Agenda item

6.1  Cllr Gordon resumed as Chair of the meeting.  The Chair welcomed representatives from Joint Unions to the meeting. The Unions had written to the Panel to highlight concerns with the Councils process for dealing with workforce and work place issues, with particular reference to discrimination and bullying.  The Joint Unions submitted a report and made a number of recommendations.

6.2  The Chair informed the meeting the Union would be recording the meeting.

Joint Union Presentation

6.3  The Joint Unions (Unison, Unite and GMB) withdrew their support for the independent investigation in to bullying and harassment.  The attached report highlighted the Joint Union concerns and recommendations for action arising from this investigation.  The following provides a summary of the key points from the presentation.

·  It was suggested experiences of bullying and harassment were not isolated within the call centre but other similar experiences had been recorded elsewhere across the Council.  Bullying, harassment and discrimination in the workplace has continued to affect an unacceptable number of staff.

·  Whilst the Joint Unions believed that the Council was not racist, it was suggested that further work was necessary to improve equalities in the workplace. It was acknowledged that the Council would be rolling-out diversity training for managerial staff and had recently launched its Inclusive Leadership Programme.

·  The Joint Unions believed that proposals put forward by the Council did not go far enough in responding to their concerns and had therefore made a number of recommendations for improvement (see section 2, page 64 of the submitted report).

·  It was noted that Unions were in the process of surveying their membership and consulting shop stewards to further identify instances of bullying, harassment and discrimination across the council.  Initial findings had revealed problems in reporting incidents, staff not being taken seriously and fear of retaliatory action by managers.

·  Although a staff survey was undertaken in October and November 2018, the results of the Staff Survey had not been released and the Joint Unions looked forward to this data being released promptly.

·  It was pointed out there was over representation of black and other minority ethnic groups in lower pay scales of employees.  Conversely, there was an over-representation of black and minority ethnic staff in cases of disciplinary action.  It was suggested that similar issues were being noted in the incidence of suspensions among black and other minority ethnic groups.

·  The importance of staffing and workforce statistics was highlighted to the panel and it had been recommended that disciplinary data should be carefully monitored to establish any trends or patterns among those staff affected. 

·  The Council had made a number of service improvements and initiatives in response to the Commission for Racial Equality report (p123-34 of agenda pack). In this pamphlet the council recognised the importance of analysing workforce data and scrutinising the impact of corporate decisions on staff.

·  The workforce profile from 2017/18 indicated that 4,300 staff were employed by the council, though this data did not include agency workers.  This report also suggested that the council did not centrally coordinate or monitor data on grievances (e.g. how many are made, how many upheld and the grade of officers making these).  Whilst the council recorded protected characteristics of staff, this was not recorded for grievances or other disciplinary behaviour.

·  At the end of 2018/19 there were 835 agency staff who were not recorded in the staff profile. There was also no record of the protected characteristics of agency staff, though the Unions own analysis demonstrated that the majority of staff were of black ethnic origin.  It was suggested that agency workers were used for excessively long periods of time masking the need for full time permanent staff. It was suggested that agency staff were also treated differently; they were treated with less respect, and had limited employment rights. A model agency worker protocol was submitted to the Panel which would allow proper monitoring of agency workers.

·  It was suggested that a sum of up to £5,000 was recharged to departments to pay for the recruitment of permanent staff which meant that it may be more cost efficient to recruit temporary workers against permanent staff.

·  Joint Unions were disappointed that they had to withdraw support for the independent investigation into bullying and harassment.  It was suggested that staff do not have confidence in the policies and procedures for dealing with claims of bullying and harassment given that their concerns stemmed back a number of years.  A new objective process was needed to monitor and assess complaints against managers.

Questions

6.4  The Panel noted that there were established channels through which the Union engage and involve the council, and requested an update on how effective these channels had been in progressing the concerns outlined above. The Panel also sought to clarify what outcomes it hoped to achieve from this meeting. 

·  It was reported that Unions meet council representatives through the General Committee and met with the Head of Human Resources on a monthly basis and the Mayor on a quarterly basis. 

·  The agency workers motion had gone through all these channels without any formal response from the council. That meant that almost 1,000 staff were not recorded within the staff profile of the council.

·  In addition, Unions had also requested data from the council in respect of grievance and disciplinary monitoring, which to date, had also not been provided.  The Unions had asked the council for this 9-10 months ago at Local Joint Committees. Without this data, there was little prospect of progress between the Union and the management as this provided the evidence for their respective positions.

6.5  The panel sought to understand how many cases of harassment and bullying they had identified thus far? 

·  The Joint Unions were working together on this and compiling a joint report.  The Unions were also undertaking a survey and would release a report of all these findings and its own data when this was ready in the coming weeks.  It was highlighted that in terms of agency staff, many of these were not members of the union so may not even come forward.

