Witnesses:
Mark
Nuti, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, and Public Health
(EDI Lead Member)
Natalie Bramhall, Cabinet Member for Land and
Property
Michael Smith, Chief of Staff to Chief Executive, and EDI
Lead
Nikki Parkhill, Head of Equality, Diversity and
Inclusion
Shella Smith, Director for People and Change
Sarah Richardson, Assistant Director - People Strategy &
Organisational Development
Simon Crowther, Director for Land and Property
Glenn Woodhead, Assistant Director for Workplace &
Facilities
Clare Burgess, Sight for Surrey Chief Executive
Key points
raised during the discussion:
- The
Chairman asked how exactly they would work with partner
organisations, residents, and the Council workforce to establish a
framework for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). The Head of
EDI explained that it was related to the 2030 vision of ensuring
that no one was left behind. The EDI team was currently developing
an evidence base to understand which residents, and who in the
Council’s workforce was being left behind and why. There was
a good understanding of geographical communities and priority
places, but a lack of understanding around areas such as identity,
disability, gender, and sexual orientation. The evidence base would
provide a starting point to understanding these areas. It was known
that partner organisations, such as voluntary and statutory sector
organisations, were interested in this piece of work, and the EDI
team would be working with them to develop a framework/strategy in
how to work together to ensure there was that right support with
the right timeliness. Things already in place would be identified
in order to ensure that resources would be prioritised to the right
place.
- The
Chairman asked what external organisations were represented in the
accessibility forum. The Head of EDI explained this was an internal
forum that brought together trade union representatives and
representatives from the Council’s staff network. The Head of
EDI highlighted the Disability Partnership Group which had a range
of stakeholders such as Sight for Surrey, the Coalition of Disabled
People and Healthwatch.
- In
reference to the Committee’s June 2023 recommendation on
using the voluntary, community and faith sector to get people with
disabilities work-ready, the Chairman noted it was not clear who
was being worked with to fulfil this. The Head of EDI explained
there was a list of organisations that were delivering
work-readiness training, funded by the Council, which could be
shared with the Committee. A Department of Work and Pensions’
2-year funded programme for community-based organisations provided
employment support for those with health conditions and
disabilities. Part of the EDI work would look at the opportunities
available at the Council. There had been early conversations to try
to identify work experience, supported internships and other paid
roles across the organisation, where new approaches could be tried
to give people the opportunity to see what it was like to work at
the Council, and looking at the support alongside this with the
skills development piece. The Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing
and Public Health added that the Council had recently secured
funding as one of 12 national sites under the individual placement
supporting primary care model, which would help provide employment
support to adults with long term disabilities to help them access
and maintain work.
- The
Director of People and Change drew attention to the workplace
adjustments that were in place to enable disabled colleagues to
continue to work or take jobs within the Council. A focus had been
on making the Council’s recruitment practices as inclusive as
possible, by reviewing it, such as how jobs were being advertised,
where jobs were being advertised and what job adverts said. There
would be inclusive leadership training provided to all managers at
the Council later this year.
- A
Member referred to the LGA peer review’s recommendation that
the Council should celebrate successes and asked if a list of
achievements of things delivered by the Council in the 2023/24
financial year could be shared. The Head of EDI explained that this
would be available in the final report of the 2023/24 EDI action
plan in May 2024. The Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and
Public Health noted the Sunnybank Trust in Epsom who did a lot of
work for people with learning disabilities and helping getting
people into employment.
- The
Chief Executive of Sight for Surrey explained that only 25% of
working age adults with sight loss were in paid employment, and
only 37% of working aged people who were deaf and used British sign
language as a first language were in employment. A big barrier was
the language used in job adverts, such as saying someone must be a
driver for a role that did not necessarily require this. The
Director of People and Change explained that some work had been
done within the Council to improve on this, but it was challenging
to do for all roles for an organisation of the Council’s
size. Council job adverts would be looked at across the board to
improve on this further.
