E

Corporate Services and Economic Growth Overview & Scrutiny Committee Date: 28 September 2017 Annual Update Report for Workforce (2016/17)

Report of the Director of Human Resources

Portfolio Member: Councillor Nicholas Oliver, Cabinet Secretary

Purpose of the Report

The purpose of this report is to:

● Provide an annual position statement in relation to workforce related areas of

assurance, workstreams/associated action plans and progress to date within key

areas for Northumberland County Council for the full financial year of 2016/17.

● To provide assurance to the Corporate Services and Economic Growth Overview

& Scrutiny Committee that there is provision and monitoring in place to achieve

necessary Key Performance Indicators relating to workforce on an ongoing basis.

Recommendations:

The recommendations are:

● Corporate Resources & Performance Overview & Scrutiny Committee note the

contents of the report.

Link to the Corporate Plan

The Northumberland County Council (NCC) Corporate Plan has identified a number of

core strategic priorities and supporting key organisational actions of which the following

are particularly relevant to the workforce:

● Make the best use of our limited resources to ensure maximum benefit for all

citizens in all communities across Northumberland.

● Create a unified Council where all staff and elected members understand their

role and are motivated to deliver excellent services.

● Listen to and value the views, concerns and ideas of staff.

● Work in partnership and collaborate with others to deliver services as effectively

as possible.

Key Issues

An integral part of the Council’s success in delivering high quality services to the

population of Northumberland is based on the workforce of the Council. This report

gives an overview of the employment and workforce related issues which are overseen

by the Council’s Workforce Committee. The Workforce Committee is a sub-committee

of the Corporate Leadership Team and provides assurance and accountability in

relation to all Workforce matters.

Background

1. The Workforce Committee has established and is regularly reviewing a wide

range of metrics which are used to manage and monitor compliance and best

practice with workforce related issues across the whole council.

2. On a monthly basis, Managers and Directors through the Workforce Committee

are asked to provide a full position statement relating to their area of

responsibility. In advance of the meeting, managers and Directors are provided

with their position statement data which is mapped against a suite of workforce

metrics for their area. Managers and Directors are then responsible for providing

an overview of their current performance and planned performance against the

required compliance levels for each set of workforce metrics.

3. Focussed attention continues to be on absence management which is key

challenge for the council but also to other key performance indicators such as

induction, statutory and mandatory training, appraisal and overpayments for

example.

4. The Workforce Committee also monitors the progress of the HR/OD Strategy

which for 2016/17 had eleven workstreams of activity, all which impact on the

workforce across all areas of the council.

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Update on the HR/OD Strategy for 2016/17

The HR/OD Strategy for 2016/17 has now been completed and significant progress has

been made against the 11 key workstreams which had specific action plans and

expected outcomes. Progress made for the full year of 2016/17 is outlined below:

Prepare employees and the organisation for the practical implementation of agile

working

● Agile worker training sessions developed and delivered for managers and

employees across the council.

● NWoW Champions Group re-established and a focus of the group has been

supporting the proposed changes to accommodation, IT and new ways of

working

● The Agile Working Policy has been agreed

● Questions and Answers to support the implementation of the Agile Working

Policy have been developed to support the changes and challenges that agile

working has posed.

Initiate culture change and supporting programme of sustained and focused

employee engagement

● Comprehensive staff survey undertaken in Autumn 2016

● Staff Survey findings published transparently across the council

● Action plan developed to support the Staff Survey with you said, we did

information shared with staff

● Launch of screen savers across the Council to provide staff with an alternative

method of communication and engagement

● The council held its first annual staff awards at Alnwick Gardens in Autumn 2016

● The launch of Northumberland 2020: Built to Serve programme which has a

number of initiatives focussed on supporting staff engagement

Review employee relations and Trade Union partnership working ensuring it is

meaningful, productive and focussed

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● Revised Partnership Agreement has been agreed with the non-teaching trade

unions. A revised partnership agreement has been drafted for agreement with

the teaching trade unions.

● A review of facility time has commenced

● A proposal has been developed for the monitoring of facility time in relation to the

forthcoming requirements of the Trade Union Act 2016

● UCATT have been formally recognised as a trade union for negotiating and

bargaining by the County Council.

