Transcript

Good morning, everybody, by the way. Morning. Morning. We are live. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to welcome everyone to this joint staff consultative committee being conducted virtually with members, officers and representatives at various locations. For the meeting starts, I'd like to invite the committee member and scrutiny officer to explain how proceedings will work and to confirm that members and officers are in attendance. Thank you. Can I confirm the following members and officers are in attendance can hear us and that we can hear them. Councillor Daniel Allen. Here. Councillor Ruth Brown. Here. Councillor Val Bryant. Here. Councillor Claire Strong. Good morning. Yes, I'm here. Councillor Rona Cameron. Good morning. Yes, I'm here. Keith Fitzpatrick Matthews. Present. Yes. Miss Franklin. Yep, present. Ian Cooper. Yes, I'm here. Rebecca Webb. Good morning. And Catherine Clampett. Here. Are there any other officers or members in attendance? Members may request to speak using the raise hand function and the same function will be used to vote. The chair will notify you when it is your turn to speak. Are there any questions before we start the meeting? Hand back to the chair. Okay, item one is apologies for absence. I have received apologies from Debbie Eland, Dee Leavitt, Christina Corr and Tiernan Strawn. Are there any other apologies that you know of Chanel? Wonderful. Item two is the minutes from the 13th of March 2024. I'd like to propose that we take as read and approve as true record the minutes the committee held on the 13th of March 2024. Can I have a seconder please? Councillor Strawn. Yes, I'm happy to second because obviously I was probably the only one that was actually on that committee. However, in the minutes, I do like it if officers do spell my name correctly. So could I ask that the minutes could be updated if it's clear with an I? Yes. No problem. I'll get that sorted. Yeah, it's quite a few but there's quite a few parts although it's on the attendance. It's spelt correctly. Every other reference to my name is incorrect. Thank you. Thank you for amending that for us Chanel. With that, are we happy to accept those minutes? I will take a raising of hands be it virtual or actual. Yep. Okay. Those are approved. Thank you very much. Item number three is the chairs announcements. This meeting is being recorded and the recording will be available on Modgov or the North Arts Council YouTube page. Members are reminded to make declarations of interest before an item. A detailed reminder about this and speaking rights is set out under the chairs announcements on the agenda. Item four is the staff consultation forum. Ian Cooper to present please. Thank you chair. And for those that are new to the committee, I thought I'd just briefly run through what the staff consultation forum is. It's a regular chance for staff and managers and HR to get together to discuss sort of key issues including the council strategy, any major HR issues, staff wellbeing, green issues, staff views, any questions, and ideas and suggestions. It is attended by an HR rep, myself as a server tech resources and managing director and nominated members of staff. In an ideal world, we have lots of people volunteering and we choose those who want to come along. In reality, we take whoever wants to come along. But obviously, we're always looking out for more volunteers to be part of the consultation forum, because the bigger the staff, the better. It's usually a meeting with different topics, as you'll see from the minutes. Obviously, take those as read on the agenda, just to point out a couple of things out of those and I will avoid anything that's HR related because Rebecca will cover those in the item coming out next. So you'll note there's been two restructures on the March agenda in relation to green space and the catering team. They've now been taken forward and gone through the consultation process. Also note on there, there's a question around the amount of electricity regenerated from the rooftop solar panels, and please say it was 10 megawatts per year across the two years that we've asked about. I expect that can see that sort of level going forward. You'll also note from the minutes of those meetings, we do have regular green updates around what's going on on green issues. And it also promotes the IT drop in sessions, we're starting to pop in and into virtual meetings and get a little tutorial, ask questions on various IT issues. It's been really popular and really well received by staff. Councillor Strong, I believe you have a question for Ian. I do, thank you. Page nine, when you mentioned the restructuring that went ahead, and on the green space restructuring, you talked about reduced working hours from one of the members going forward. And then you said that the restructure was cost neutral. I would have thought if we were reducing somebody's hours, we would also be perhaps reducing their remuneration. So I wouldn't have thought that it was cost neutral, I thought there might have been a small saving. The remuneration for that member staff would have gone down, I think it was a corresponding increase in another member of staff to it across the team. So that's why it was cost neutral. Yes, the staff member who's held it down to get paid a little bit less pro rata. But we started to pay somebody else a little bit more. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions for Ian on the staff consultation forum? No. In that case, the recommendation is to note the minutes of the staff consultation forum for March 24, April 24, and May 24. Again, this is approved by member consensus. So it's by putting up your hands be it virtual or physical. Okay, that is thank you very much. That is accepted. Thank you very much. approved. My apologies. Item five and information note and HR update. Rebecca Webb to present please. Thank you, Jeff. I'll take some time to highlight some of the key points from the paper today, starting with 3.2, which shows a comparison of recruitment data over the same period for the last three years. And although the number of jobs advertised has reduced, we have seen an increase in the overall applicants with the revenues officer and planning compliance officer being particularly popular vacancies. And we've also filled other posts, including the care line technician, which was one of the posts we were unable to fill the previous quarter. We continue to have areas that are hard to fill. And in this quarter, there were two posts that we were unable to fill, and that those were the estate surveyor and the senior environmental health officer. linked to this is 3.3, which shows our turnover rate, which has fallen below 9% for the first time in several years. And this along with the increase in applicants is showing some improvement in this area. And I'll cover in more detail in the discussion paper later around the work that's being done around recruitment. 3.4 is a quick note on the staff survey. So we received 228 responses to the staff survey. And we were really pleased to see various ideas, feedback, and comments from employees. There are some positive results. So 90% of our staff would recommend us as an employer. And there are also areas that we know that we can improve on and work is ongoing. And there will be updates for staff in the coming weeks. Moving to national pay bargaining covered in 3.5. And the the pay awards, the pay increases are annual. And at North hearts, they're set by the national negotiations between national employers and the unions. So the general process would be that the unions would make a claim, the employer makes an offer, and then the unions consider that offer. And that might be result in potential balloting for industrial action, or further negotiation until we reach a point where there's an agreed pay award. And for 2024, the plate pay claim from unions was submitted in February for at least 3000 pounds or 10%, whichever is greater. And in May, the national employers made a full and final offer of 1290 pounds on each spinal point up to the top of the NJC pay scale and then 2.5%. From that point on, the offer has been met with disappointment from the unions, and they are carrying out ballots of their members with two of the three clearly recommending rejecting the offer. So we'll continue to monitor the progress on this. Moving to apprentices in 3.6. We have seven apprentices in post as well as some open apprentice adverts on our jobs pages at the moment. And in March, our members of the HR team attended an apprenticeship fair. And we do this regularly to highlight the variety of careers and apprenticeships available at North hearts. The scheme overall is really popular. And we always receive a high number of applicants for any of our apprentice vacancies. 3.8 covers a short update on the progress of the inclusion group. And the inclusion group is a group of employees who meet quarterly to talk about various topics relating to inclusion, diversity and equalities. In April, their discussion focused on neurodiversity in the workplace. And it was a really interesting and helpful discussion that took place. And there are recommendations being made to make further improvements to support people who are neurodivergent at North hearts. And then finally, 3.9 covers absence. And this is shown as days lost per employee as well as a table showing the summary of reasons for absence for this period. And you'll see that short term absence cases have fallen. And as we've moved away from the colder months, this is somewhat expected. And we've seen a reduction in the minor ailments, such as cold and flu issues. Long term absence continues at a similar rate to the previous quarter. And we continue to see long term absence, absence is related to mental health in several cases. And the HR team continue to provide that support to managers and staff. Happy to take any questions. Councillor Cameron. Oh, hello, Rebecca. Thanks very much for that report. I am very interested in apprenticeships. I'd like to see more of them. Can you tell me just either now or is there anything written down about the policy towards apprenticeships? You say we've got seven and you attend recruitment fairs. I was wondering if there's any possibility that we could increase that number and solve the recruitment policy by internal promotion. But basically apprenticeships and do you have any links with any schools in Lechworth or in our area actually, to tell young people before when they're in the sixth form before they take the plunge and land themselves with a lot of debt, going to university whether, you know, we're proactive in letting young people know what apprenticeships are and how valuable they are. Thanks. Thank you for your question. So we have a set budget for apprentices. And we, we use all of that as soon as we can so that we have as many apprentices as possible. It's been running for several years now and as I say has been really successful. So we've seen various apprenticeships in different service areas. And a number of them will take on further roles once their apprenticeship has finished. We do link in with schools, and we also link in with schools around work experience, because sometimes it's about, as you say, getting that message there earlier. And we give opportunities for work experience in various areas, in the hope that that might lead to an apprenticeship post later on