- The
Chairman asked the Chief Executive of Sight for Surrey what the
issues were with getting people with disabilities work-ready, what
training Sight for Surrey offered and if Sight for Surrey received
any funding or other assistance from the Council for this. The
Chief Executive explained that a pilot employment programme had
been run in the past. A range of services was currently offered to
help people in their recovery and to get people back into the
community. There was success with a 2-year paid internship in
collaboration with the Thomas Pocklington Trust, which was
restricted to people who were blind, partially sighted, or deaf and
blind. An employability service was not currently offered due to
lack of funding, but it was in Sight for Surrey’s strategy.
No assistance was received from the Council for work-readiness and
employment training.
- A
Member asked who was providing the training opportunities for
under-represented groups in the green skills sector. The Head of
EDI explained that the green skills were all related to
sustainability and was important given the expected 8% growth in
job opportunities for the next seven years. Currently, the
providers delivering in this area were East Surrey College, Nescot
College and MIT skills. A support package would be going live in
April 2024, specifically designed to support underrepresented
groups in the ‘green skills’ sector, such as women,
minority ethnic groups, disabled people and care leavers. There
would be around £350,00 of investment in supporting people
into work. The three areas of work that the providers would be
doing were: making sure people were aware of the training
available, through general promotion and targeted work; supporting
people to successfully complete training; and supporting people
making the step into work, such as with CV development and
interview skills.
- A
Member referred to the budget for reasonable adjustments being
oversubscribed and asked for assurance that employees would get
what they needed. He asked where the funding for reasonable
adjustments was coming from and how the funding was being
remodelled. The Director for People and Change said there was a
statutory responsibility for the Council to provide reasonable
adjustments to disabled employees where needed. There was a
centralised budget for this within the People and Change
Directorate. Work was being done to ensure the budget was the right
size, with extra money being taken from elsewhere within People and
Change. A workplace adjustments sustainability group had been
established, which included representatives from the IT service,
Land and Property, Finance and People and Change, to ensure the
budget would be correctly sized in future. The Member queried if
the reasonable adjustments would stop if the budget was
outstripped, or where the extra money would come from. The Director
of People and Change clarified that reasonable adjustments would
not stop due to statutory responsibilities and extra money would be
taken from other areas within the People and Change
budget.
- The
Member asked for the size of the budget provided for reasonable
adjustments. The Assistant Director of People Strategy &
Organisational Development explained that People and Change had
budgeted £149,000. As of month 10, the total spend was
£314,000.
- The
Chairman asked for confirmation that the Council was using all
available Access to Work grants from the Department of Work and
Pensions. The Director for People and Change confirmed that
employees were encouraged to try to get funding through Access to
Work, which the employees would have to apply for themselves. There
were some issues with this service, such as waiting times. Often
the Council’s internal service could react more quickly to
any needs an individual had.
- A
Member asked what was being done to move some staff away from a
view, noted by the Local Government Association (LGA) Peer
Challenge, that Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) were a
‘tick-box exercise’. The Chief of Staff explained the
Council had strengthened EIAs through a new officer and the
roll-out of an employee training programme that would talk about
the importance of the EIA process and look to drive accountability
and responsibility at the right parts of the organisation. There
were now EIA champions trained in the EIA process in every
department and service area. Constant learning from the EIA process
was now a focus. The Council was entering into the budget planning
cycle for 2025/26 and a key part of this was the EIA assessments
for all medium-term financial strategies, change programmes and the
transformation occurring, to aid decision-making. Plans had already
been implemented, but training was being looked at to strengthen
and raise accountability and responsibility. This would be attached
to all the decisions and change by threading it through the budget
process. The lessons and reflection of what happened would help
inform how it would be moved forward in the future.
- The
Member asked if all forms of disability, including those invisible,
were considered and treated with equal importance. The Head of EDI
reassured the Committee that in the staff network there was a
specific focus on neurodiversity, including things such as dyslexia
and autism. There was a piece of work around the accessibility of
reports and how the council was ensuring communication was
accessible for staff, Members, and residents. The Accessibility
Officer in the EDI team was helping the Council with accessibility,
and there were colleagues working in digital accessibility and
inclusion.
