Agenda item

Andreas Ghosh (Head of Human Resources) introduced the report and a presentation; the following key points were noted:

·         The Council developed an employment profile each year. It aimed to ensure there was rigor in the monitoring of staff and the tracking of data.

·         Lewisham was a pioneer in terms of its development and publication of the profile.

·         The profile was also part of the Council’s commitment to be a good employer.

·         Overall numbers of staff had been reduced in line with the Council’s requirement to make major savings from its budget.

·         There were currently 2800 individual members of staff (fewer full time equivalents); there were 70 redundancies in 2014/15 and 350 in 2013/14. It was anticipated that there would be more redundancies next year.

·         There had also been a reduction in the numbers of agency staff.

·         Numbers of staff in schools had increased each year in the past ten years – this was accounted for almost entirely by non-teaching staff.

·         The Council was still recruiting, as part of the process of on-going reorganisations.

·         Half of all appointments in the past year were filled by internal applicants.

·         This was positive for employees of the Council but it did not allow for sufficient refresh of staff to significantly change the employment profile.

·         Staff referred to in the monitoring as ‘casual’ and ‘claims’ might be lecturers, tutors or elections staff who were paid on an irregular basis.

·         The Council directly engaged 3435 people in some way, it also had arms-length responsibility for schools staff.

·         400 staff had applied for voluntary severance a quarter had been accepted.

·         There were slightly more acceptances from older staff.

·         The programme was broadly proportionate in terms of its acceptances of black and minority ethnic employees.

·         There was generally a low rate of return from individual staff members in response to questions about equalities monitoring.

·         The returns were particularly low in terms of religion, marital status and sexual orientation.

·         Each round of redundancies had a disproportionate impact on either BME or white staff.

·         There were high numbers of BME applicants for jobs at the Council, which indicated that it was an attractive place to work.

·         Changes to the youth service in the early round of reorganisations had a disproportionate impact on BME staff because of the composition of the staff working in youth services.

·         There was good distribution of gay and lesbian people at senior grades and there were a higher rate of acceptances from applications and interview of people from the LGB&T community.

·         Women were well represented at all grades in the Council, including at the senior level; a new female Executive Director had just been appointed for the Children and Young People directorate.

·         The age profile of the Council had not changed significantly. The Council was not an aging workforce; it was, on average, an older workforce.

·         Work was taking place to attract younger people to the workforce, including through the apprenticeship programme.

·         Agency workers were more representative of the local workforce than the permanent staffing structure.

·         Attendance levels had declined in the past year – but surveys with staff indicated that most people were happy in their roles.

·         Later in the year there would be an employee survey, which would provide additional insight into the opinions of staff.

5.2    Andreas Ghosh (Head of Human Resources) responded to questions from the Committee, the following key points were noted:

·         There were very few outstanding employment tribunal cases against the Council.

·         About 12 people each year were dismissed. This tended to be on grounds of discipline rather than capability.

·         There had been 70 compulsory redundancies in the past year.

·         110 employees had left under voluntary severance.

·         Next year it was likely that there would be a greater number of compulsory redundancies.

·         It was not necessarily the case that the low numbers of people completing the equalities monitoring indicated a lack of trust in the organisation.

·         There were small numbers of respondents to some questions – but the intention in the employee profile was to demonstrate that monitoring was taking place.

·         The Council had a responsibility to help people work more flexibly.

·         Most vacancies would be filled by internal or agency staff, who had knowledge of the way the Council worked and would be well placed to apply for roles as they became available. This did not indicate unfairness in the process – internal and agency staff could not be barred from applying for internal roles.

·         Most employee surveys in most organisations would highlight pay as an issue for staff. Workload was always mentioned as an issue; this was a particular problem in social care.

·         The terms Black/BME/BAME were used interchangeably in the presentation.

Resolved: to note the update.