Agenda item

This report is being brought to People, Performance and Development Committee for the Committee to comment on the refreshed Human Resource & Organisational (HR&OD) strategy 2017-2019 in accordance with Surrey County Council’s Scheme of Delegation.

Declarations of interest:

None

Witnesses:

Ken Akers, Head of HR & OD

Debbie Bala, Senior HR Advisor

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.     The report was introduced by officers who informed the Committee that there had been discussions as to the period of time that the Human Resources & Organisational Development (HR & OD) Strategy should cover. It had, however, been agreed that the Strategy should span two (2017- 2019) rather than five years (2017 – 2022) due to potential changes in the structure of SCC’s workforce as part of the Orbis integration and recognising that the new Chief Executive may wish to review the Strategy.

2.     Members requested further detail on the dashboard that would be used to measure performance against the HR & OD Strategy. Officers stated that key metrics including turnover, promotion, retention, career development and equality would be used to judge the success of the Council in embedding the Strategy. The dashboard was being developed to collect data from these key metrics which would then presented in a series of graphs and charts. It was agreed that the Committee should receive a report which provided details of how the dashboard was developing, with examples of how the charts/ graphs would be formatted, at its meeting on 29 January 2018 for comment by the Committee. PPDC further agreed that the performance against the HR & OD Strategy should be regularly reported to the Committee on a biannual basis.

3.     Members were informed that Chief Executives Direct Reports had given its approval for HR to review the quality of workforce data that was available at service level to support SCC in strategic planning around staffing levels in specific areas of the organisation. The Committee asked the extent to which the number of staff on the Council’s payroll provided officers with sufficient information to undertake workforce planning. They were informed that this was a crude measure and didn’t provide detail on the structure of the workforce or the recruitment being undertaken to vacancies. Further clarity was sought on whether cross-checking took place between the Council’s payroll and the structure of the organisation. The Committee was informed that an annual audit was undertaken by officers but stated that there was a disconnect between how the HR and Finance Teams viewed SCC’s organisational structure. Specifically, officers indicated that the Finance Team planned budgets around what heads of service anticipated their staffing levels would be for the coming year which created a mismatch in data reported by the Management Information as posts were not always recruited to.

4.     The discussion turned to staff recruitment within individual services and Members asked whether the Council could create a contingency staffing budget that managers could apply to for employing additional members of staff. Officers indicated that there was a need for heads of service to retain a degree of flexibility within their staffing budgets to enable them to respond to specific challenges and opportunities that may arise. Members were advised that SCC could benefit from a policy on holding vacancies to ensure that the service delivery wasn’t being adversely impacted although this was a conversation that would need to take place once the new Chief Executive was in post.

5.     The Committee inquired about the extent to which the Orbis Partnership was part of the HR & OD Strategy. Members were informed that Orbis was included under the Transformation Section of the Strategy although it had been created for SCC as an Orbis customer and so was more applicable to staff directly employed by the Council

Actions/ further information to be provided:

i.       The Committee to receive an update on the indicators that will be used to measure performance against the HR & OD Strategy at the Committee’s meeting on 29 January 2017.

RESOLVED:

The People, Performance and Development Committee:

i.       reviewed and comment on the refreshed two year HR&OD Strategy; and

ii.      agreed to take six monthly reports to review progress of key aims and measures.