COPY ITEM CA8 (Updated)
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE 18 DECEMBER 2008
“OPPORTUNITIES IN THE COUNCIL”
The topic “Opportunities within the County Council” was raised in the Peer Review and in the Corporate Performance Assessment. The aim of the select committee question and answer session was to:
The exercise also had a dual role: informing Members of the Council’s obligations as an employer (the requirements placed upon it as a public body by a range of legislation), and to raise the awareness of Councillors by providing training.
By way of introduction to the topic, Steve Munn emphasised that as well as the moral and legal compulsions for developing a more diverse workforce, diversity was also a key business issue. As the supporting documentation in the report CG5 (a) emphasised, a recent CBI/TUC report, “Talent not Tokenism” had highlighted how diversity in the workforce was good for businesses and for customers. Tangible benefits for organisations included:
On completion of the select committee process, the Lead Members, the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman agreed to formulate the following proposals for the Committee’s consideration:
The Committee RECOMMENDS:
1. That the Cabinet should consider whether there is any funding that can be identified, in the region of £10,000 (to replace what had previously been drawn upon from the pilot “Access to Work” fund), and to promote this as a means to support the payment of “reasonable adjustment” requests from employees with a disability. (These have been paid for by Corporate Human Resources under the pilot arrangement over the past 3 years resulting in equipment being provided to 5 staff at a cost of approximately £5,000); (the figure given is based on 1% of staff needing some adjustment and the average cost being £50 according to Disability Rights Commission. However, if there are significantly more requests that this, additional funding may need to be sought).
2. That it has identified a need for more training, both for Members and staff on the Council’s duties and responsibilities as an employer and on diversity. It is RECOMMENDED that the Diversity e-learning pilot in Corporate Core should be extended to Councillors, who should be encouraged to undertake the training. The need for Member training to meet statutory obligations in these and in other areas of the Council’s business, should feed into the training programme for Members in the new Council and form part of their formal induction process.
3. The Cabinet to consider appointing (creating) a Member champion for Equalities.
4. That all Members should receive a summary of the select committee question and answer session and the conclusions reached, to assist in raising awareness of the Council’s duties as an employer, of the business benefits of a diverse workforce and as a training outcome.
5. That the impact of this work is evaluated in 12 months time to assess what improvements have been made.
Steve Munn and Bekkie Scales (Strategic Human Resources & Organisational Development) introduced the background material, mainly comprising the third Equality Duties in Employment Report (2008) that the Council had been required to produce.
Key lines of enquiry had been developed for the select committee and these are provided below, together with the detailed, prepared responses of the officers.
In addition, the following points were made and questions raised (with the Officers responding as indicated).
It was suggested that the percentage of British Minority Ethnic (BME) employees in the top grades on pages 6 and 7 of the background material did not seem to be reflected elsewhere (eg on page 32). This was because the later figures excluded schools (ie not “Green Book” employees) and uniformed fire fighters.
There were comments that the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) appeared to be mainly concerned with physical disability and did not take sufficient account, for instance, of deaf, blind or mentally ill people. Mental health, in particular, was a very difficult area to address among employees and it was acknowledged that there needed to be a greater focus on this. Officers said that they were aware that disability of various kinds was under-reported. Hence the “Two Ticks” symbol had been sought and achieved by the Council (see below for further explanation). This helped to ensure priority access through the Oxfordshire Employment Service for all disabled people. Restore was also working closely with Barry Parsons in Social & Community Services (the Oxfordshire Employment Service).
The DDA provided a definition of the disabled but there were issues concerning how the definition was applied. The Committee’s impression was that it was both broad and vague, putting the onus on the individual to decide whether or not they were “disabled”. There were issues concerning what qualified as “impairment” to one’s ability to undertake normal daily duties. Perhaps this should be qualified by the Council (like the Office for National statistics) introducing a more precise definition such as “significantly impairing” one’s ability to undertake everyday work duties. However, as far as the officers were concerned, the critical issue to help in facilitating the implementation of the DDA was to have the right kind of culture to allow people to be comfortable about declaring and categorising their disability. Disability was not a static concept and one needed to adapt understanding of concepts. However, measurement of disability, BME, gender etc needed to be applied consistently by the organisation. Some local authorities were more stringent than others. Nevertheless, the Council needed to be clear that it was gathering statistics for the right reasons, not for the sake of having statistics available. It was important that the Committee recognised that it was on a continuum of understanding and that the authority was not an inhibitor of increased understanding. Certainly, in these terms the Council was making improvements. For instance, the Social Inclusion Reference Group was an externally focused group; the Learning Communities project was working with 30 people from the targets groups covered in the Equality Duties report to try to get them back into training and employment; the Oxfordshire Employment Service had demonstrated that it had increased the employment opportunities to disabled people.
