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Wirral Council – Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12th July 2011 Part 4

Chris Hyams replied that the policy works for home working with a risk assessment, performance management and that it was not a policy but a strategy in how it works and works in practice. She said she could comment on where the policy allowed service drive change and met personal requirements. Cllr Hale congratulated Chris … Continue reading “Wirral Council – Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12th July 2011 Part 4”

Chris Hyams replied that the policy works for home working with a risk assessment, performance management and that it was not a policy but a strategy in how it works and works in practice. She said she could comment on where the policy allowed service drive change and met personal requirements. Cllr Hale congratulated Chris and her colleagues on a full program. Chris thanked Cllr Hale.

Cllr Brighouse said it was a comprehensive report, with some easy to measure outcomes. However there was also some cultural change and he asked how its effectiveness could be measured?

Chris Hyams said there were some measures regarding outputs, however the measurement was how well motivated and how staff performed. The Employment and Appointments Committee had introduced a performance management culture for employees. This had led to a better dialogue about performance and support. Are people contributing to overall performance and how do they feel? This was assessed through feedback and the employee opinion survey. Feedback was used to learn and shape the strategies going forward.

Cllr Brighouse asked about 180 degree assessments. Chris Hyams said 180 degree and 360 degree just look at performance management, because to look at different methods requires feedback. This was not as systematic but an important consideration in performance management.

Cllr Cox said he was all for employee development, but there was a cost of training. E-learning could keep costs down, but for expensive courses what was the criteria to be funded, such as the MBA as not everyone was a leader?

Wirral Council – Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12th July 2011 Part 3

She continued by referring to the Coaching Programme, Mentoring Programme and Change Management Training. There were also training programs and on-line learning. For employees who did not usually use IT, there was an IT suite for training. The CQC inspection had also led to a training requirement.

There had been a rollout of the Selfserve system the details had been sent to people’s pigeon holes. 90% of employees lived in the Borough which meant Wirral Council had an impact back into their homes. They were supported to be healthy and in work, there had been work on awareness, the people affected by Early Voluntary Redundancy and Voluntary Severance Scheme had been given details of volunteering and how their skills could be transferred to alternative occupations.

The apprenticeships had been increased to a hundred, they had recruited young people and were converting some posts to the apprenticeship framework. The Graduate Programme had recruited a further eight who were in place and there were also work placement opportunities.

Cllr Gilchrist thanked her for her report and said there were two things especially he wanted to ask questions on. He remembered the Trade Union representatives and the staff who had put pressure on councillors. What was the restructuring policy? What is the structure?

Chris replied that the restructuring had taken place but there had not been a consistent approach. This sets out the rules for example the % of a job that was ringfenced and rules regarding slotting in.

Cllr Gilchrist asked about agile working. He said Ian Brand had explained the opportunities, but he wanted to know about progress made.

Wirral Council – Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12th July 2011 Part 2

Cllr Gilchrist moved on the minutes of the meeting of the 16th March 2011. He asked if there were any matters arising or inaccuracies? He also asked if the content of the minutes was agreed. They were agreed. To enable officers to go home or to future meetings he asked that the agenda be rearranged so that items 13, 17 and 18 would be heard first.

It was going to be item 13 first, but then changed to item 17 which was on the supplementary agenda. This was introduced by the report author Chris Hyams. She said it was a report the scrutiny committee had requested so she was reporting back. She repeated what was in the three page report and its two page appendix at length.

She said the People Strategy had been agreed by Cabinet, then the Employment and Appointments Committee. She talked about the principle of investing, supporting and leading the workforce and the effective people framework. She said there were five key themes and that the achievements were detailed in the appendix. The Corporate Plan identified the themes about improvements in delivering an efficient and effective Council.

She wanted to highlight the key achievements in what had been a challenging year in Human Resources. The key initiative had regarded leadership development. The communication strategy had been improved which led to a briefing system that cascaded down the structure and allowed feedback to be given and questions to be asked over key organisational issues. There was also a focus on corporate/leadership behaviour and an updated training programme which included an MBA in Leadership and ILM qualifications.

