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 … Continue reading “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.