The Committee emphasized that there were two elements to making improvements to the Council’s performance and perceptions of the authority in terms of its diversity in employment: the legal requirements in employment regulations, but also, its social and moral obligations. In the latter respects, the Committee considered that there was more that could be done.
Turning in more detail to the key lines of enquiry below, and in respect of questions 1-4, the business case for diversity was again emphasized as being critical and that processes still needed to be further developed to ensure that this was implemented. In terms of engaging with Councillors (a critical factor in the process towards achieving Level 3 of the new Equality Standard), the select committee exercise was appreciated. But elsewhere, Councillor training had been a bit scant.
On the question of age and discrimination, it was reported that statistics were gathered concerning age in relation to applications and employment. The legislation concerning age and discrimination had been implemented in 2006. However, the Committee felt that age discrimination should be “higher on the radar” as an area for action rather than monitoring.
The Committee also questioned and commented on how the authority could ensure that it was “getting the best person for the job”, positive action and how trends in introducing more diversity could change over time. During discussions on these areas, the Officers clarified the legal position concerning discrimination on the grounds of religion. There were circumstances when the employing body could appoint a person of a particular religious faith if there was a genuine occupational requirement to do so.
Key lines of enquiry and officer responses
1. Why is it important for the Council to monitor and report on equality in employment issues?
Monitoring equality in employment is a legal duty and agreed Council policy.
There are two major benefits to the business; it ensures that the Council has a fully competitive process that does not unwittingly exclude any talent and as services are designed to encourage opportunity, independence and enterprise for all Oxfordshire residents, it would be contradictory for the biggest employer to prevent the same people getting jobs.
2. How well do we fulfil the requirements of the relevant legislation?
The Equality Standard for Local Government is an established national framework for responding to the varied requirements of equality legislation. The standard has recently been made more challenging (responding to legal changes) and the Council has committed itself to achieve Level 3 (middle) for 2009 and move towards Level 5 (the top end of the standard).
Level 3 would be an achievement for a large County and would place Oxfordshire within the top third. This middle position reflects the variation within the Council where good policies, practice, expertise and positive outcomes for its customers sit alongside areas of inactivity leading to a lack of consistency.
3. Are Members aware of and what are the equality duties that the Council has to monitor and report on? How is this undertaken?
Equality legislation has been discussed in full Council, where the Equality Standard and Comprehensive Policy Scheme has been agreed along with other schemes on Disability, Race & Gender.Specific training has been given to Members on specific aspects of legislation e.g. race. However, this has reached very few Members and is an acknowledged weakness in the most recent report from the Audit Commission. This begged the question of a new training regime being required in the new Council.
Note: The Scrutiny function provides an opportunity for Councillor development, as does attendance at the Social Inclusion Reference Group.
4. How are Members informed of the various duties (in questions 2 and 3)?
Predominantly though decisions made on equality policies through full Council and individual training.
5. What efforts are being made to improve the number of staff who have a disability or declare it? How can we overcome the fact that disability is significantly under-reported? (ie, for BVPI 16b – the % of the community with a disability, Oxfordshire has one of the lowest percentages).
An intranet page will be developed to encourage people to update their SAP record as health issues and disabilities can occur during working life not simply at point of employment. Staff survey data suggested four times as many staff with disabilities than SAP data, suggesting high levels of under reporting. We need to create a climate where people are comfortable to declare and access support – and need to be clear with staff why we need the data and what we will do with it.
