6 July 2015

Present:-

Councillors Clatworthy, Connett, Hart, Knight, Owen and Parsons

Mr Bowman, Ms Roberts, Mr Ryles and Mr Turner

Non-voting members:-

Mr Smith (Head of Services for Communities)

In Attendance:-

Ms Edwards (HR Manager Strategy) and Ms Marsh (Joint Secretary)

Apologies:-

Ms Flemington

*PP/14 Election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman

AGREED that Ms Roberts and Councillor Hart be elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively for the ensuing year.

*PP/15 Minutes

AGREED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 23 April 2015 be signed as a correct record, subject to the amendment of *PP/11 to read that the figures requested were referred to at the meeting and did not indicate any savings based on past redundancy cases .

The Head of Services for Communities advised that in reference to *PP/11, an update on consultation with employees who were not members of the recognised Trade Unions, and an update on this would be brought to the next meeting.

In reference to *PP/12, the Head of Services for Communities also undertook to feedback to the Head of Business Strategy and Support, the difficulties experienced by the Staff Side in the booking of Heads of Service office spaces, using the Microsoft Outlook calendar.

*PP/16 Dates of Future Meetings

Thursday 15 October 2015

Thursday 14 January 2016

Thursday 21 April 2016

*PP/17 Exclusion of Press and Public

RESOLVED that the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business in the spirit of the Local Government Act 1972 and on the grounds that publicity would be prejudicial to the public interest by reason of the confidential nature of the business to be transacted.

*PP/18 Senior Pay Structure and Redundancy Proposals

The Partnership received the Report of the Head of Services for Communities (SC/15/14) outlining the decision making framework followed in relation to the consideration and adoption of the new Senior Pay Structure and the Proposed Reduction to Enhanced Redundancy Compensation and addressing concerns raised by the Staff Side at the last meeting of the Partnership.

Issues raised by the Staff Side were inter alia:

whether there had been Trade Union representation on the Job Evaluation panels which determined the appropriate grading for three senior management roles;

the additional cost to the Council when paying newly appointed senior managers a spot salary at the top of the new D grade;

whether the Council had a policy relating to the acceleration of current senior managers to the top of the new D grade, and questioned the fairness of this action if this was to be carried out on an ad hoc basis;

that the implementation of pay increases to some senior management roles at the same time as the Council was consulting on reducing redundancy compensation could be seen as unfair by staff;

that a draft report on the Council s redundancy proposals produced jointly by officers and the Trade Unions would be takento the Joint Consultative meeting later that month.

The Employers Side noted the comments and the Head of Services for Communities responded inter alia:

that confirmation of the Job Evaluation panel and any Trade Union representation would be circulated to members of the Partnership, along with the panel s scoring of these roles;

that the acceleration of senior managers to the top of the new D grade would be considered in exceptional circumstances, but that the majority of senior managers who were not already at the top of the grade, would not be accelerated;

that dependent on the outcome of discussions at the formal consultation meeting, proposed changes to redundancy policy would be brought back to either the Personnel Partnership or to the Appointments and Remuneration Committee.

*PP/19 Staff Retention and Attraction Payments in Children s Social Work

The Partnership received the Report of the Head of Services for Communities (SC/15/15) evaluating the use of retention and attraction payments made to specific teams in Children s Social Work, up to January 2015.

The Head of Service advised that a more formal evaluation of the scheme was currently being carried out, the results of which would be reported to the Delivery Improvement Group later that week.

The Staff Side expressed concerns over the number of experienced children s social workers who had left the employment of the Council, either to other local authorities or for agency work, despite the introduction of retention payments, and warned against the Council becoming over reliant on ASYE (Assessed and Supported Year in Employment) social workers. Concern was also raised over how these additional payments were being funded and whether this would have a detrimental effect on the pay of other staff.

The Head of Service responded advising that the recruitment of ASYE social workers was part of the Council s grow-your-own strategy, with early indicators showing that staff are choosing to stay with the County Council, and that the strategy was recognised nationally as being effective.

The Employers Side also advised that the Council s use of agency social workers had decreased over the last year and that parity had now been achieved between adult social worker and children and family social worker pay grades.

AGREED

(a) that a copy of the Delivery Improvement Group evaluation be brought to the next meeting of the Partnership;

(b) that data showing the split between the number of permanent and temporary social workers employed by the Council and the associated costs be circulated to Members of the Partnership within the next seven days.

The meeting started at 10.30 am and finished at 11.25 am

The Minutes of this Committee are published on the County Council's Website at:-