Agenda item

To receive a report from the Head of People, Performance and Waste.

The Committee had before it and NOTED a *report from the Head of People Performance and Waste.

The following was highlighted in the report:

·         The report needed to balance the need to give corporate information whilst ensuring that it was also secure and in line with data protection requirements.

·         Sickness year on year was down with projections seeing the Council finish 2024/25 at 7.75 days per full time employee (FTE) down from 10.45 days in the previous full financial year.

·         Turnover for the year was slightly up with projections seeing the Council at 18% compared with last year at 17%.

·         Agency spend year on year was down with projections seeing the Council finish the current financial year below the £680,000 recorded for the previous financial year.

·         Did the flu jab have an impact on the level of sickness the Council faced? Looking at the background data, less staff had sickness absence compared to the previous financial year. Looking at the reasons for sickness absence, infection and flu still remained high. Other measures remained in place such as sanitising stations.

·         Employee health checks took place again in January 2025 and the Leisure Team would be back to carry them out again in June 2025.

·         How did the Council’s sickness absence compare to other authorities? The Council provided regular updates on sickness data, however, it remained a challenge to find comparison data that was in the public domain. In October last year Devon County Council shared that employees took 8.9 days absence a year, however, that was per employee and not per FTE as reported by the Council.

·         Were absence management meetings taking place? There was a high correlation between the absence warnings and absence meetings with staff. That, should be seen as a supportive measure in understanding the reasons for absence and the measures the Council took to support the employee.

·         Apprenticeships were still a key component of the Council and their `grow our own workforce’ policy. There were 14 apprenticeships across the Council at the time of reporting. The Council was working with providers both locally and nationally to cater to the apprenticeship offering for the coming financial year.

Discussion took place regarding:

·         The Operations Manager for People Services would report back after the meeting with the percentage take up of the staff survey. Another staff survey would follow later in 2025.

·         An overview was provided regarding challenges relating to post 16 education provision in the Mid Devon area. How could the Council grow their apprenticeships beyond 14? What were the barriers that kept it stuck around the dozen mark? The apprenticeships across the Council comprised of those termed as upskilling apprenticeships as well as perhaps more traditional apprenticeships, that is, someone being employed as an apprentice. There was a split of delivery methods of education between face to face and on-line. The Council looked at avenues that they could put in place to enable people to undertake and complete apprenticeships.

·         Some staff joined the Council as an apprentice in one department and found full employment within another department of the organisation.

·         Some apprentices in the Building Services Team had to travel to Barnstaple or Exeter for skills training and the Council looked at how they best supported those individuals.

·         Masonry Apprenticeships presented the Council with a challenge due to the limited number of courses available as well as where they were held, when the intake began and whether they were day or block release.

·         The Council may need to tailor its apprenticeship offering to what was available in the local area.

·         Exit interviews are continuously reviewed, as for reasons why people leave the Council, it is unlikely that they would get a reason from everyone but at the moment they get responses from 50% of those who leave.

·         The Council had a good retention rate for apprentices. The Operations Manager for People Services would quote apprentice retention rate statistics in his next report.

·         The Job Centre reported that at present few businesses were hiring apprentices.

·         Assistance schemes were available for those with mobility needs to allow them to get to college etc.

·         Congratulations were given to those officers who were involved in a social occasion and raised £480 for Churches Housing Action Team.

·         The Council believed that the current arrangement with regard to hybrid working (2 day 3 day split) was working well. From a job retention and recruitment perspective, hybrid working was very important to staff. The officer was asked to include numbers of staff working in a hybrid way in a future report. How often a member of staff worked from home was at the discretion of their line-manager, who had the ability to insist that a member of staff worked every day from the office.

Note: *report previously circulated.