a g e n d a - oxfordshire county councilmycouncil.oxfordshire.gov.uk/data/personnel...

Personnel, 09/01/01, Agenda

Meeting PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE

Date Tuesday 9 January 2001 Time 10.00 am

Place County Hall, Oxford

A G E N D APlease address any general enquiries on this agenda to Julian Hehir on Oxford 815673.Media enquiries should be directed to the Press Office on Oxford 815266.This agenda can also be viewed on the Council's web site, oxfordshireonline (www.oxfordshire.gov.uk).

1. Election to Chair (Conservative Group)

2. Apologies for Absence and Temporary Appointments

3. Declarations of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests

4. Minutes

Minutes of the meeting held on 17 October 2000 (PERSU4).

5. Matters arising from the Minutes

6. Petitions and Public Address

MAJOR FINANCIAL AND POLICY ITEMS

7. BEST VALUE REVIEW OF PERSONNEL

Report by Assistant Chief Executive (PERS7).

The Sub-Committee will be asked to consider the outcome of the Personnel Best Value Reviewwhich will also be reported to Best Value & Audit Sub-Committee later for their approval.

It was agreed that the Review would look at a series of structural/strategic and operational issuesincluding structure, delegation of decision making for new posts and SMR regradings, an appealsprocedure, major projects and training. Nine recommendations have been identified to take forwardand an action plan is provided for each of these in the BV forms.

The Sub-Committee are RECOMMENDED to:

(a) endorse the recommendations set out in the BV3 forms subject to approval by BestValue & Audit Sub-Committee; and

(b) endorse the action plans set out in the BV4 forms subject to approval by Best Value& Audit Sub-Committee.

OPERATIONAL ITEMS

8. THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT/EARLY YEARS TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT(DISCRETIONARY COMPENSATION) (ENGLAND AND WALES) REGULATIONS 2000 AND THELOCAL GOVERNMENT PENSION SCHEME REGULATIONS 1997 AS AMENDED –DISCRETIONARY POWERS

Report by the Assistant Chief Executive & County Treasurer (PERS8).

The above Regulations revoke and replace much of the Local Government (Discretionary Payment)Regulations 1996 and subsequent amendments. The Regulations also require the Council toproduce a policy (Annex 1) to show how it will exercise the discretionary powers granted within theRegulations and a proposed Retirement Policy (at Annex 2) as agreed at Employee's JointConsultative Committee in September, following consultation with UNISON.

The Sub-Committee are RECOMMENDED to receive the report and adopt the proposedpolicy statements in Annex 1 and Annex 2.

9. PATERNITY, PARENTAL & EMERGENCY LEAVE PROVISIONS:

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

Report by Chief Education Officer (PERS9).

Attached to the agenda at PERS9 are draft schemes which were submitted to the Teachers' JointCommittee for consultation purposes and were adopted by the Education Committee on 13December. The Schemes are intended for use in schools and other education establishments; asthey will apply to all such staff, both the Education Committee's and this Sub-Committee's approvalare required. The Education Committee on 13 December 2000 adopted the schemes.

The Sub-Committee are RECOMMENDED to adopt the Schemes at PERS9.

10. RELOCATION EXPENSES POLICY


The aim of this Scheme is to provide financial support to people who need to move in order to take upa new job with Oxfordshire County Council. It is hoped that the Scheme will help new recruits tosecure a home close to their work place so that stresses of commuting are reduced and that thedistance travelled to work is minimised, in line with the Council's "Travelwise" policy.

The Sub-Committee are recommended to adopt the Relocation Scheme for newlyAppointed Employees.

11. UNISON – CHARGES FOR ACCOMMODATION

The Assistant Chief Executive reports as follows:-

On 7 December 2000, the Employees' Joint Consultative Committee considered a request fromUnison for assistance from the County Council with the costs of office accommodation. Under thecurrent Facilities Agreement the costs of accommodation are "on agreed terms". In practice this has

meant that 50% of the market rate has been charged to Unison amounting to approximately £6000per annum. A letter received from Unison making this request is attached at PERS11 Annex 1.

A brief survey of neighbouring Councils has shown that of the 8 respondents only one charges anyrent for Unison accommodation.