● Regular dialogue and project involvement with trade union colleagues on a wide

range of corporate matters including policy development.

Ensure HR Information Systems are deployed in a timely and efficient manner,

maximising the ability to extract core HR metrics and management data

● Dashboards utilised regularly for the Workforce Committee identifying key

metrics to identify trends and performance

● E-business and Learning Together data has been interlinked to ensure that data

is managed and reflected to staff and managers on a joined up basis

● Feedback has been obtained by managers to assist in the development of the

system and the relevant data.

● Discussions have commenced to extend the use of Manager Self Service (MSS)

and Employee Self Service (ESS) to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Establish an organisation-wide workforce plan is in order to assure future service

delivery through having the right resources with the right skills at the right time

● A Workforce Plan has been developed and is in a draft format.

● A Workforce Planning toolkit has been developed and is ready to be utilised.

● Managers are now receiving regular employee reports

● A workforce review on Apprenticeships has established new opportunities for

apprentices in areas where workforce planning has identified that a skills

shortage or knowledge transfer are an area needing to develop their workforce

going forward.

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Establish and embed succession planning and talent management capability

within the organisation to improve resilience and capability

● A Succession Planning toolkit has been developed and the initial pilot areas have

been completed with a proposal to expand this offer to more areas during

2017/18.

● A new appraisal and personal development process has been agreed based on

ideas and feedback from staff to improve the quality of the appraisal experience

for both managers and staff.

● Health and Wellbeing and asking employees to identify and discuss their positive

contribution to the organisation with their line manager questions will now form

part of the appraisal process to ensure that resilience and performance are

discussed in a constructive way.

Improve recruitment process to stimulate greater supply and more robust and

consistent selection of candidates who have a long term future in the

organisation

● A new exit questionnaire has been introduced

● Confident interview skills sessions are continuing to be delivered

● An honorary contract process is now in place to support greater partnership

working

● A revised Disclosure and Barring Service Policy has been approved.

● A new recruitment webpage has been developed

● Social Media has been utilised to source a broader range of candidates using

different methods.

● A reduction in the use of fixed term contracts and focus on permanent

recruitment has commenced.

Refine and streamline HR/OD Policy and standards to ensure a consistent

organisational approach and the clear demonstration of effective governance

● A policy tracker has now been established to ensure that all policies are regularly

reviewed and updated.

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● Policy champions are now in place for each policy to ensure that policies are

monitored and updated regularly in line with any legislative changes and best

practice.

● A standardised policy template and approach is now in place

● HR and Trade Union colleagues are working together to review all new policies

and procedures as part of an agreed consultation process.

Review current occupational health arrangements and step change to an overall

health and wellbeing plan built to support current and future organisational needs

● A shared Occupational Health Service has been established for over 12 months

with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

● A greater range of services are in place to support staff with sickness absence

such as psychology and physiotherapy.

● A health and wellbeing programme has been established and work has

commenced on a psychological wellbeing support programme for managers and

staff to improve resilience.

Build an integrated and highly professional service for the organisation as a

whole which is cost effective, resilient and focussed (on delivering the HR/OD

Strategy)

● The HR team has been restructured to provide a greater skill mix of HR

practitioners

● The HR team is being focussed on solution and pro-active HR support rather

than a reactive HR case management approach.

Ensure the targeted delivery of relevant learning and development interventions

to ensure that staff and managers alike have the correct expertise and skill sets

to properly and consistently deliver on HR and wider organisational priorities.

● The Training Needs Analysis process is now in place and completed annually to

ensure that the 10 key areas of Statutory and Mandatory Training required to be

completed by every employee is clearly understood at all levels within the

organisation.

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● A corporate induction process is now in place for all new council employees and

manager guidance is in place to accompany this

Key Performance Metrics

Labour Turnover

Labour turnover over the last twelve months remains relatively static at 9.48% against a

national estimated average of 12% (LGA). There is some variance amongst

directorates which is illustrated in the above chart.

Learning and Development Performance

Performance Appraisal

During 2016/17 the total % of all staff who had a performance appraisal recorded was

70.89%. This is under the expected level of performance of at least 85% and all areas

have remedial action plans in for 2017/18.

