Agenda and minutes

It was proposed by Cllr Johnston, seconded by Cllr Ford and AGREED that Cllr Reeves be appointed Chair of the Performance and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the 2023/24 civic year. There were no other nominations.

Cllr Reeves assumed the role of Chair at this point.

It was proposed by Cllr Elphinstone, seconded by Cllr Johnstone and AGREED that Cllr Baines be appointed vice-Chair of the Performance and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the 2023/24 civic year. There were no other nominations.

To receive any apologies for absence and temporary appointments.

The following Councillors tendered apologies:

Cllr Baines (Cllr Elphinstone substituting)

Cllr Fawcett (Cllr Rooke substituting)

Cllr Haywood

Cllr Hicks logged into the meeting virtually following an officer error but was advised that under the Council Procedure Rule 10 he would be unable to participate.

None

The Committee is recommended to APPROVE the minutes of the meeting held on 28 April 2023 as an accurate record and to receive information arising from them.

Following review, the minutes of the Performance and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee of 28 April 2023 were AGREED as a correct record.

Members of the public who wish to speak at this meeting can attend the meeting in person or ‘virtually’ through an online connection. 

To facilitate ‘hybrid’ meetings we are asking that requests to speak or present a petition are submitted by no later than 9am four working days before the meeting i.e., 9am on Monday 17 July 2023.  Requests to speak should be sent to Tom Hudson, Scrutiny Manager,
at scrutiny@oxfordshire.gov.uk.

If you are speaking ‘virtually’, you may submit a written statement of your presentation to ensure that your views are taken into account. A written copy of your statement can be provided no later than 9am 2 working days before the meeting. Written submissions should be no longer than 1 A4 sheet.

None

The Committee is recommended to AGREE its work programme for forthcoming meetings, having heard any changes from previous iterations, and taking into consideration the Council’s Forward Plan and any issues arising.

The Scrutiny Manager explained to the Committee changes to the planned Work Programme from the last minute, explaining their rationales. The proposed work programme was AGREED subject to the following amendments:

-        Capital and revenue expenditure be brought to the September Scrutiny meeting.

-        That the draft report to Cabinet deciding whether to progress to a procurement for the Business Services Transformation project return to the committee at a date most suitable to the existing timetable.

-        The Employee Engagement survey and associated action plans be brought to the September Scrutiny meeting.

-        That the Committee’s wish to have the Workforce Strategy return after 12 months be organised by the Scrutiny Manager.

It was AGREED that the Scrutiny Manager schedule a date outside half-term for the extraordinary meeting scheduled October/November with expected attendees.

Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, Tim Spiers, Director Digital and ICT, and Andrew Richards, ERP Manager have been invited to present a report on the drivers for change and actions taken to date concerning the Business Services Transformation project.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, ask questions and AGREE any recommendations they may wish to make to Cabinet accordingly.

Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Andrew Richards, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Manager presented to the Committee an update report concerning the Business Services Transformation Project.

Cllr Phillips conveyed Tim Spiers, Director of Digital and ICT’s apologies for being unable to attend the rescheduled meeting. Lorna Baxter introduced the report in greater detail. An important focus of the Business Services Transformation lay not just in making changes to core systems such as HR, Payroll, Finance and Procurement but in communicating with staff to ensure deeper confidence and competence around using the functions of any incoming system or systems. One of the learning points from the current system, which users variously reported as finding confusing, clunky, difficult or deficient. The most recent report which had gone to Cabinet, an outline business case in April 2023 had recommended the full or partial in-sourcing of  finance, procurement, HR and payroll functions, as well as enabling technology, which meant that was the direction being pursued. Nevertheless, within that broad outline remained a number of important decisions around full or partial insourcing in order to develop a preferred option on which to progress the business case. The option to remain with IBC, the existing provider, and improving efficiency was also being explored owing to a forthcoming upgrade. Steps taken to date had included the holding of wide engagement with stakeholders across the Council and the different functional areas through interviews and workshops to understand the project requirements. Following this, a business case would be developed to go to Cabinet in November. Timings-wise, it was noted that any shift to a new system would need to occur before or after IBC’s own upgrade; owing to its extent and complexity it would not be possible to make a move during that period. Known risks and the associated mitigation activities planned and delivered were kept on a detailed risk register, with progress reported to the programme board on a monthly basis.

In response, the Committee raised a number of issues for discussion including the following

-        Risk management. Many of the risks in the risk register were recognised by the committee to have high likelihood and/or impacts. It was, however, explained that these reflected the pre-mitigation risk levels, which it would be contrary to transparency to downplay, and that the Council’s mitigations would then be expected to reduce the levels of risk to more acceptable levels. It was put forwarded to the Committee that the failure to manage risks sufficiently at the time IBC had been originally adopted had led to significant disruption and pressure on staff to maintain services. It was recognised that there would be value in presenting expected post-mitigation risk levels, as well as greater granularity in regards to the scoring in future reports. It was also confirmed to the committee that there was a more detailed, scored risk register, which allowed greater targeting of resources to the most necessary mitigation activities.

