Agenda item

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Organisational Development which was presented to provide Members with the opportunity to scrutinise and challenge sickness absence performance 2018/19 and the proposed actions for improvement.

The Head of Organisational Development spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

The Chair invited the Branch Chair – Unison to address the Committee.

The Branch Chair commented that as a result of the 9 year austerity measures local authorities had received lower settlements from the Welsh Government which meant that Councils had to do more with less and as a result staff workloads had increased considerably.  He pointed out that 95% of staff took no sick leave and it would be unfair to allow the minority of staff to bring down the Authority’s reputation with the public and press.

The Sickness Absence Policy was fit for purpose, however, Managers needed to use it more effectively.  If sickness absence figures were high in a particular area Managers needed to understand the reasons behind those figures and address issues promptly in their one to one sessions with staff.  Those staff who prioritised and remained in work needed to be appreciated.

Unison had invested in mental health by paying for courses for staff to attend and had been working tirelessly with Organisational Development and the Chief Officer Commercial to identify areas where sickness absence was high.  He pointed out that the Authority had an ageing workforce with some front line staff having physical roles such as lifting people.   He stressed that a strategy needed to be developed if staff were expected to work up to 67 years of age, although he was mindful of the overall picture as Blaenau Gwent was a small authority.

The Chair enquired regarding electronic HR/Payroll system iTrent.  The Head of Organisational Development said that managerial self-service was rolled out in April 2018 and the electronic system and the manual sickness absence recording system were run in parallel for a period of time to support managers.  A sickness absence dashboard had been developed and would be operational before the new year which would allow enhanced analysis of sickness trends.

In response to the Chair’s question regarding quarterly reviews of sickness absence, the Head of Organisational Development explained that managerial information was developed monthly and that there would be detailed discussions at Directorate Management Teams on a quarterly basis.

The Branch Chair commented that the Counselling Service had been decommissioned due to budget savings and wanted to look at ways to resume this service possibly through Occupational Health as Counselling was a valuable and beneficial service for staff regarding well-being issues etc.  The Head of Organisational Development said that plans were in place to review the Occupational Health contract and would look at the opportunity as part of that arrangement.

A Member referred to the Managerial actions arising from the Corporate Leadership Team Engagement and commented on the effectiveness of managers and felt that managers not following the managerial actions should be taken to task.  Another Member felt that the system was robust and monthly meetings with second line managers should be held to support Managers in the first instance.

A Member again referred to training on the iTrent system.  The Head of Organisational Development said that a whole raft of iTrent training had been completed in 2018 and again in 2019.  Refresher training for managers would be rolled out in early 2019 with an emphasis on pushing ownership of sickness absence to the individual.

A Member referred to bullet point 7 of the 2018/19 Top Trigger Case review ‘lack of evidence that sickness absence documentation being completed’ and enquired if sickness levels had increased due to better recording.  The Head of Organisational Development agreed that this could be a contributory factor, however, there were a number of reasons for increased sickness absence figures such as peaks at the time of service change programmes.

The Chair invited to the Leader of the Council/Executive Member for Corporate Services to address the Committee.

The Leader of the Council/Executive Member for Corporate Services commented that this report be debated at the Executive Committee and high levels of sickness absence was a serious issue for the Authority, he mirrored the Branch Chair’s comments and supported the Member’s view that line Manager’s needed support from senior Manager’s to address potential issues.  In relation to absence monitoring, from January 2020 each Scrutiny Committee would have individual sickness review reporting as part of their Forward Work Programme for consideration.  He undertook to relay the views of the Scrutiny Committee back to the Executive and Corporate Leadership Team.

The Committee AGREED, subject to the foregoing, to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 2; namely that the Scrutiny Committee endorse the report and proposed arrangements to support the improvement in attendance.