Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Deputy Leader

Forward Plan Ref: 2018/054

Contact: Sarah Currell, HR Manager – Business Systems Tel: 07867 467793

Report by Director of Human Resources (CA12).

This report gives an update on staffing numbers and related activity during the period 1 April 2018 to 30 June 2018.  It gives details of the actual staffing numbers at 30 June 2018 in terms of Full Time Equivalents.  These are shown by directorate in Appendix 1. In addition, the report provides information on the cost of posts being covered by agency staff and an Agency Trend analysis in Appendix 2.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to note the report.

Recommendations Agreed.

Cabinet considered a report that provided an update on staffing numbers and related activity for the period 1 April 2018 to 30 June 2018.

Councillor Laura Price, Opposition Deputy Leader, welcomed the opportunity she had been given to meet with the Cabinet Member and officers to discuss a new format for the staffing report but requested that, particularly in light of the forthcoming operating model, the placement of the staffing report on the Cabinet Agenda be given further consideration to give it greater emphasis and prioritise the way the council looked at staffing and how it related to the wider objectives and to provide a way to monitor the implementation of the operating model. 

In relation to the growth in Agency staff, she noted that this mainly seemed to come down to vacancies that had not been able to be filled and expressed concern that there was continuous use of Agency Staff to cover essential business posts and that the Council did not appear to have any data about how those posts that were becoming vacant, correlated to the Council’s objectives.  She urged the Cabinet to consider whether the new operating model was robust enough to ensure that the council was bridging the gap between where the vacancies existed that needed to be filled and where the reduction in posts in the new operating model needed to come from.

Councillor Judith Heathcoat, Deputy Leader of the Council explained that data would be collected under Fit for Future as the plans develop, and that meeting the Corporate Plan’s aims and objectives come to the Business Management Plan so would not want to duplicate work.

RESOLVED:to note the report.