Agenda item

7.1  The Chair introduced Tim Shields (Chief Executive), Sonia Khan (Head of Policy & Partnerships) and Dan Paul (Director of Human Resources) in attendance for this item.

7.2  The Chief Executive highlighted a number of issues relating to the wider context for this work in Hackney. 

·  The council delivered a wide range of services 24-7 which included the provision of social care services to its most vulnerable residents and the management of over 20,000 local homes.  The council also operated an effective street cleansing service, supported a number of award-winning parks and hosted a wide range of cultural events for the community.

·  The most recent resident’s survey reported that 73% of local people were happy living in Hackney and trusted the council which was above the national average.

·  Despite the pressures on local government at this time, the council was still moving forward and continued to build new homes and new schools as well as improving the boroughs parks and other infrastructure. 

·  The council is also at the forefront of new developments, such as integrated commissioning between health and social care services.  Similarly, the council is setting up a housing company and an energy company.

·  Despite bringing both children’s and housing services back in house, the council has reduced the number of management staff across the organisation which has helped to protect front line services. 

·  The requirement to innovate and reform in response to the central government cuts to local government funding has meant that the council is very busy.  In this context, staff were required to work more efficiently and smarter.

·  The expectations of the council from local residents had also increased.

·  The Council employed the largest number of apprentices among other London boroughs and also offered placements and work opportunities for people with special educational needs or a disability. 85% of participants in the apprenticeship programme were from BAME backgrounds.

·  In the context of the above, staff were provided with training and development opportunities as well as a wider package of support and benefits. 

·  In addition, it was important that all staff were engaged and contributed to the council’s vision of being the best local authority employer in London.  90 staff participated in developing this vision for the council and all staff were consulted.

7.3  Sonia Kahn, Head of Policy and Partnerships is also the equalities lead for the council.  This work ensured that the council had appropriate strategies and plans in place to respond to its equalities duties. The council also approved the Single Equalities Scheme in 2018 which focused on inclusive leadership and workforce diversity.

7.4   The attached report provided an overview of the key equality issues for the council which included:

·  Under representation of BAME and disabled staff at senior levels;

·  Under representation of disabled staff at all levels;

·  Under representation of Charedi community at all staff levels;

·  Variations in workforce diversity between directorates;

·  Lower rates of staff satisfaction among disabled and BAME staff members in the last three surveys.

7.5  Five work strands had been established to respond to the equality issues identified (at 7.4) these included:

·  Organisational development, promoting equality and diversity – coherent training programme which promotes equality and diversity for staff and managers;

·  Communications –ensure all staff are aware of the council’s commitment to equality;

·  Improving the employee journey for disabled staff –removal of organisational barriers which inhibit the recruitment and progression of disabled workers;

·  Inclusive leadership – to ensure that senior managers understand and value inclusive leadership to help develop workforce diversity;

·  Tackle the lack of diversity (disabled and BAME staff) at senior levels.

At the request of the Chair, those present agreed to take forward the remaining agenda items beyond the 22.00 standing orders time limit.

7.6  The overarching aim of this work was to create an environment and culture where all staff feel supported and can thrive, irrespective whether staff were new to the organisation or their grade.  The council has established a number of performance measures to assess progress to these goals which were documented in the report.

7.7  Work had already begun in responding to the challenges identified.  There would be compulsory on-line training to all managers within the organisation (c.700) and face to face meetings with Heads of Service to ensure that this key staff group were aware of and supported cultural competencies and diversity issues across the borough.

7.8  The Council has commenced the Inclusive leadership programme and was seeking to recruit between 30-50 people across the organisation.  Those staff selected would receive training and development to run the inclusive leadership programme.

Questions

7.9  Members of the panel raised concerns about the disproportionality of children from black and other minority ethnic background in the care system, who are under achieving at school and even amongst those who have been excluded.  Despite the over-representation of black and other minority ethnic children and young people in the services that the council operate, there was still evidence that all white assessment panels were operating.  Whilst there had been some encouraging developments (such as the appointment of a young black man to lead the Young Black Men Project, it was felt that much more could be done. 

·  It was noted that work had only just begun and that the proactive work had yet to begin within this programme.  It should be noted that this was a complex and constantly evolving situation which would require more than one solution, and thus the programme would seek to develop a basket of responses to improve workforce diversity and progression.

·  It was also reported that a task group of BAME staff was considering workforce issues, including the possibility of positive action (e.g. where two candidates are tied to recruit where there is a gap in demography) or general occupational requirements where this can be restrictive depending on the nature of the work.

·  The council was also using a co-production approach with staff through the focus groups to ensure that the responses developed were aligned to the expectations of staff.

7.10  The Panel suggested that some long serving staff may have the experience, but whose transferable skills (e.g. IT, data handling, interviewing) were not as polished as more recently recruited staff.  The Panel therefore sought to understand what could be done to support staff who had been in post many years but had not progressed and advanced within the organisation, in particular how the staff appraisal system was used to develop the workforce?

·  The Unions also suggested that it would be a valuable exercise to assess the diversity of the workforce before and after a restructure to ensure that this continued to reflect the demography of the local community.

·  The Council responded that the Inclusive Leadership Programme would help to address these issues.  It was also noted that the council supports a secondment process where staff can take employment in other areas of the business of the council to expand and develop their skills.

·  The Council also noted that interview training was available for all staff and had developed a network of coaches to support staff development.  This enabled the council to place staff with appropriately trained and qualified staff to help advance their career. There was also a comprehensive and easy to book suite of training programmes available to support staff development. 

7.11  Union representatives sought to understand how council restructures impacted on long serving and experienced staff, as there was a perception that such staff could be laid-off and given redundancy packages at significant cost to the council when this money could be better spent retraining or developing staff to enable them to adapt their roles within the restructured service.

·  The Council responded that it was completely transparent on the protected characteristics of those staff impacted by council restructures and published all this data.

7.12  The Panel noted the importance of collecting data on protected characteristics for all disciplinary procedures and wanted to understand what work had been undertaken to improve the councils understanding of this issue?

·  The Council noted that this was an ongoing issue which required some sensitivity.  Whilst it would be useful to collect data on the protected characteristics of staff involved in disciplinary procedures, the council had to be mindful of protecting the identity of those involved.