-        The feasibility of implementing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26/23

Councillor Glynnis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Michael O’Connor, Cabinet Member for Health and Inequalities, and Stephen Fairhurst Jones, Senior Policy Officer have been invited to present the Council’s EDI Action Plan.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, ask questions and AGREE any recommendations they may wish to make to Cabinet accordingly.

The Committee AGREED to a change in the order of the agenda to bring forward the EDI Action Plan 2023/24 item ahead of the remaining items.

Councillor Michael O’Connor, Cabinet Member for Public Health and Inequalities, Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Steven Fairhurst-Jones, Senior Policy Officer, presented to the Committee a report on the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Action Plan 2023/24.

Steven Fairhurst-Jones was invited to introduce the report. It contained three elements – the Council’s Action Plan for its equality, diversity and inclusion activity, the ‘Including Everyone’ inequalities framework, and the RACE equalities code.

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty the Council was required to have a 4-year strategy for tackling inequalities, and an annual action plan to implement it. The action plan in the report had been signed off and was the Council’s live plan for the current year.

“Including Everyone” was likely familiar to members having been adopted some time previously as the Council’s inequalities framework and the Council could point to a number of successes inequalities through the framework, including being awarded a Stonewall gold award earlier in the year in recognition of our commitment to LGBTQI+ inclusion at work, running  a successful campaign to recruit on-call fire fighters from different backgrounds – as a result women made up over 10% of the service’s operational workforce, and supporting 51 people with long-term health issues or a disability to gain or maintain employment. Good work aside, inequalities remained, and the Council’s action plan sought to focus in on the actions which would make the biggest difference, or which most effectively act on feedback from our staff, Staff Networks or residents. The framework would be due for renewal by October 2024, and whilst councillors would have additional opportunities to comment, they were invited to give early feedback.

Finally, the RACE equalities code was introduced as an external source of accreditation around racial and ethnic issues, an area in which the Council’s own staffing diversity did not necessarily mirror its population. Senior officers were keen that the accreditation be earned as a means of addressing this issue.

Councillor O’Connor further introduced the details of the action plan; the Council’s main areas of focus were fostering inclusive communities, inclusive service delivery and an inclusive workforce. An area of particular interest was whole-Council approaches to delivering these actions, particularly the outward looking ones, such as the promotion of social value and tackling inequalities through the way the Council procures its goods and services. The proposed RACE equality code accreditation was welcomed on the basis of its high level of accountability and clear actions needing to be taken.

Councillor Phillips referenced the latter paper on the workforce report to highlight to the Committee the distance the Council needed to travel if it wished to have a representative workforce. According to the 2021 census data, 23.2% of the Oxfordshire population were from non-white backgrounds, compared to 9.85% working for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27/23

Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Michael Fletcher, Head of HR Partnering and Advisory have been invited to present the report which was presented to Cabinet on 20 June concerning the Workforce Report and Data Q4. This is expected to form background to the further items on the agenda, but members are recommended to consider the report, ask questions and AGREE any recommendations they may wish to make to Cabinet accordingly.

Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Michael Fletcher, Head of HR Partnering and Advisory were invited to present the report which was presented to Cabinet on 20 June concerning the Workforce Report and Data for Q4 of 2022/23.

Taking the report as read, Cllr Phillips highlighted some key points. The Council was looking hard at how to reduce its agency spend; in the last quarter £10.8m had been spent. Progress was made in reducing the agency spend in children’s services, with a fall of almost £1m relative to the previous quarter. Concerning its demographic profile, the workforce had relatively few young staff, with only 4.4% of the workforce being under 25 and 22% being under 25. For people in this cohort, social value, work-life balance and a sense of purpose had been found to be more important a hook for staff than simply pay and benefits, a core observation underpinning the Council’s Workforce Strategy. Whilst sickness rates had fallen over the year and were comparable with other local authorities, they remained above target rates and work was being undertaken to reduce them. Stress, anxiety and depression was the leading cause of sickness absence; the Council’s Delivering the Future Together programme was a deliberate effort to invest in the wellbeing of staff, partially to address this issue.

In response the Committee raised the following issues for discussion:

-        Agency spend. It was confirmed that agency spend had remained flat, reductions in spending for Children’s Services was offset by a growth in Environment and Economy. Overall, steps being taken to reduce agency spend across the Council had been developed, 25 suggested steps had been considered and approved by the Council Management Team, with a Task and Finish Group established to work up more rounded proposals. These measures were important to counter the challenge of the increased pay and flexibility agency staff receive, which for many remained highly attractive. Ideas for improving flexibility were put forward by the Committee, but it was confirmed that annualised hours, purchasing of extra holiday and term-time only contracts were already part of the Council’s offer. However, not all jobs were suitable to allow long-term periods of absence or high degrees of flexibility. Teachers, for example, had to be available during term time.

-        Gender breakdown and proportion of disabled workers within the workforce, specifically whether having a 2:1 female to male balance and 6.14% having a disability was normal. It was confirmed that the gender split was within normal parameters, particularly in places with a health and social care focus. The proportion of people disclosing a disability was low and recognised as so. A key measure of success within the Workforce Strategy was the improvement of this measure, and steps were included within the Strategy to make the Council more attractive to prospective disabled applicants, and welcoming once they applied and were appointed.