If members resolve to remove the charge for rent from Unison this will be recharged to departmentsaccording to numbers of "Green Book" employees as takes place with the salary costs of theseconded Branch Officers.

The Sub Committee are recommended to consider and make a judgement on Unison'srequest for free office accommodation.

12. EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES


Further to Minute 67/00 this report gives a more detailed breakdown of the information and costs foragency labour, including the reasons for the variations in costs and possible variations in future forbudget planning purposes.

Annex 1 sets out expenditure on agency labour in 1998/99 and 1999/2000. Annex 2 gives the moredetailed information on the breakdown of agency expenditure and the reasons given for fluctuationsbetween 1998/99 and 1999/2000, with predicted fluctuations for the coming year.

The Sub Committee are recommended to:

(a) receive the information in this report;

(b) call for a further monitoring report on agency expenditure in 2001 as soon as this isavailable.

MINUTES OF SUB-COMMITTEES/WORKING PARTIES ETC

13. OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL & EMPLOYEES' JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE*

Unconfirmed Minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2000 (PERS13).

The Joint Consultative Committee considered the following matters:-

(a) Restaurant and Beverage Matters

(b) Contracting Out of Services

(c) Car Allowances

(d) Oxfordshire Weighting

(e) Variable Hours Contracts for Support Staff in Schools – Minute 56/00

The Sub-Committee are RECOMMENDED to:

(a) endorse the proposal to include the wording set out in paragraph 4 of thereport, as amended, in all new contracts for support staff in schools with theexception of caretakers, cleaners and learning support assistants employedto work with pupils with special educational needs;

(b) authorise the officers to continue discussions with headteachers andgovernors with a view to introducing such a clause for those LSA who workwith SEN pupils;

(c) ask officers to report back to Personnel Sub-Committee on their progresswith these discussions or when agreement was reached.

As a result of further consultation, Education Officers have agreed that, when the governingbody of a School propose to reduce the hours of any member of the support staff, they willbe encouraged to consider whether the reduction could instead be shared amongst therelevant group as a whole and consult staff accordingly.

(f) Unison Charges for Accommodation

14. URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE*

Minutes of the meetings held on 13 October, 10 November and 15 December 2000 (PERS14(a,)PERS14(b), PERS14(c)).

EXEMPT ITEMS

The Sub-Committee will be invited to resolve to exclude the public for the consideration of the followingexempt item (marked E) by passing a resolution in relation to the item in the following terms:

"that the public be excluded during the consideration of the following items in the Agenda sinceit is likely that if they were present during that item there would be a disclosure of "exempt"information as described in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972' ie. information relating to a particular employee, former employee or applicant to become anemployee of, or a particular office-holder, former office-holder or applicant to become anoffice-holder under, the Authority".

THE REPORTS RELATING TO THE EXEMPT ITEM HAVE NOT BEEN MADE PUBLIC AND SHOULD BE REGARDED AS STRICTLY PRIVATE TO MEMBERS AND OFFICERS ENTITLED TO RECEIVE THEM.

15.E URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE*

Exempt Minutes of the meetings held on 13 October, 10 November and 15 December 2000 (PERS15E(a)-(c)).

C.J. Gray

Acting Chief Executive County HallOxford OX1 1ND

January 2001

Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS04

Strategy & Resources Committee

PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 9 JANUARY 2001

AGENDA ITEM PERS4

PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 17 OCTOBER 2000MINUTES of the meeting commencing at 10.00 am and finishing at 12.10 pm

Present:

Voting Members:

Councillors David Buckle, Jill Davies, Mrs Ann Davis, Mrs J. Heathcoat, Mrs Humphries, Don Seale, TomSnow, Tony Stockford, Roy Tudor Hughes (in place of Councillor Brian Law) and David Turner.

Ex Officio:

Councillors Margaret Godden, Steve Hayward (in place of Councillor Keith Mitchell) and Brian Hodgson.

Officers:

Whole of meeting: S. Capaldi, S. Corrigan, J.T. Hehir and Dr H. Simpson (Chief Executive's Office); S.Tanner and M. Thomas (Education Department); V. Field (Social Services Department); B. Phillips (CountyTreasurer's Department).

