Agenda item

Adam Bowles gave an overview of the highlights of the findings in the report.  The Council’s workforce has reduced in the last year from 2300 to 2209. The ratio of female to male employees is 6:4. There is an 11% gender pay gap; females being paid more than males. The number of resignations within the borough have fallen slightly from 50% to 43%. Lewisham Council is almost half the size of employees as it was 10 years moving from 4000 employees originally. Part-time employees represent approximately 1/5 of the workforce- 1 in 4 females being part-time compared to 1 in 10 males. LBL is slightly above average for the number of employees under 25 and are recruiting well in that category.

2 out of 3 of the workforce are aged over 40- the average age of a Lewisham employee is 46 and the average length of service is 10 years. Only 45% of employees declare their religious status and 45% do not declare their sexual orientation.

In terms of recruitment, there is an average of 14 applicants per post, which was 13 the previous year- only 1 in 20 do not declare their BAME status and 1 in 10 applicants do not declare their LGBT status.

In regards to the next steps of improving the employment profile for Lewisham, the attractiveness to recruit candidates will be looked into as well as the Cloud system to look at the EVP (Employee Value Proposition) to ensure recruitment is attractive and advertised well. Work will also be done to raise the profile of LGBT and ensure they are well supported and the new IT systems will be used to collect more data of protected characteristics to get a better understanding of the employee profile.

Lewisham are now fully compliant of the IR35 regulations in relation to agency workers and an external audit will be taking place on this matter. Work is also being done to convert agency workers to permanent employees where possible.

The issue of apprentice recruitment is being addressed both in the Mayor’s office and also via borough entry movement. This is a good way to reach the younger workforce although the age restrictions on apprenticeships. In terms of developmental activity for staff, Lewisham can look into making more roles developmental, including apprentices.

The Council has signed up to be disability confident employer and this will explored further in employability and recruitment, and the nature of flexible working for those with disabilities. Under the employee assistance programme, telephone advice is now available and the Council has taken part in mental first aid training. Managers are being trained on identifying stress among employees and the occupational health managers are also training managers on how to manage stress in the workplace.

One of the challenges in gender equality is that because of the number of agency workers, particularly within the environment division, many of those will be refuse workers and male. As a consequence the number of male staff at the lower scale, will be fewer, so the average is therefore lower. The disparity between male and female pay within the borough is also a consequence of most heads of service/directorates are female, bringing the average pay higher than males.