Agenda item

Staff Survey Joint Scrutiny Task Group

Meeting of Cabinet, Wednesday 6th September 2017 6.00 p.m. (Item 31/17)

Minutes:

Cabinet welcomed the Chairman of the Staff Survey Joint Scrutiny Task Group, Councillor S. R. Colella, to the meeting and invited him to present the group’s report.

The group had initially focused on the reasons for the low response rate to the 2016 staff survey. Staff sickness data had also been taken into account to help Members gauge the possible impact of changes in the workplace on staff morale as it was felt this would potentially manifest itself in sickness absence. As the review progressed it had become apparent that the Programme Board was making significant progress addressing many of the issues that had been raised by staff in completed surveys. The group had concluded that it would be best to focus on looking forward and constructive steps that could be taken to improve future surveys. There had been general consensus that more staff needed to be encouraged to complete the surveys in the future and this might be achieved if bespoke questions were to be provided that were suitable for particular service areas.

The Cabinet discussed the contents of the report in detail and noted that the group had considered the suitability of the Council’s strategic purposes moving forward. Councillor Colella explained that the group had found it could be difficult to determine the exact meaning of the strategic purposes and more specific targets might be helpful for staff. The Deputy Chief Executive explained that the Corporate Management Team was aware of the breadth of areas covered by the strategic purposes. For this reason senior officers, in conjunction with Members, were developing detailed action plans for each strategic purpose covering the next three years. The contents of these plans would be shared with all Members in due course.

A small number of recommendations had been proposed at the end of the review. The Overview and Scrutiny Board had been able to resolve on the majority of these at their meeting on 22^nd August but one required the attention of the Cabinet.

The Leader commented that at recommendation (b) in the report Members were calling for him, as the relevant Portfolio Holder, to assist the lead Scrutiny Member supporting staff with the formulation of all future staff surveys and attend staff briefings. The Cabinet was advised that he would decline this offer as he felt that it would be more appropriate for a Scrutiny Member to take a lead on this. This recommendation was also due to be reported for Members’ consideration at Redditch Borough Council and Officers confirmed that a different decision in Bromsgrove would not affect the decision making process in Redditch.

Councillor Colella thanked every Member of the Task Group for their hard work during the review, together with all the officers who had submitted evidence and the Democratic Services Officers. The Cabinet was also asked to note that this had been the first joint scrutiny exercise involving only Bromsgrove and Redditch Members and a number of useful lessons had been learned which could be applied to any future joint working arrangements.

RESOLVED that the lead Councillor for supporting staff from each Council assists in the formulation of future staff surveys and attends staff briefings.

Supporting documents: