Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Central Services presented a report on the People Strategy 2014/15, which was focused on assuring that the Council was “well run” from a people management, development and leadership perspective.

It was recognised that the Council was going through a period of significant change and, to be successful in the future, would need to have the right people with the right skills motivated to perform well.  Sustaining high levels of staff engagement through change was challenging. 

The Council had, with staff, developed a revised set of organisational values.  These sat alongside the new vision and priorities to define what the Council wanted to achieve and the culture of the organisation needed to be successful.

The actions in the People Strategy sought to reinforce that culture, strengthen line management and the consistency with which policies were applied and ensure that two-way communications with staff was effective.

The Cabinet Member for Environment sought clarification on the accountability of Trade Union Secretaries and was advised by the Group Manager for HR Strategy that ultimate accountability lay with their members but would circulate details to Members to confirm the accountability / hierarchy arrangements.

The Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care raised concerns that there was no explicit reference in the Strategy to black and minority ethnic (BME) groups and in particular there was no representation at a senior management level.  Further concerns were raised by the Cabinet Member in relation to the results of the staff survey.  It was considered that whilst the overall response rate was very high, the numbers of positive responses were very low and it was felt that more analysis of the results was required.  The Cabinet Member also requested more analysis to be provided of Stage 3 grievances, which were referred to in the report. .

In response, the Cabinet Member for Central Services advised that a separate report was due to be presented to Cabinet shortly addressing the issue of BME representation within the Council.  With regard to the staff survey, the Group Manager for HR Strategy advised that the People Strategy contained statistics from the staff survey of where action was required.

Cabinet Members were encouraged by such a high response rate to the staff survey and noted how it informed the People Strategy 2014/15.

The Leader expressed his support for the Strategy and commented that the Council was in a far stronger position than in previous years, pointing out that Barking and Dagenham was soon to be one of the first London Councils to sign up to the Gender Equality Charter. 

Cabinet resolved to adopt the People Strategy 2014/15 at Appendix A to the report.