Whilst a lot of good work is taking place, there were 3 main areas where the Council might “stumble”. (1) the image of the authority being projected was not as positive as it should be; therefore, there was a need to broaden training; (2) we are not quick enough to react to the reasons given by people for leaving. It should be possible to make small, quick and cheap adjustments that allow disabled employees to be retained; (Disability Rights Commission data suggests that the average cost of an adjustment is only £50); (3) therefore, we need greater flexibility all round in this area.
6. Why are disabled people more likely to get an interview than other applicants for jobs, but less likely to be appointed? Nonetheless, disabled candidates are greatly under-represented in the overall levels of applications, short listing and appointments. Some of the reasons are suggested in the Equality Duties report, but how can this be rectified?
The Recruitment Team in Shared Services is able to ensure that managers interview disabled candidates who meet the essential selection criteria in accordance with our commitment to “Two-Ticks” which has resulted in greater consistency across the organisation. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people with disabilities do not consider themselves to have a disability especially when they feel that it is well managed. Further work is needed to outline why people should self identify and the benefits to themselves as well as the organisation.
A pilot project giving disabled candidates via Oxfordshire Employment Service, priority access to vacancies started on the 13th October – communication to all managers was sent by Sue Scane. This has so far led to the consideration of over 40 posts for disabled applicants but no appointments as yet.
7. To what extent is any analysis undertaken of leavers with a disability from the County Council’s employment?
Exit interview data when available is examined by HR. Data on SAP shows disabled staff are no more likely to leave than other employees albeit current high turnover levels are not ideal. This could be seen as reducing with the effects of the “credit crunch”.
8. Explain the importance of having achieved the “Two Ticks” symbol for disabled candidates from Job Centre Plus.
As outlined above, this symbol ensures managers interview disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a post; it encourages individuals to apply as well as helping us to build closer relationships with the voluntary agencies seeking to support disabled people into work by being clearly identified as positive about disability.
9. Explain how it is proposed to overcome the problem that Oxfordshire is in the bottom quartile and its position is declining compared to other County Councils, for the top 5% of earners who are disabled and the % of employees who are disabled?
A greater effort will be made to promote the support available for staff and if at all possible, a central fund should be established to support the payment of reasonable adjustment requests which so far have been paid for by Corporate HR in a pilot arrangement over the past 3 years resulting in equipment being provided for 5 staff ranging from adjustable desks to specialist software, a trolley to support mobility and a wheelchair. The total expenditure so far has been approximately £5000 of which over half has been met by Access to Work funding. It would be good to promote this more widely but without dedicated funding available it could generate too many requests that the authority would be unable to support.
Promoting the definitions of disability under DDA, reasons why people should self identify and creating a methodology for people to to e-mail updates to Pay & Employment Information where their health condition has changed during the course of employment, through disability, will help. This is in development and should be launched before the end of 2008.
10. There is a problem in respect of identifying the total number of positions filled in 2007/08 because of a change in the systems used to record this. What systems/processes do we lack to enable effective and accurate reporting?
This was simply a result of the change to a new online recruitment system which means the data will be available for all centrally appointed staff. However, schools follow their own recruitment process so although it is possible to tell the level of applicants from different groups, the data is not always available for those who don’t apply using the online system or who are short-listed, although appointment data can be determined from new starters on SAP.
11. In terms of BME employees relative to the local population, Oxfordshire is one of the top 18 County Councils. Does this actually mean that it is in the bottom half of County Councils?
There is a wide variety in levels of BME residents across the county from very high levels in Oxford City to very low levels in many of the villages. As the most rural county in the SE there are clearly challenges in adopting a one size fits all approach to BME but there has been steady progress in recent years to increase the number of BME staff county-wide.
Recently, Schools and Corporate HR recruitment and employment services have been co-located in Shared Services and this has facilitated a clearer understanding of what services are available to schools and how they are linked to corporate policies in recruitment, employment and retention. It was considered that this would lead to marked improvements in schools’ performance on diversity. An HR toolkit was being developed for schools.
12. Are there other important performance indicators that are relevant to this work and/or links to external assessment?
Local authorities are accountable for their approach to equality through the following indicators:
· Progress against the Equality Standard (BVPI 2a)
· Reporting on specific duties of legislation to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
· National indicators agreed through the Local Area Agreement, this is supported through the Place Survey which is segmented by equality strands.