down the line when there's a vacancy. The other thing that we are looking at with regard to kind of develop it growing our own is a, we're part of the national graduate scheme this year. And we have been interviewing and hope to have at least one graduate starting towards the end of the year. And so, so yes, there is there is a focus on looking to develop, develop our own and move those people from apprentices or graduate roles into other roles that become vacant across the structure. Right, thank you. Wonderful. Councillor Brown. First of all, I'd just like to congratulate you on the improvement to recruitment and retention. This is what's obviously seen as a huge issue. And every time we sit down with the MD for the performance review, it's it's a top topic. And we've been working on it for the last couple of years. Honestly, I've as deputy leader, I've been quite aware of what's been going on. And the refreshing of the adverts, the working with the comms on that, and all sorts of things that that you've done have made have clearly made a difference, which is brilliant. And we know that there's a national problem in recruitment in councils. So, so first of all, a well done to improving those those figures, it's really good to say, let's keep up the good work and see what else can be done to make it even better. I do worry about the estate surveyor. So many projects are being held up because of that. And obviously, we know about environmental health, we know there's a national shortage. But I think the estate surveyor is a really crucial role. And I don't know what we can do. And I'm sure you've tried lots of things. But anyway, overall, well done, it's going in the right direction. So that's the first thing to say, then just to follow up on the apprenticeship thing, I'd quite like to know what sort of percentage of those apprenticeships actually stay in the organisation move into other roles, if you're if you have that figure, roughly, I, you know, off the top of your head, is it half? Is it a third? Is it three quarters? Or what it what is it? And then you didn't mention it, but the learning and development, I'm quite interested in that. So the learning management, and I've been saying for a long time, we need a new system. So that looks like it's in process. I wondered if you had any timeline for that? Any sort of? Do you know when that's likely to come into into play, or be available? And what was the last thing? And the last thing I wanted to ask about is mental health? How are you addressing that as an organisation? I know there are mental health first aiders. That's another topic I'm very interested in. So I just wondered if what you're doing to address mental health in the organisation? Thank you, Councillor Brown. And so with regard to the percentage of apprentices that stay, I wouldn't like to hazard a guess we could look at gathering that information, if that's something that you're, you're interested in to give a kind of overview of the success rate around our apprenticeship scheme. LMS is due to launch. So the new grow zone is due to launch in the middle of July. We have a system that is more kind of straightforward and intuitive, so really easy to use. And we're working on finalising what that looks like. And then comms will follow after that. So yes, very soon, which is which is good news. Mental health. I think we've previously had discussion papers on all of the work that we are doing on mental health. And I'd be happy to send that over to you, Councillor Brown, so you can have a look. But you've mentioned Mental Health First-Aiders, we obviously have occupational health in place to support that process as well. The team do a lot of work on raising awareness and kind of working on that, that stigma that can be there around mental health. And so we often have articles in our internal magazine or on the hub. Yes, and so if somebody is off sick, we obviously are there supporting the manager in managing the process, but also the employee and remind us about our employee assistance programme go out. So there's a there's a ream of things that happen to support mental health in the workplace. Thank you very much. You've answered that very well. So I would be very interested to hear about that mental health. I'd be interested to know what training you give your managers because that's a really key role. And as you say, reducing stigma, if you create a culture where people feel able to come forward early, prevention is a lot better than cure, isn't it? And having worked as a trainer in mental health, I've delivered a lot of training to line managers, and the culture makes a massive difference to the outcomes to prevention of mental ill health and the outcomes for those people. Prevention is always better than letting people get to the crisis stage, as I'm sure you're aware. So yeah, I'd be really interested in that. So yeah, thank you very much. Look forward to the new grow zone. It is a bit clunky at the moment, isn't it? So hopefully the new one will be a lot better. Thanks. Thank you very much, Councillor Brown. Can I ask Rebecca, would you be able to forward all members the information about the success rate of the apprenticeships and the mental health information seeing as we do have a number of new members on this board? Thank you. Councillor Strong. Thank you. I too share the concerns of Councillor Brown about the estate survey at the post. Is this not being able to bring somebody in from outside just to cover the role, as I understood it, rather than if we're not able to actually recruit? Are we not got somebody who's, I don't know, just just providing support to us as a council? We do have some cover from agency in that. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would be I would be very concerned if the fact that the vacancy was preventing things that North Hart's happening. So if we have got agency covered, that should alleviate some of those concerns that Councillor Brown has. But overall, I do share and I recognise it's a difficult, it's going to be difficult to recruit post. And couple other things I wanted to say on the apprentices, I can't remember, I mean, you said we've had them for a while, I think it goes back to about 2016/17, the first apprentices, and it has just for the new accounts, it has actually been an incredibly successful programme that the council's run a lot of apprentices have come in, and a result of doing their apprenticeships have found that, you know, full employment afterwards stayed on, and which is really good to see that we've been able to open up those opportunities for people and some of them are doing incredibly well in the careers that they've had, either with the council or they've taken they've taken skills they've learned and gone to other places. So I think yes, I think that's incredibly, incredibly successful programme. You also have mentioned the staff survey. Now, the last meeting with this committee, we did say we'd like to have a report of the staff survey to this committee. I was rather looking forward to it and hoping to see it on the agenda today. Obviously, it's not that I wondered why that was and when we might see the results of the survey. Because as you know, I'm very, I'm very, very interested in the staff that we have, because they are the engine of our organisation. So I need to know, I think we all need to know what that how the survey was received, what results were as what the opportunities are for us as a council to improve for our employees. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more, Councillor Strong. We will have that summary for you. Because of the amount of feedback that we had, there were areas in the survey, we didn't just have boxes to tick, which is fairly easy to analyse. We've had open text boxes, which are really important in allowing people to have their say, but also take more time to analyse. So the work is progressing. But because of that amount of feedback, it is taking some time. My plan is to bring something to the next GRCC meeting around staff survey. So you can see more than just kind of the headline that I've given you today, a broader picture of what it looks like, as well as some information around action planning and what steps we are have either taken or will be taking in response to that survey. But can I ask then the little group that's looking at those research service, is that having senior management and employees involved in bringing together and getting an improvement plan from that? Yes, so the the sub group that are looking at it includes the system service directors, HR, and some of the comms team. And the idea is with we're taking some of the information that has been split by directorate, and that's gone to each of the directors to have a conversation with their service managers, and there will be a stream of work that comes out of that. There will be links into groups such as SCF, and the inclusion group, because we had set inclusion questions that we asked. And so that they will form part of that, feeding back into what the action plan looks like. And, and Anthony has also had conversations at this staff briefing. So the staff have had some headlines around this, and been given a feel of what the next steps are. And they will be included as well as our senior managers group. Yeah, for me, the probably one of the most important things is having done a survey is the employees know that the results of the survey and what the plan is, and it doesn't sort of get swept under the carpet somewhere. And there's a lot of communication about it to employees, because having what was the what exactly was the turnout? Or you know, the response rate? 228. Sorry? 228 responses. That's as a percentage, that's how many? 70% ish off the top of my head. What was it? We have been given that that figure. Can I just say I'm very happy to be a cabinet member involved in this if that is appropriate. Thank you, Val. We'll just finish off with Claire's at the moment. Thank you. No, no, I think I've finished now. It's just really, I can't stress the importance of wanting to see the results and know how well it's been communicated back to staff, to the management team, and that there is a good action plan to address any issues that have been raised. Thank you. Thank you, Louis. Morning, and just a couple of quick points. I just wanted to promote the fact that we do learning development mornings in the councils are each month. So we get sent different topics to go off and have a look at with loads of information. So the last one was like sustainability. You know, we've had it dropping sessions inclusion. So just wanted to highlight that as well, as we were talking about learning development. And then the other point is, we had our staff briefing the other day about the the survey. And I think they covered a lot of good topics in that and an action plan going forward. So I think there was a good turnout. I think it was about 100 staff members on the briefing. So I think we're in a good place for them going forward from a staff perspective. My perspective, I feel encouraged that they're going to be putting a good action plan in place. Good to hear. Ian. Thank you chair. So just a couple of points. Firstly, on the estate surveyor, we do have a senior estate surveyor now in post. So just to confirm that there was a that post is now filled. They started about two months ago now, I think. And so we have got someone in