6.6  In addition the Panel wanted to know more details about the investigations undertaken by the Union and what the outcomes of that investigation were? 

·  This investigation focused on staff working within the housing call centre, and not exclusively on agency staff working there. There had been serious allegations made in this service which had still not been satisfactorily resolved.  It was also reiterated that staff felt scared to be involved in the formal investigations or even to take out grievances such as described in the papers.

6.7  In terms of outcomes, the Panel wanted to know what actions the Union wanted the Council to take, to bring them back on board? 

·  The Union cited the letter attached as appendix B which set out why the Unions withdrew from the independent investigation into bullying and harassment.  This also set out what reassurances the Union were seeking.  The most significant stumbling block was the appointment of an internal manager to lead the review and the perception that it was management’s view the managers in the housing call centre had not committed any wrong doing whilst the investigation was still ongoing.  The Unions could therefore not re-join the independent investigation whilst there was some element of presumption in the outcome of the review.

6.8  The Panel enquired if there was further data the Union had to substantiate the positions made in the paper.  Did the Union keep data on the protected characteristics of its members?  Was the Union involved in the appointment of the independent investigator? 

·  In response, Union officers noted that whilst individual incidents which led to the Union withdrawing from the independent investigation may appear trivial, cumulatively these were important.

·  In terms of the appointment for the investigator for the independent review this was discussed with the Union and they were aware of a list of potential appointees which the council was to appoint from.  Whilst the Unions had no issues with the recruitment process per se, it did have significant reservations about the outcome in which an existing manager within the service area (which was under investigation for bullying and harassment) was appointed.

·  It should be noted that the Unions embark on joint approaches to the solution of work force issues which may risk its own reputation amongst its members.  It must be understood that members of the union may be mistrustful of the management and therefore wary of cooperative working arrangements between the Union and the management.  The Union withdrew from the independent review when it had no further option, as workers themselves indicated that they were withdrawing from the investigation process as they had no faith in the council conducting this investigation fairly.  This was the main reason why the Unions withdrew from the independent investigation.

·  In terms of statistics, the Union confirmed that it did hold data on the protected characteristics of its members.

·  The Unions emphasised that members should be more involved in the appeals process.  It was noted that in the past, it was possible for disciplinary disputes to be heard by members as a final appeal, but this had now ceased.  It was felt that this was a very valuable process, and it was therefore recommended that the final process of appeal to members should be reinstated. 

Agreed: The Joint Unions to provide the data to support the points made in the report about the number of cases reported to the Unions for harassment and bullying.

6.9  What other councils operate a member’s appeal process. How does this relate to decisions taken by an independent investigator?

·  It was noted that a number of neighbouring boroughs have a final member appeal process including Enfield and Hillingdon.  The Unions indicated that it was very important to maintain the link between the members and council staff. Further details would be sought of the number and nature of such member enquiry processes used at other boroughs.

·  In relation to this investigation, it was known that the independent investigator was a consultant which was probably at some considerable cost to the council or the local taxpayer.

Agreed: The Unions would make enquiries about member appeal processes in other London Boroughs.

6.10 Can you explain how the £5,000 external recharge is applied to departments in the recruitment process and how this may impact on the employment of the permanent staff?

·  The Unions responded that currently, departments were recharged up to £5,000 to cover the costs of staff recruitment.  This is taken from the budget of the service area.  The Unions suggested that this was a disincentive to recruit permanent staff as there were no associated recruitment cost for agency staff.  The Unions indicated that this process should be reviewed to minimise the number of agency staff that were used by the council.

6.11 Should the council trial the suspension of the £5,000 recharge in a department which has a high use of agency staff to see what impact that this had on the pattern of recruitment?

·  The Council responded that it was always looking to reduce agency spend, but this was a complex issue as this fee is levied to fund the operation of the corporate function of recruitment.  As £750k was needed to fund the recruitment team each year, if the recharge was not applied this sum would need to be found elsewhere in the organisation.  Further thought would be needed by the council to ascertain if there was a viable alternative mechanism to fund this service.

6.12 To conclude, the Unions noted that whilst there was an official body for them to meet with the management of the council (the CJC), in their view this had not functioned effectively for a number of years.  The CJC was a requirement of the council constitution which should be chaired by Unions and Members, yet it was suggested that no Director or senior manager had attended any of these meetings in recent years. The purpose of this CJC was to provide a forum where Unions could bring issues of importance to the attention of the Council and it was therefore an important part of local democratic accountability.  It was therefore recommended that members and the Council should reassess the role of CJC to ensure that this was working effectively.

6.13 The Chair thanked the Union representatives for attending and for making their case to the Panel.  It was noted that this was an ongoing situation and that a number of reports relating to the independent investigation would soon be published.  It was noted that the Scrutiny Chairs would be deciding on their work programmes shortly, and would discuss if and how to take this work forward into 2019/20.