The Sub-Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in theagenda for the meeting, copies of which agenda and reports are attached to the signed Minutes, and inrelation thereto determined as follows:-

61/00 ELECTION TO CHAIR

RESOLVED: that Councillor Snow (Liberal Democrat) be elected to chair the meeting.

62/00 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS

Apologies for absence, temporary appointments and Group Leader substitutions were reported asfollows:-

Apology from Temporary Appointment/Substitute

Councillor Law Councillor Tudor HughesCouncillor Simmons -Councillor Mitchell Councillor Hayward

63/00 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 13 June 2000 were approved and signed.

64/00 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

Minute 45/00 – Matters Arising from the Minutes – Minute 42/99 Early Retirements

It was reported that the Chief Education Officer intended to arrange a meeting with Headteachers onthis issue in the near future.

Minute 59/00 – Proposed Revised Retirement Policy

It was reported that a revised retirement policy would be put to the Sub-Committee in January 2001,together with a report covering the issues raised in Minute 54/00 on pensions and retirements.

65/00 SARATOGA BENCH-MARKING(Agenda Item 7)

Ms Corrigan made a presentation on the results of the Saratoga bench-marking exercise ofPersonnel Services. Copies of the presentation material were circulated to members of theSub-Committee.

Ms Corrigan reported that Oxfordshire was the fifteenth County Council to undergo the Saratogaexercise. Two questionnaires to personnel practitioners and to managers had produced bothquantitative and qualitative feedback. The rate of return had varied between departments from19-90%. The Human Asset Benchmark scorecards for Oxfordshire County Council had produced apattern: relatively high percentile rankings for recruiting, training and development and safetymanagement and low percentile ranking for pay and benefits management employeerelations/communication and computerised personnel information systems.

So far as the qualitative aspects of the feedback were concerned, respondents had been asked touse a graded scale to review the Personnel processes, scores for importance fell into the categoryof "value adding" and for performance of "generally meets requirements but not on a consistentbasis." A brief summary of the major results of the Saratoga questionnaire and an immediateAction Plan were included in the papers circulated to members and are attached to the signedMinutes.

RESOLVED: to thank the County Personnel Officer for the presentation and to note the outcomesof the benchmarking exercise and the Action Plan.

66/00 LOCAL AGREEMENT FOR NEW STARTERS IN HOME CARE(Agenda Item 8)

The Sub-Committee in January 2000 had approved the introduction of new terms and conditions ofservice for Home Care Assistants to take effect from 1 April 2000. The Sub-Committee had beforethem a report (PERS8) as requested, on the effects of the new package on recruitment andretention, which explored the possibility of extending these principles to other staff groups in theworkforce.

Ms Field introduced the report and commented that the impact of the new terms and conditions

package looked positive with an increase in the numbers of staff recruited since 1 April 2000;however, it would be tested in terms of how successfully Social Services could retain staff in future. She expected to be able to report on the success of the package in approximately 6 months time.

RESOLVED: to endorse the progress made in the implementation of the revised terms andconditions in the Home Care Service.

67/00 EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES(Agenda Item 9)

The Sub-Committee considered a report (PERS9) on an exercise which had recently been carriedout, to investigate the levels of agency expenditure across the Council. The total expenditure during1999/2000 was in excess of £2 million, with over ¾ of this being spent in Social Services. Thereport outlined the main reasons for using agency work and for the amount of expenditure onservices. The need to ensure the quality of agency workers and the need to keep costs to aminimum had lead to the production of guidelines for managers in Social Services which wereincluded as Annex 2 to the report.

In introducing the report the officers referred to the rates charged by agencies for County Councilwork, as compared to the County Council's rates of pay for the same work, and on anticipatedsavings within Social Services for agency fees dependent on a current contracting and selectionprocess.

In response to members' questions the officers reported on the reasons for costs within particulardepartments having varied between 1998/99 and 1999/2000.

RESOLVED: to :

(a) note the levels of expenditure on agency employees and ask the County Personnel Officerto report expenditure for 2000/01 to a future meeting of the Sub-Committee;

(b) endorse Chief Officers' continued usage of agency employees for the reasons laid down inthis report;

(c) encourage Chief Officers to join the Social Services contract for the provision of agencyemployees, where appropriate;

(d) (on a motion by Councillor Snow, seconded by Councillor Stockford and carried nem con)ask for a more detailed breakdown of the information and costs in Annex 1 to the report atthe next meeting of the Sub-Committee, including the reasons for the variations in costsshown there and possible variations in future for budget planning purposes.

68/00 ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYEES LEAVING THE COUNCIL DURING THE PERIOD 1 APRIL – 31MARCH 2000(Agenda Item 10)

The Sub-Committee considered a report (PERS10) concerning an analysis of employees who had leftthe Council during the year ending 31 March 2000. A total of 1,084 people had left the Council duringthe year. A County-wide exit questionnaire had been introduced on 1 April 1999 and a return rate of13% obtained in the first year. The report gave a breakdown of leavers in terms of gender, ethnicorigin, age, job perceptions, types of exit, reasons for leaving and destinations. Personal and careerdevelopment as reasons for leaving were cited as the principal areas of concern and were being

examined by the Employment Strategy Group, a sub-group of Chief Officers Management Group.

Dr Simpson introduced the report and undertook to establish why no data had been supplied by theFire Service and suggested that data collection generally could be improved by using exit interviewsin conjunction with the questionnaire. She said that the Social Services return rate was 40% and not13% as indicated in the report.

Ms Tanner acknowledged that the questionnaire return rate from the Education Department was lowat 3%. A similar survey had been undertaken for teaching staff with a 52% questionnaire returnrate. Mr Thomas said that the Education Service included County Facilities Managementemployees and that there were particular problems in carrying out exit interviews andquestionnaires as many of them worked short hours, short term, in dispersed locations.

Dr Simpson said that among the issues to be examined further (paragraph 26(a)) were the reasonsfor employees leaving the Council to enter full-time education or training.

RESOLVED: to:

(a) ask Chief Officers to take steps to improve the numbers of exit questionnaires issued andreturned;

(b) ask the Assistant Chief Executive to report to a future meeting of the SubCommittee whenthe issues had been examined further.

69/00 APPRAISALS : PROGRESS WITHIN THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT(Agenda Item 11)

At their last meeting, the Sub-Committee had asked the Education Department to produce aquarterly report on progress in introducing the "new style" appraisals for all staff until such time as asatisfactory level had been achieved, in the opinion of members.

It was reported that at 17 October 2000, within the Education Department other than in CountyFacilities Management (CFM), 92% of appraisals had been completed.

Mr Thomas reported that in CFM, the dispersed nature of the workforce and part-time nature of thework had made it more difficult to implement the Appraisal Scheme. The strategy which had beenagreed was that the Area Managers would use their planned programme of site visits to 601establishments to conduct both appraisals and six-monthly reviews for catering and cleaningemployees. Progress would be monitored strictly and the whole workforce would have had their firstappraisal interview by the end of March, 2001.

RESOLVED: to receive the report and request a further progress report for the next meeting.

70/00 OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL & EMPLOYEES' JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE(Agenda Item 12)

In relation to Minute 41/00 – Job Evaluation, Ms Corrigan reported that job evaluation was beingincorporated into the current Best Value Review of the Personnel Service, (including salarystructures within the organisation) and would be reported back on to the Best Value & Audit andPersonnel Sub-Committees in January 2001. In the meantime, a report would be prepared for thePersonnel Sub-Committee Group Spokespersons and Group Leaders with projected timescales andestimated costs for introducing a job evaluation scheme. She added that West Sussex County

Council provided an example as the first County Council to introduce such a scheme. The costs ofimplementing a scheme were estimated at approximately £60-100,000 in the first year. The totalincrease in the pay bill so far at West Sussex was estimated at £5 million over 6 years. This didnot include school employees.

In relation to Minute 44/00 – UNISON Charges for Accommodation, it was reported that UNISONhad not yet submitted a formal request to the Council to alleviate their accommodation charges.

RESOLVED: that the Oxfordshire County Council & Employee's Joint Consultative CommitteeMinutes of 7 September 2000 be received.

71/00 EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES WORKING PARTY(Agenda Item 13)

RESOLVED:

(a) to endorse the recommendation of the Working Party at Minute 17/00 – ResourceImplications of Improving the Council's Performance against the CRE Standard;

(b) subject to (a) above, that the Equal Opportunities Working Party Minutes of 15 September2000 be received.

72/00 URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE(Agenda Item 14)

RESOLVED: that the Urgency Sub-Committee Minutes of 9 June, 28 July and 28 September2000 be received.

73/00 EXEMPT ITEMS

RESOLVED: that the public be excluded during the consideration of item 15E in the Agenda sinceit was likely that if they were present during that item there would be a disclosure of "exempt"information as described in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972 and specifiedbelow the item in the Agenda, i.e. information relating to a particular employee, former employee orapplicant to become an employee of, or a particular office-holder, former office-holder or applicant tobecome an office-holder under, the Authority.

PROCEEDINGS FOLLOWING THE WITHDRAWAL OF PRESS AND PUBLIC

74/00 URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE *(Agenda Item 15E)

RESOLVED: that the Exempt part of the Urgency Sub-Committee Minutes of 9 June, 28 Julyand 28 September 2000 be received.

in the Chair

Date of signing 2000

* The report relating to the exempt item has not been made public and should be regarded as strictlyprivate to those members and officers entitled to receive it.



PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 9 JANUARY 2001AGENDA ITEM PERS7

PERSONNEL BEST VALUE REVIEWReport by the Assistant Chief Executive

Introduction

1 Best Value & Audit Sub-Committee approved the specification for this review on 30 August 2000.The areas that the review would look at were agreed as:

(a) Structural/Strategic Issues.- Structure of Personnel and system of delegation of decision-making- Proportionally high resource areas i.e. training / management development and

recruitment - Grading structures and systems - Employee communications systems- Developing measurable targets and objectives by which to monitor personnel

performance

(b) Operational Issues- Streamlining recruitment, including possible outsourcing of job applications handling- Redeployment processes- Management of poor performance

2. The review has looked at each of these aspects as well as the issue of the computerised personnelinformation system and job evaluation. The Sub-Committee requested that the computer systemwas included in the scope of the review and the work on grading structures and systems led toconsideration of job evaluation. Completed reports and action plans for the conclusions (BV3 andBV4) are attached.

Carrying out the Review

3. The work of the review included:

- use of the information gathered via the Saratoga consultation and benchmarking exercise thatwas carried out April to June 2000

- visits to Buckinghamshire, Worcestershire and Hampshire County Councils- discussion of the issues arising from the review at the Personnel Officers Development Group,

thereby ensuring that personnel officers were well informed throughout the review- discussion at Chief Officers' Management Group and at the SOCPO shire counties group- a survey carried out by Kent County Council and additional comparative work using the

Personnel Manager's Yearbook looking at personnel staffing levels in other County Councils

4. The review team, as shown on the front of the BV3 form, has included the Human ResourcesManager from Buckinghamshire County Council and an Oxfordshire Unison steward. This has

helped ensure breadth in the team and the bringing of different perspectives to the issues.

Structure

5. This review has looked at the fundamental principle of whether or not the service should bestructured in a centralised or devolved manner. The conclusion is that it should remain devolved asthere does not seem to be any financial or operational case for changing to a centralised structure. However, it is recommended that a definition is put in place of what it means for the devolvedstructure to be working effectively. Performance against this can be assessed annually.

6. In addition, a number of measures are recommended to strengthen the current devolved structure.These will help ensure consistency across the organisation.

Delegation of Decision-Making for New Posts

7. The review concludes that the current requirement to gain additional committee approval toestablish a new post for which funds have already been identified is introducing delays in serviceprovision and absorbed officer time equivalent to around £2,300 in 1999-2000. It is recommendedthat this requirement is abolished.

Delegation of Decision-Making for Senior Management Range Re-Gradings

8. The review concludes that the current system of delegation of decision-making on SMR re-gradingsis inefficient. Last year, 22 decisions were put before committee of which 19 were approved at firstappearance with the remaining 3 subsequently approved. In addition, only 3 of the 22 re-gradingsinvolved a sum in excess of £5,000 per year. This absorbed officer time equivalent to £3,000 in1999-2000.

9. The review recommends that the current system is discontinued other than for Chief Officergradings and those SMR re-gradings of a value of at least £5,000 pa.