-        Absence rates. The importance of supporting those with stress, anxiety and depression was noted and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28/23

Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Michael Fletcher, Head of HR Partnering and Advisory have been invited to present a report on the Draft Workforce Strategy.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, ask questions and AGREE any recommendations they may wish to make to Cabinet accordingly.

Councillor Glynnis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Michael Fletcher, Head of HR Partnering and Advisory were invited to present a report on the Council’s draft Workforce Strategy.

Councillor Phillips advised the Committee that the document in front of them

was an early draft rather than a near-final version. Whilst it had been available

for discussion within the organisation a new HR director would be joining the Council in September and it would be necessary to get agreement on it with the new post-holder before progressing to Cabinet, likely for consideration in November. The overall aim of the strategy was to ensure the Council had talented, committed and creative staff to enable it to be an efficient, high-performing organisation. The draft strategy sought to put forward how this might be achieved, focusing on four key areas: i) Attract, recruit and retain talented people, ii) Promote a positive and inclusive working environment, iii) Enable growth and development, iv) Develop leadership capability and high performance. The success of the strategy would be monitored through a set of key performance indicators, including ones over the Committee’s concerns in previous items around agency spend and staff absence. An annual review of progress would be taking place, and it was offered to bring that back to the Committee.

In response, the Committee made the following observations and raise the following issues for discussion:

-        Military Families. In light of the high number of military families in Oxfordshire, who face particular challenges with accessing work, that a dedicated work stream to access that talent pool would be worthwhile developing, particularly if it involved partnering with other councils to provide support to armed forces family members to identify suitable alternatives around their new locations.

-        Internal promotion. The importance of opportunities for staff to advance within the organisation was underlined as a core element in addressing the degree of turnover within the organisation. The Council’s target of achieving 160 internal promotions from a figure of 152 was questioned as being unambitious. It was explained the figure of 152 actually represented a high watermark, so the target was to go beyond the Council’s previous best performance.

-        Following on from the previous item, a breakdown of the 5310 staff working for the Council between full time and part time was requested, and for the figures to be benchmarked against the figures five years previously.

-        Corporate culture. The ability of staff to challenge behaviour which did not accord with the Council’s values was questioned. The Council had in place formal whistleblowing and grievance processes, but, as would be explored in the following item, the Council was putting a lot of effort into embedding its values through less formal means via the Delivering the Future Together programme. Programme champions were already starting to receive and raise feedback from staff who had witnessed behaviour in need of challenge which did not meet the threshold of a formal grievance. Further to this, the work  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29/23

Councillor Glynis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Louise Tustian, Head of Insight and Corporate Programmes have been invited to present a report on the Council’s performance management approach, Delivering the Future Together.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, ask questions and AGREE any recommendations they may wish to make to Cabinet accordingly.

Councillor Glynnis Phillips, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Lorna Baxter, Director of Finance, and Louise Tustian, Head of Insight and Corporate Programmes were invited to present a report to the Committee, updating it on the Council’s activity around Delivering the Future Together, and assessing its impacts.

The Committee was informed of Jo Hatfield’s apologies for the meeting; she was on annual leave for the rescheduled meeting date. Councillor Phillips highlighted of the multiple work streams taking place under Delivering the Future Together the forum for two-way feedback between senior managers and staff representatives as being of particular value, and the subtle change of focus in 1-2-1s of the 12-3-2 model, which placed staff wellbeing at the front of manager concerns. A recent employee survey had been completed across the organisation with a 55% response rate from staff and Delivering the Future Together was a key means through which the actions to address issues raised were being pursued. The Delivering the Future Together programme provided a solid infrastructure to ensure that the Council remained rooted in its values and behaviours as challenges and contexts changed.

In response, it was noted by the Committee that there were some genuinely innovative ideas being put into operation and they were deeply welcomed. One question was raised over how it could be ensured that Delivering the Future Champions were approachable and independent. It was explained that the role of champion was a voluntary one; the self-selecting element tended towards attracting people who understood and wanted to fulfil the role in the way it was intended. Further to this, champions were actively encouraged to move around their services, speaking to staff, attending team meetings and embedding themselves within the workings of the organisation in order to understand the concerns of all staff.

The report was NOTED.

The Committee is recommended to NOTE the progress of previous recommendations and actions arising from previous meetings, having raised any questions on the contents.

The Committee NOTED the status of previous actions and recommendations. Comment was made that it would be better if colour versions were to be provided.

It was AGREED that the Committee would no longer ask for a briefing on the Growth Deals and that be removed.

The Committee will be provided with a verbal update on the Cabinet’s 18^th July response to the Committee’s recommendation concerning Cost of Living. The Committee is recommended to NOTE the response.

The Scrutiny Manager updated the Committee on the Cabinet’s response to the Cost of Living recommendation, which was confirmed after publication of the Scrutiny meeting agenda. The response was NOTED.