post, they're still going to need that to fill. But we are going from kind of a team fully staffed with agency staff to where we now have a permanent employee in there. So that's good news. So we're moving forward on that let's go in the right direction. And on the staff survey, just to add to what's been said previously, we will be engaging back with staff both through staff briefing and also any mini surveys or anything else you need to do to get their feedback on if we need more detail. So we've got the headlines for the big stuff. If we need to go into more detail, we can't capture for the comments, we will go back to staff and see just what they really meant and what the outcomes really should be to help develop the action plan. Thank you very much. Councillor Brian. Thank you. Just to say I've been being very quiet because it's my first meeting ever with the Joint Committee. So I am listening. And to say that if it is helpful for me to be involved in that group, look at the staff survey, I'm very happy to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, there's no vote on this item. It was for information only. I think we've covered it very well. Thank you very much, Rebecca. And we're going to hear from you again, because item six is the discussion paper on the recruitment update. Thank you, Chair. I'll just run through the paper. So employment market conditions continue to present challenges for us in recruiting in several service areas, including some which were previously relatively easy to fill. As a result, the HR team have been working to improve how we can attract and retain candidates. And there is a downward trend for vacancies nationally, but they still remain above where they were pre pandemic. And so we are working in a competitive environment for good quality candidates. And with regard to attracting candidates, we need to be actively increasing the visibility of our vacancies and highlighting North hearts as a good employer. And as part of this, we've made some changes to our social media adverts. So we change the format and you'll see the image in the paper. We've included colour and images and we ensure that social media is utilised for all recruitment. We've updated the web pages, the recruitment web pages. These are more modern, more informative and easier to navigate. So the new pages include video content, and increased use of images of our employees and images of the district. We are looking to highlight that we're a good employer and explain why. There's a selection. There's sorry, there's a section on what our people say about North hearts as an employer and their job here. And there's an area to focus on certain teams. And currently we have the leadership team in that section. But it will also be used to showcase other teams work, especially where they might have hard to fill vacancies or perhaps have a group of vacancies. So we'll be using that in different ways as we move forward. And then there's improved content on how to apply for jobs at North hearts. In some areas where posts are hard to fill, the national skills shortage impacts our ability to recruit. And in these areas in particular, we're considering where we could create career graded roles to enable us to grow our own. And graduates and apprentices also form part of this. And we also use the website, adverts and social media to highlight our ongoing commitment to learning and development at the council. And then we continue to look at modernising our documents and processes. So we want things to be as easy and effective to use for both the candidates and the recruiting managers. There's some examples in the paper around how we have adopted a flexible approach to fill in vacancies that might have been hard to fill. And then moving on to what's next. We currently have an outdated recruitment system. And so we've started work on reviewing options for an alternative more modern solution. We've had feedback from candidates that they need more information about what their terms and conditions would look like when they start to work for us. The updates to the website is part of that. But we're also looking at creating an online candidate pack, so that that's provided to the candidate at point of being invited to interview, and they can see more about what it's like to work for North hearts before they even step a foot in the door. And we'll continue with the process improvement that I talked about earlier. So where we can automate things we will be. And at the moment, we're running a trial of transparent interviews. And so this is where we provide the candidates with the interview questions before the interview. We're only running this on certain jobs at the moment. And but we're collating feedback from candidates and from the recruiting managers. And so far, the response has been positive, but there's more work to do around this. And then finally, just to highlight the local government recruitment campaigns, this is the national campaign that was trialled in the northeast. And it's about highlighting local government as a whole as a good place to work and a good employer. And my understanding is that there's now funding to roll this out more widely. And I am involved in a meeting in the autumn with the east of England LGA. So we'll stay engaged with that process and use everything that we can, and from that national campaign, linking to what we're doing. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Are there any questions? Councillor Cameron? Sorry, something's come up on my thing. Thank you very much for your very, very good report. I'm very interested in policy to grow our own. And I wondered what steps we've taken on that. One of the things I was going to ask you about recruitment is what is our policy on working from home? Because I imagine that's something that a lot of people will take into consideration. And things like parking and other side benefits that make make people's working lives different, you know, more and more easier. And do you use recruitment agencies? Thank you, Councillor Cameron. The policy on growing our own is something that we're looking at in pockets of the organisation at the moment. So there's more of a focus on it in certain teams. But we are moving towards that. That's not to say that there hasn't always been a focus on development. And I am an example of that I have been working for North Arts for a number of years and studied all the way through and given that support by the employer to get to this point. So we have lots of examples of that. And the policy on working from home is on the website. And we understand the importance of flexibility and hybrid working where it is appropriate for the service area. And we have this clearly now on the website, and we encourage our managers who are recruiting to have those conversations with the candidates. So that there's real clarity on what that that could look like, is there's the balance between what's great for the individual, we want to support that as much as possible, whilst still ensuring services are covered as as they need to be. And but you make a good point about the other benefits, non kind of pay benefits, and the website itself is making that much clearer now. And we will also include that information in the candidate pack. Thank you. Councillor Brown. That's really interesting. Yeah, that the work from home thing is is something which I think councils and the flexibility of employment is something where councils had a sort of almost a USP before COVID. And now everyone else has jumped on it, which means we're not as competitive with those those extra benefits that are not pay with the private sector, which is part of the recruitment problem, I think. But anyway, that that just sideline I was interested in trial of transparent interviews. That's really interesting. Now, I always I wonder, obviously, you've got to get enough applicants and some that's often we don't get enough applicants to really be that choosy or we don't get enough good applicants or suitable applicants. But it's, it sounds interesting to me. So basically, what you're saying, if I've understood it, right, is that people have more time to prep. So you're you're testing more a realistic how they would be in the workplace rather than who's good on the spot and can answer the questions quickly in an interview, which is not always the skills you're looking for. So you might get someone who's really good at interview, but actually isn't the best, best person for the job? Is that what's? Is that the, the motive behind this? I just been really interested in what the driver behind this is? Yeah, absolutely. That that's exactly it. So there will be people who are highly skilled in interviews and responding in the moment, but actually wouldn't necessarily be able to do the things we need them to do in the workplace. So yes, the the questions are given 24 to 48 hours beforehand. And then we need to make sure that the managers understand how to really test those individuals because they would have seen that kind of headline question. But of course, there's so much more you can ask and kind of probe into the detail on what they did and how they did it and what they learned. So, but yes, that's it. That's really interesting. Do you use tests like, you know, practical tests as well, like no word and excellent, or whatever presentations, whatever might be appropriate for the job role? Yes. So when before we go out to recruitment, there's a conversation with the someone in the HR team, there might be kind of tabletop tests involved, there might be presentations, it will depend on the role. A presentation is usually something that's prepared beforehand anyway, and then bought into the interview. But yes, there's a variety of different ways of testing for the best candidate. Yes, that that's really important. Thank you very much. That's really interesting. Thank you. Rebecca, can I just say how much I like that? Because as a neurodivergent person, I find that really enabling. That would make a big difference for me going through to an interview ahead of time. So yeah, that's absolutely brilliant. Thank you. Councillor Strong. Thank you. Again, I think this is the history of recruitment, we have seen, I think, over the last couple of years, quite a change into the job ads that have gone out. I know that we've often been given feedback to you from this committee, that they don't look very, you know, some of the adverts who really think they're not eye catching enough, why would you, why would you go and actually even try for a job because the you know, the the advert just isn't really, I think, encouraging people to apply. So I think there's been a tremendous change in the way that we are doing Excel advertisement to try. And I think that actually is now starting to get some rewards. We are getting more people now applying for jobs at North Hart. So I think I think that it is good. But I think, as was said earlier, I think, you know, the, we have to sell North Arts as a place as a council to work for, there are some some fantastic, it's a fantastic area to live, if you're going to move into the area. And I know that you have got some incentives to new employees where they can take, you know, they can have a bit of upfront money to help them with that, making that transition. But all the other benefits that they are, again, they, they, there's a great, it is a great, it is a good package, I