early signs that performance was improving. In addition he reported that there had been a reduction in long term absence during the quarter and further details would be reported alongside regular performance updates.

Councillor Huntington added that she was pleased to see that there had been some improvement and applauded the team for their efforts.

Councillor J Armstrong commented that this had been an extensive piece of work and acknowledged that a lot of hard work had been undertaken by the team. He further added that he appreciated that a full picture of any changes in performance may not be possible to obtain for the next meeting due to the timing of the next meeting and quarter reporting timescales.

Councillor Wilkes raised a number of queries, the first relating to recommendation 4, regarding escalation messages to senior managers.  He asked when and how it would be known, whether escalation was being undertaken within the prescribed period. In referencing recommendation 5 and the issue of OHS immediate referral, he added that if services were allowing managers to determine when referral should take place, then in his opinion performance would not improve to the desired level. Moving on, he further added that he felt mental health training for managers should be mandatory, especially if they were to be making determinations on referrals.

In conclusion Councillor Wilkes added that he also felt that the annual staff survey should be made mandatory as it was likely that figures could be skewed otherwise.

In response to the questions raised the Head of Corporate Finance and HR advised that early referral was vital in the right circumstances as it was also important that mental health was not stigmatised. Dr Wynn, Occupational Health was in attendance to provide further clarification on referrals and the effectiveness of early referral.

Councillor Wilkes further reiterated the point that training for managers should be compulsory. In response the Head of Corporate Finance and HR advised that to date 200 staff had participated in training. It was noted however, that there were approximately 1,400 managers employed.

In response to the comments made regarding the annual staff survey the Head of Planning and Performance added that members would be aware of the annual staff survey which was carried out by ACE and Communications and advised that members would have the opportunity to comment on the draft survey and provide input prior to it being circulated to staff.

Resolved:

That the content of the report be noted.