Recruitment and employment monitoring, property and service outcomes such as school achievement and direct payments are reviewed and monitored by a wide range of inspectorates including the Comprehensive Area Assessment. In the past this aspect has been strongly emphasized by the Joint Area Review, Commission for Social Care Inspection and Comprehensive Performance Assessment.
13. The reduction in training days per employee is shown in the Equality Duties report (p15). What are the implications of this in terms of “increasing opportunities within the County Council” for all? Furthermore, how many people (Members and officers) have been trained in recruitment and selection, including the equalities in employment obligations and what are the requirements of Council policy in these areas? How are the training requirements delivered? )
Training funds are not directed on a per head basis and although the data taken from SAP suggests a reduction in training delivered during 2007/8, there would have been much learning or development that wasn’t captured in SAP and was paid for directly by managers via e-procurement or involved less formal, classroom based training and more on the job coaching or mentoring.
Retaining the corporate accreditation of Investors in People (IiP) is a strong indicator of the value the authority places on staff development. Events recently during IiP week included career coaching workshops and a variety of information available to all staff about career development.
Our Recruitment Charter requires that at least one member of an appointment panel (usually the appointing manager) is trained in the equal opportunity aspects of recruitment and selection. This is a 1 or 2 day course covering the recruitment process for experienced or less experienced managers.
Members involved in the selection panel for senior appointments such as the Director for Children, Young People & Families are given specific recruitment and selection training by Nick Graham, Assistant Head of Legal Services, to ensure an appropriate understanding of equality and diversity in the selection process.
14. How sophisticated is training and development in terms of identifying needs from the performance appraisal process that are concerned with the equality duties and opportunities in employment?
The personal development plan is a key part of the appraisal process and jointly owned by the individual and their line manager to identify specific development needs. Management competencies include reference to diversity matters, for example in “Improving Performance”: acknowledges and respects individual differences and behaves in a sensitive, fair and consistent way’, or in “Customer Focus”: recognises and responds to customer and community diversity.
Competencies for all staff are currently in development and similarly will reinforce the behaviours we expect of all staff in relation to diversity issues.
15. How is “training” defined in relation to the issues under scrutiny here?
Training is most properly considered to embrace all learning and development activities although there may be less hard data available to evidence informal processes such as peer coaching or on the job learning. Therefore, for much of the data in the report we are limited to being able to use only that which has been captured on existing systems. A new learning & development toolkit is currently in development which, when launched, will ensure all formal learning even when booked directly, is captured in SAP which should make future reports more comprehensive.
16. There are indications in the Equality Duties report that when staff were surveyed, levels of satisfaction in employment were lower among the disabled and (for instance) perceptions that the Council was discriminatory, were more pronounced among BEM, part time workers and the disabled. What are the reasons for this?
The creation of a staff panel will give an opportunity to ask staff of various target groups what they think and why. This panel is currently in development and should meet quarterly from the end of the year. This will be an opportunity to get more detailed information than is currently available.
17. How does the Council advertise vacancies and recruit those groups of people that are “harder to reach”?
In October 2007 a mail shot was sent to all school, libraries and public facing buildings as well as Job Centre Plus to encourage people to apply to work for us. This is being done, alongside some additional information about support available for working carers.
Working as part of the implementation group to deliver reductions in benefit recipients as part of Audit Commission National Indicator 152 (Working age people on out of work benefits), has improved channels to advocates for some of the harder to reach groups and led to the development of an employability project which will offer work placements for target groups to build confidence, transferable skills and help individuals to return to work.
Better working arrangements with Job Centre Plus are currently in development with a view to piloting a fast track recruitment process to fill multiple occupancy posts in social care, cleaning and administration.
A joint pilot will begin before the end of the year with Adult Education to deliver some targeted pre-employment training with nominated individuals from the Learning Communities projects to bring people into work with the County Council and PCT.