Need

(Headcount)

Number completed

(Headcount)

% Total remaining

(Headcount)

%

4180 2963 70.89% 1217 29.11%

Work is now underway to ensure that managers and employees are aware of the data

recording requirements relating to the performance appraisal process. The appraisal

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process and the associated documentation is also being reviewed and will be

re-launched during 2017/18.

Workforce Committee have agreed schedules for achievement of appraisals with

Directors/Head of Service and then monitor the performance levels achieved by

Directorate and service on a monthly basis to ensure the appropriate performance

levels are achieved for 2017/18.

Information Security and Governance Programme

Annually all staff are now required to complete their information security and

governance training which can be completed in a number of ways:

● E-learning

● Face to face

● Workbook

For 2016/17 performance was as follows:

Need

(Headcount)

Number completed

(Headcount)

% Total remaining

(Headcount)

%

4080 2987 78.09% 1093 21.91%

There are some forthcoming changes to be made to the Data Protection Act and this is

being reflected within the training materials and staff can now complete this training in a

number of ways. Workforce Committee is monitoring performance relating to achieving

the required levels of compliance for Information Security and Governance.

Statutory and Mandatory Training

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A revised Corporate Training Needs Analysis (TNA) has been developed for all

Northumberland County Council staff which will be monitored for compliance directly by

Workforce Committee.

The ten core subjects that all employees are required to undertake is as follows:

● Equality and Diversity – 3 yearly refresher

● Manual Handling awareness – 3 yearly refresher

● Safeguarding Children awareness – 3 yearly refresher

● Safeguarding Adults awareness – 3 yearly refresher

● Information Security and Data Protection awareness – annual refresher

● Fire Safety awareness – annual refresher

● Health and Safety awareness – one off

● Stress Awareness – one off

● FOI and Subject Access refresher – one off

● PREVENT awareness or WRAP – one off

Workforce Committee has agreed schedules for achievement of appraisals with

Directors/Head of Service and the performance levels achieved by Directorate and

service are being monitored on a monthly basis to ensure the appropriate performance

levels are achieved.

Any compliance/performance issues are raised by the Director of Human Resources

with the relevant Director/Head of Service and compliance will be discussed on a

quarterly basis by the Corporate Leadership Team in the form of a formal Workforce

Assurance report.

Health and Wellbeing

The shared service for Occupational Health with Northumbria Healthcare NHS

Foundation Trust is now well established and staff are now offered a county wide

Occupational Health Service. A Shared Services Management Board is in place to

review and manage the service and activity and quality is being reviewed on a regular

basis. The Occupational Health service team are now well known within the council and

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the team are working closely with managers to ensure that they focus in on key issues,

particularly managing sickness absence.

Sickness Absence

Sickness absence for 2016/17 had an annual cost of £3.62m. The average number of

FTE lost days per FTE is approximately 10.55 or 4.75% of days lost, benchmarked

against an estimated average of 8.8 per annum nationally.

The cost of sickness absence by Directorate (see below) similarly shows the greatest

areas being Wellbeing and Local Services where the headcount is significantly higher.

Reporting of sickness absence using e-business is being actively promoted and

providing information to managers and HR representatives at a local level is proving

useful to managers in helping them identify trends, patterns and local issues. Work will

continue on refining this information throughout 2017/18 so that as much information as

possible will be provided in an automated way and will be accessible to all managers

and supervisors within the organisation at all levels.

It is recognised that nearly 58% of all staff assignments have had some absence due to

sickness during the last twelve months (as outlined below).

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Work is ongoing to promote wellbeing with staff with the key focussed health and

wellbeing initiatives for 2017/18 identified as:

● Stress

● Resilience

● Flu

● Hand Hygiene

● MOT Health Checks

Occupational Health, Public Health and HR/OD will continue together across the

Council to deliver these areas within a structured programme during 2017/18 with the

expected appointment of a Health and Wellbeing Co-ordinator during 2017/18 which will

assist in a focussed approach to implementing initiatives which support our workforce to

stay well at work.

Information is being analysed to ensure that each directorate understands their sickness

absence information with FTE lost days by Directorate information and the associated

costs being provided to managers and the Workforce Committee on a monthly basis.