believe. But we do need to sell ourselves, we really need to get that in front of people. And I know that when we've had these meetings, I think it was Louis talked very passionately about why he likes working here, and is the flexible working. And I think that's, again, is something that, you know, we actually be asking our employees, why do you like working here, and use those comments as to sell much more in the advertising campaigns that we are running to try and get those more. But I think the other thing is that it's the training and development that you can receive for any employee who starts and wants to progress. And as you said, there's there is opportunities to employees to do courses and take exams and get better for qualifications. My only issue with that always, and as an employer myself, when I was working, is sometimes they come and take them all, and then disappear. And we used to have a bit of a well, if you do do a course, and these are the sums of money we expect we will there be expectation that you benefit the council for a couple of years before you move on with the talents that we've trained you for. No, no sadness in doing it, because I was always felt that, you know, we're always helped, we should be here to help people on their journey of work. But we ought to be able to get some benefit back from any investment we make in people. So I would be really very supportive of it. But I think we know if we, if we help people get good, good qualifications, and we're helping to pay for those that we we get the benefit back off before they leave us. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. We have a policy around professional qualifications. And there is a time period linked to that. So I agree about getting getting the benefit from that. And of course, while someone is still studying, we're still receiving that that benefit. Shouting a bit more about why to work here is a really good place to work. And there'll be more coming from that staff survey that we intend to put out on the website and probably through social media as well to really get that message out there and start to further increase the applicant's interest. Brilliant. Heath. Just as a point of information, we did some transparent interviews a couple of years ago for an externally funded post in the museum, employing disabled and or neurodivergent candidates. And we found that the process worked really well. The interviewees, we only had three, we only had five, and we the interviewees, we only had three, were clearly much better prepared for the for the interview. All three performed really very well. I think as a result of this, our fear for the future is that some candidates may be tempted to use AI to generate perfect answers. And we are actually going to be checking that in the future, just to make sure that they're not saying what's co-pilot or chat GPT gives us as an answer to the questions. So just a point of information, really. Yeah. Very valid. Louis. Yeah, again, just just a point of information, the transparent interviews was quite heavily discussed in our last inclusion group meeting. And obviously, we would discuss some topic of neuro neuro divergent people. So it was, we spent a good good period of time on that. So it might be worth going back and looking at the minutes to see what was discussed in that meeting, because it was, there was some interesting things about the pros and cons of, of doing transparent interviews for like, especially for specialist jobs and that kind of thing as well. So it was a really interesting discussion. And if you have the time, have a look at the minutes of the meeting. And then just the other point on interviews. I've been at the Council six years now. And I've interviewed for a number of posts, I've moved around a fair bit. And I can quite happily say that I feel that the interview techniques that managers are using now, comparative to when I first started, have improved a lot. So when I first started, you'd find it'd be question, answer, next question, answer, next question, answer. My latest interview, it was very much question, I give an answer, they ask more leading questions on that question, to try and make sure you fully completed the question, which I thought was really receptive and made me feel a lot more comfortable in the interview process. Brilliant. It's good to hear that things are evolving. Ian, thank you so much to go back on the kind of the background of the make us more attractive. So we did price the stuff. So we've been talking about our previous staff survey around what we work here. So the context of that has been fed into that whole process around what we've been doing on that, just to reiterate that we have did do that. And that is pretty in there. And also, which finds a lot of work around genuine and flexible working. So obviously, it's very easy to be an advert, we're flexible employer, we want to get across that we really are flexible where we can be. So we're mostly amazed around particularly difficult to fill posts, you know, be as flexible as you can around what your professional particular work, home work, home balance around where you're working, that kind of thing. So I think we are really flexible, but we just get the message out there. We're doing as much as we can on that. So we really emphasise that rather than taking an easy route with that, just putting an advert and that's it. Oh, thank you very much, Ian. Okay, Rebecca, thank you for presenting that to us. And thank you for answering all the questions. The recommendation is to note the discussion paper. Again, it will be done by raising of hands, be it physical or electronic. Excellent, thank you so much. Item seven future