- A
Member asked if there were any problems anticipated with
implementing the EDI Strategy once funding for the fixed term
Accessibility Officer and Digital Accessibility Officers roles
ended in 2025. The Chief of Staff explained there were currently no
anticipated problems with this. The 2023/24 and 2024/25 action
plans were being developed as part of the LGA Peer Review. The
accessibility roles were critical to moving forward some of the
work, both in the digital space and built assets. There was
awareness of the financial envelope and challenges ahead, which was
why the two officer roles were of a fixed term nature. The amount
of work that was occurring and, in the pipeline, would be used to
build the longer-term vision, the budget needs and requirements, as
part of the budget-setting period. Resource was in place to deliver
the EDI strategy and medium-term ambitions and longer-term
ambitions would be built on over the next year.
- The Member asked what the timeline was for
completing EDI’s longer-term vision. The Chief of Staff
explained it was a work in progress and would be a part of the EDI
annual review, looking at what the 2025/26 process would look like.
This would be available around summer
2024.The Cabinet Member for Health,
Wellbeing and Public Health noted that once EDI’s ethos was
embedded within the Council’s staff and culture, issues would
eventually start to disappear.
- The
Chairman raised that the Committee recently had a tour of Woodhatch
Place with Surrey Coalition of Disabled People, to demonstrate work
that had been carried out according to the Committee’s
recommendation of June 2023. The Coalition representatives were
impressed with the progress made and the further plans for more
work.
- A
Member asked what the estimated cost was for the accessibility
issues identified in Surrey Coalition’s feedback from the
corporate hub tours of autumn 2023, and if it could be confirmed if
the 2024/25 capital corporate maintenance budget was sufficient to
meet everything required to ensure all buildings were accessible.
The Cabinet Member for Property, Waste and Infrastructure explained
that it was difficult to ascertain the total cost of the items
identified because the items were not costed as one project. The
smaller items had been delivered through the facilities
management’s day-to-day works process. Attempts were made to
address numerous items within existing projects, already scheduled
to take place. There were other projects involving the complete
re-development of areas where accessibility issues were dealt with
within the design, such as the Dakota contact centre. There were
active accessibility works such as the internal and external
signage at Woodhatch. So far, £600,000 had been spent. There
would be additional work at Dakota House and Victoria Gate. Further
items were still being assessed for feasibility, and a solution was
being developed before the items were considered for endorsement at
the property panel, the main office client board, and the
accessibility forum. There was confidence that the budget was
sufficient to cover all reasonable items in the accessible
lists.
- The Member raised
that there was no signage in the lifts at Woodhatch Place. The
Assistant Director for Workplace & Facilities said he would
look into this. The Chairman asked if there was a plan in place to
resolve the sometimes-unpredictable performance of the lifts at
Woodhatch Place. The Assistant Director for Workplace &
Facilities explained that it had not yet been acted upon, but there
was software that would be implemented within the next few months
which would allow facilities to pre-empt any issues with the
lifts.
Actions:
- The Head of Equality,
Diversity, and Inclusion to share a list of achievements of the EDI
team in the 2023/24 financial year.
- The Head of Equality,
Diversity, and Inclusion to provide a list detailing what
organisations SCC is funding to help people with disabilities be
work-ready.
- In summer 2024, EDI
Team to share the longer-term visions within the EDI
Strategy.
- EDI Team to provide a
figure for how much money was spent on EDI in the 2023/24 financial
year and a breakdown of how it was spent.
- The Assistant
Director for Workplace & Facilities to check the signage in the
lifts at Woodhatch to ensure all accessibility signage links
together.
Resolved:
The
Resources & Performance Select Committee recommends
that:
- The recommendations of the LGA peer challenge and those of the
three workplace reviews are incorporated into the 2024/25 Equality,
Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.
- The Council’s EDI and People & Change teams work with
voluntary organisations representing people with lived experience
of disability to help them prepare people with all forms of
disabilities for employment, and report back to the Select
Committee within 12 months the numbers engaged in work-ready
training and outcomes.
David
Harmer left at 12.17pm