18. How aware are disabled people of employment vacancies?
Disability Advisers working with Oxfordshire Employment Service now get priority notification about all vacancies (apart from those in schools) as they arise and before advertising, so if they match the selection criteria they will be offered an interview. Strong working relationship with JCP Oxford’s disability adviser – Gretel Quick MBE have been developed. All vacancies are advertised on the County council’s website, most in the Oxford Times and the weekly Inside Jobs vacancy list circulated to key community groups. There is a permanent advertising banner on the disabled workers website directing potential applicants to our public site: http://www.disabledworkers.org.uk/careers/default.asp
19. The Equality Standard for Local Government and the Council’s Comprehensive Equality Policy extends requirements to promote equality and to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment in respect of age, sexual orientation, religion and belief. How effective is the Council monitoring, reporting and taking appropriate action in these areas?
All work in relation to the Equality Standard is underpinned by our Comprehensive Equality Policy, supported by Dignity at Work and a clear position against any work place harassment or bullying on any diversity grounds. We currently record individuals’ ages but not their sexual orientation or religion/belief. Given the low levels of disability declaration, it is highly unlikely that people would feel comfortable to reveal their sexual orientation and until it is clear what we would want to use the information for.
Greater promotion of the need to be mindful of diversity and equality, perhaps emphasising the Dignity at Work policy and anti-harassment stance would be the best way for the organisation to ensure that all staff felt supported and able to raise any issues under the grievance procures (Raising Concerns at Work) should they arise.
20. There are still key areas of concern in relation to ethnicity, gender and disability, particularly the latter. How are the suggested recommendations from the Equality Duties report going to turn themselves into practical, realistic ways of encouraging the development of better equal opportunities/initiatives?
In response to awareness of the lack of universal diversity training, a diversity e-learning pilot was carried out in the Corporate Core from 14th October. If this is successful in training the first 360 staff, it will be rolled out to other directorates in the coming months. So far, over 200 staff have completed the training with the vast majority having passed the test at the end. The Committee recommended that this e-learning pilot should be extended to Councillors, who should be encouraged to undertake the training.
The 60 minute manager sessions – updating managers on changes to employment legislation and policy revisions were delivered to around 200 managers during 2007/8. The next sessions will start from the end of the year and cover amendments to flexible working, support for working carers, Learning & Development toolkits, new recruitment & retention strategy etc.
A Disability Awareness workshop will be piloted in November/December to encourage staff to have greater confidence when dealing with colleagues and service users with a disability.
Other initiatives are referenced above – employability projects; a webpage to notify payroll of changes to disability status; staff panels; pilot pre-employment project with adult learning.
21. How can the Scrutiny exercise encourage these initiatives?
§ All party support for the broad range of people management and service initiatives will support cultural change across the organisation and ensure that embracing equality and diversity is understood as fundamental to organisational success and continuous improvement; § Support for a central fund for reasonable adjustments to support staff with disabilities would enable the approach to be publicised and more widely available to support all staff who require assistance, encouraging more to self identify; § Raising the profile of equality and diversity across the whole organisation, demonstrating our commitment to working in partnership with all key stakeholders to achieve a representative and inclusive workforce will increase the numbers declaring their disability, improving the accuracy of our staff data as well as our benchmarked position with other comparable authorities; § We can consider whether related work around carers should be included as another diversity strand given the significance of the contribution from unpaid carers (equivalent to another NHS). The need to provide support to working carers is an area in which Oxfordshire County Council is a trailblazer for good practice initiatives, including carers in much of the work around employment and having a well established working carers group for County Council staff.
22. What do you see as the penalties in not mainstreaming equal opportunities’ duties and monitoring into the Council’s business plans and delivery of services?
According to the Equality & Human Rights Commission, ‘An organization’s success and competitiveness depends on its ability to embrace diversity and draw on the skills, understanding and experience of all people. The potential rewards of diversity are significant: an organization that recruits its staff from the widest possible pool will unleash talent and develop better understanding of its customers’.
Failure to recruit and retain a diverse workforce will reduce the ability of the County Council to deliver its services in the future as with an aging workforce, up to 30% of existing staff will be retiring in the next 10-15 years, and we need to be planning ahead to build capacity for the future.
23. What do you hope to achieve from this scrutiny of our equality in employment duties?
Greater understanding of the range of issues covered by diversity; to encourage the whole organisation – officers and elected members – to understand the benefit of embracing a diverse and talented workforce, to make ourselves the employer of choice in a competitive labour market and to make adjustments where necessary to ensure disabled people are able to fully participate in our workforce as well as service users.
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