Wirral Council – Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12th July 2011 Part 1

The agenda and reports for this meeting can be found here.

Present:
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Chair)
Cllr Ron Abbey (spokesperson)
Cllr Alan Brighouse
Cllr Tony Cox
Cllr Darren Dodd
Cllr Paul Doughty
Cllr John Hale
Cllr Chris Jones
Cllr James Keeley
Cllr Steve Williams
Committee clerk: Andrew Mossop (replacing Mark Delap who’s on holiday)
Also various officers and two members of the public

The Chair, Cllr Gilchrist welcomed the new councillors to the committee Cllr Tony Cox and Cllr Paul Doughty. He said if they could survive 36 years as a councillor as Cllr Hale had they must be enjoying themselves. He said although they were new to the council that they should not feel bound by that not to ask obvious or awkward questions. He said they needed all councillors to take part and contribute to get debate going. People had commented on the length of previous meetings but he would take as much tim as was needed to properly deal with issues without getting bogged down or stifling discussion. He would however stop them going round in circles and they had to deal with the issue of Vice-Chair.

He asked for any declarations of interest. No declarations of interest were declared. He said Andrew Mossop was the committee clerk because Mark Delap was on holiday. For Vice-Chair he proposed Cllr Brighouse, he had already raised this with the spokespersons. They had almost agreed Cllr Brighouse to become Chair when he had been in hospital, however Cllr Brighouse had managed to escape being Chair despite being poised to do so. He welcomed officers and members of the public.

Timber – Nuisance Tree removed, Feltree House, Farmfield Drive, Beechwood

Feltree House, Farmfield Drive, Beechwood

Following the closure of Feltree House care home in December 2008, Wirral Council applied to itself to demolish the buildings on the site on the 25th June 2010. Wirral Council told itself that planning permission (DEM/10/00797) wasn’t required on the 23rd July 2010 and demolition was carried out between 26th July 2010 and the 29th August 2010.

After the site was cleared the Feltree House site was sold by Wirral Council to Liverpool Housing Trust. On the 9th October a resident in Ladyfield got in touch with the Liberal Democrat Action Team about a very large sycamore tree overshadowing the gardens in Ladyfield and blocking light to the rear of properties on the South side of Ladyfield.

I wrote to Ian Brand, Head of Asset Management at Wirral Council who informed me it had been recently sold to Liverpool Housing Trust. I then contacted Liverpool Housing Trust, who initially stated they didn’t own any properties called Feltree House and suggested I get in touch with the Beechwood and Ballantyne Community Housing Ltd instead.

However Beechwood and Ballantyne Community Housing Ltd didn’t own the Feltree House site. The Liberal Democrat Action Team persisted and wrote back to Liverpool Housing Trust, who wrote back on the 25th November acknowledging that they did own Feltree House and agreed to a meeting on site with the residents to discuss the problem and their approach.

A meeting was held with Liverpool Housing Trust, the residents and the Liberal Democrat Action Team on the 6th December 2010. At this meeting Liverpool Housing Trust explained their plans for the site (new housing) and agreed that the tree would have to be removed and were puzzled why it hadn’t been removed when the site had been cleared.

Before removing the tree, they had to check if there was a Tree Preservation Order on it first. They did however agree to remove it (if there wasn’t a TPO) by the time it came back into leaf in the Spring.

In February 2011, Liverpool Housing Trust confirmed that the tree at Feltree didn’t have a Tree Preservation Order. They also stated that in October 2010 their employee had confirmed they didn’t have a property at Feltree House and not a piece of land called Feltree House. At this point they couldn’t give a specific date when the tree would come down.

Many months went past and the tree didn’t come down. However the resident was persistent in following it up (with myself) and Liverpool Housing Trust and eventually the tree (as you can see from the photo) was (eventually) cut down.

Although it is sad to see any tree go, the residents of Ladyfield can now enjoy their gardens and houses again and enjoy the Summer sunshine!