discussion topics. I've had a look, there's a few that I like to look off, but I shall hear everybody else's out first starting with Councillor Brown, who has changed her mind. It was a legacy hand, sorry. My apologies. Um, having had a look through, I think coaching and mentoring would be a really good discussion to have with this new group. I think that'd be a useful one. What do other people think? Councillor Strom? Yeah, I think that's a good one. And also the staff survey. Can we have both please for the next meeting? Yeah, Councillor Brown? I feel passionately, this is a bit of a hobby course of mine about succession planning and development, because I think it's so poor generally across so many organisations. And I guess just to pick on one, the estates situation is we had a somebody who'd been in post for a very, very long time who suddenly left, we lost all the knowledge. And now we're struggling to, well, we have now filled the senior post, but we've been, we've used agency staff and so forth. And but you've lost all that knowledge and, and you don't get a proper transition. And so I think we should be looking at that and particularly for really senior and operationally critical roles, we should be looking I know it's difficult with pay and the funding, but having some kind of a transition, so that it doesn't just get dropped. I mean, I've had a casework with residents where the person's left, and then there's no knowledge passed on, and they have no clue. And your casework just falls into a hole in the middle, and you start completely over again. And obviously, that's those are fairly small things. But in terms of big projects, I think big projects have been held up because of a lack of passing on acknowledge. So I think succession planning is really, really important. And I think we should be doing a lot more of it, particularly in the critical roles, like like estates, and obviously service director levels, and those those kind of roles, we should be looking at how we develop and how we plan for the session, not waiting till someone leaves. Okay, I get that. And I agree that is definitely something that's worth discussing. Personally, I feel that might be something that's worth waiting to after we've had our peer review, taking the information from peer review, and then looking at the succession planning from that. But again, welcome to bring that in as a discussion point. I'll just go to Councillor Bryan. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yep. Yeah. I was going to agree with Ruth, it's really, really important. But now you've reminded us about the peer review, I'm quite happy to go that it is actually for the future. I go with the counselling and mentoring for the next meeting. Councillor Strom. Yeah, just coming back on succession planning. And you know, most organisations where you've got a key critical person, you know, you, you should have in terms of conditions that if they are planning to resign and leave, if it's a senior senior person, you probably say that they have to work six months notice, less senior three months, and if you're not really bothered about them only a month, and you can control it that way a little bit. But you know, but again, that's maybe something that as an organisation, our senior managers need to look at. But I, you know, somebody like Anthony, I would expect him to be working six months notice if he decided he wanted to leave us as a minimum. Thank you. Councillor Brown, is that? Yes, yeah, I just wanted to respond to that. I'm absolutely in agreement with you that it makes more sense to after the peer review that that's that's that sensible. I haven't got a problem with that. I wasn't saying it's an immediate, it's something that's important and that should be in our thinking but doesn't necessarily need to be urgent now. But just following on from what Councillor Strong said, the issue is once someone knows they're moving on, their motivation quite often collapses, falls, often they've got lots of levoing them. So even with a three month notice period, we sometimes see people go out the door very, very fast. And, and there's no time really to do that, that following on. And, and, you know, and lots of corporates will will march people out the door as soon as they resign. Because, you know, that they're worried about confidentiality and all sorts of things, not saying that it's different in councils, but practically keeping someone's motivation is very difficult once they've decided to move on. So I think, whilst I agree with Councillor Strong, that it'd be lovely to do that. And I think a lot of the the senior roles are all three months, at least, aren't they? Rebecca, I think they are. In practice, that can end up being a lot shorter than it sounds, by the time they, you know, they've actually factored in all their leave and that kind of thing. So I'm not sure that's the answer. I think that's definitely a conversation that we will have when we move on to the succession planning area. And I definitely do want to have that as soon as we've had the peer review, because it is vitally important. I saw a hand go up by Ian, but it's gone down again. So no problems at all. So are we happy to have the coaching and mentoring discussed at the next meeting, as well as the feedback from the staff consultation? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you so much. In that case. I shall close the meeting at 10.52. Our next meeting will be on the 9th of October 2024. And I thank everybody for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very good discussion. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Goodbye, everybody. Bye. Thanks. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]