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Work is currently ongoing to address short and long term sickness absence with the

HR/OD team receiving and reviewing the data regularly together with ensuring that

managers and individuals are clear on expectations.

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Reliance on Agency Staffing

Agency staffing is being regularly reviewed by the Workforce Committee with usage and

reliance on agency staffing reducing by over 50% throughout the council during

2016/17. We are working with local authority colleagues across the region to ensure

that we set standardised frameworks and agreed rates, particularly for challenging

areas such as social workers etc which has proved very positive for the North East in

managing the challenges that agency staffing costs and quality pose.

The introduction of IR35 legislation has given rise to agencies wishing to engage to

negotiate rates and this has afforded us the opportunity to transfer some agency

workers from agency rates to NCC fixed term contracts which is cost efficient and

provides more stability within the workforce.

In order to continue to review the reliance on agency staffing and overtime, work will

take place during 2017/18 to consider establishing an internal staff bank which will offer

staff the opportunity to register for work at any department/area within the council

(dependent upon their skills and experience) and this will ensure we have a more

flexible workforce and reduce existing costs.

Fixed Term Contracts (Use of)

Fixed term contracts are now monitored monthly by the Workforce Committee and all

fixed term contracts and honoraria have an end date so that they are regularly

reviewed. During 2017/18 contractual reviews will take place to ensure that individuals

who are on fixed term contracts for four years or more have the appropriate contractual

position in place and that any risks to the council are minimised accordingly.

HR/OD STRATEGY for 2017/18

The HR/OD strategy for 2016/17 has been based on establishing a number of

fundamental foundations for the HR/OD service within the Council. As we look forward

to the HR/OD Strategy for 2017/18, our core areas of focus will be as follows:

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Engagement

● Staff Survey 2017

● Working with Trade Union Colleagues

● Staff Awards and recognition

● Broader internal communications methods to support delivery of new corporate

plan

Recruitment and Retention

● Ensure that we have robust methods for recruitment

● The use of social media to promote NCC as an attractive employer

● Refresh and make corporate induction mandatory

Good Governance

● Ensure that all policies and procedures are updated in line with best practice

● Ensure information is available and robust for all elements of HR/OD

Developing our People

● Improving employee performance management and appraisal processes

● Aligned employee objectives to the values and strategic priorities of the

organisation

● Deliver succession planning and talent management support to services to assist

with workforce planning

● Promote career development pathways including apprenticeships

● Continue to promote coaching

● Increase leadership and management capacity and capability

Developing our Organisation

● Define our Organisational Culture strategy

● Prepare staff for major change

● Have an environment which supports the agile workforce

Health and Wellbeing

● Continued focus on reducing the sickness absence rate

● Continue to achieve Better Health at Work award

● Introduce a Health and Wellbeing Co-ordinator to support staff wellbeing

Equality and Diversity

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Work is ongoing to actively promote and recruit further E&D Allies amongst the

workforce and the Council’s LGBT and Disability Network groups which are ran jointly

with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust continue to be well represented.

It is expected that the council will resubmit for the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index

during 2017/18 as this is a key measure of performance for the council as an equal

opportunities employer.

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Implications arising from this report

Policy None Finance and value for money

The workforce is of significant cost to the Council and therefore it is essential that the workforce performs well to ensure that the Council achieves value for money in relation to service provision.

Legal Some policy implications which are being supported by the legal team

Procurement None Human Resources

As included within the report

Property None Equalities (Impact Assessment attached) Yes ☐ No ☒ N/A ☐

All HR policies and procedures are subject to an equality impact assessment.

Risk Assessment

Risks relating to the ongoing health and wellbeing of staff are managed locally.

Crime & Disorder

None

Customer Consideration

Improved staff performance will impact on the quality of customer experiences.

Carbon reduction

None

Wards All

Report sign off. Authors must ensure that officers and members have agreed the content of the report: initials Finance Officer AE Monitoring Officer/Legal LH Human Resources KA Procurement N/A I.T. N/A Executive Director KA Portfolio Holder(s) NO Author and Contact Details Kelly Angus Director of Human Resources Kelly.angus@northumberland.gov.uk Tel: (01670) 623134

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