Appeals Procedure

10. There is a clear need for the Council to have a fair and effective appeals procedure. Currently, thereare different routes for appeals depending on the occupation of the appellant. This variety of appealpanels means that we cannot be sure there is consistency or that members involved haveappropriate skills and expertise. There is also the issue of whether service spokespersons are themost appropriate people to hear appeals relating to that service. The review concludes that allappeals which involve members should be heard by a panel of members drawn from a pool ofappropriately-trained individuals.

Operational Issues

11. The review makes a number of recommendations on operational issues:

- remove the requirement to advertise temporary posts which become permanent where the initialtemporary appointment was made through a fair and open recruitment process and it can bedemonstrated that the temporary postholder is suitable for the permanent post

- introduce a means of managing employee performance - develop a service strategy and departmental annual plans that sit under this, with measurable

objectives and targets.

Major Projects

12. The review looked at the need for a computerised personnel information service and issues aroundjob evaluation and concluded that:- the new computer system is essential to managing the service effectively and improving the

service- Oxfordshire County Council needs to undertake a job evaluation exercise.

Training

13. The work on training, particularly comparison with other organisations, has shown that there are anumber of areas where we could improve the way in which we assess the need for training, and howwe deliver and evaluate it. Part of the work looked at the central/departmental split around training.Particular issues were identified around the provision of generic skills training and what is the mostappropriate method of providing training. Two specific recommendations arise from the review:

- assess the most appropriate way of improving the provision of generic skills training through anassessment undertaken by PPRU and a period of piloting the provision of this training to otherdepartments by Social Services trainers

- establish a Training Forum made up of personnel officers, managers and people external to theorganisation to ensure the ongoing promotion of best practice and fresh ideas in this area.

Conclusions

14. Overall the work of the review has identified nine recommendations to take forward and an actionplan for each of these is provided in the BV4 form. These address a range of type of issue, bothunderlying structural and strategic issues and also smaller operational issues, which shouldtogether lead to improvements in the service.

Staff and Financial Implications

15. These are contained in the body of the report.

Implications for People Living in Poverty

16. There are none.

ANNEX 1 Minority Report ANNEX 2 Draft Retirement Policy

Recommendations

17. The Sub-Committee are RECOMMENDED to:

(a) endorse the recommendations set out in the BV3 forms subject to approval by BestValue & Audit Sub-Committee; and

(b) endorse the action plans set out in the BV4 forms subject to approval by Best Value& Audit Sub-Committee.

STEPHEN CAPALDIAssistant Chief Executive

Background papers: Nil.

Contact Officer: Sue Corrigan, County Personnel Officer, Tel. 01865 810280.

January 2001.

Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS07, Annex 1



PERSONNEL BEST VALUE REVIEW

ANNEX 1

Minority Report

The thrust of the main report is supported. However, the timescale proposed by the service to reach topquartile targets is 5 years (see paragraphs 9 & 13 above). In our opinion, management must address thischallenge in 3 years, ie by 2003/4. The savings accomplished could then be made available sooner toother parts of the Education Service - desirably schools.

If demand increases by 10.5% pa the unit cost target can be achieved in 3 years. However, this isimprobable: hence it will be more likely that staff cuts will be necessary. As in the main report, this can beachieved comfortably within current levels of natural wastage which are 3/year. Even if demand were tostandstill, the necessary decline in staff would be below this - an average of 1.5pa.

The saving would be at least £83,448 at current prices (=£91,185 saving off 2003/4 budget estimating 3%pa inflation), increasing to the £113,000 figure quoted above if demand did increase by 10.5% pa.

[For consistency, documents BV3d and BV4 reflect the original service proposals. If this minority viewwere upheld, financial targets/timescales in these documents would have to be adjusted accordingly.Principally, performance measure 1.2 - the unit staff cost of £24.32 - would be the target for 2003/4, ratherthan 2005/6]

Councillor Brian Law

Stephen CapaldiAssistant Chief Executive

Contact Officer: Mark Ginsburg, Best Value Officer 01865 816031

23 November 2000




PERSONNEL BEST VALUE REVIEW

ANNEX 2

DRAFT

RETIREMENT POLICY

Principles

1. This policy applies to all employees who are members of The Local Government Pension Scheme(LGPS) or are eligible to join. A separate version of this policy applies to employees in LocallyManaged Schools.

2. An employee who has chosen not to contribute to the Local Government Pension Scheme willreceive no pension benefits under this scheme upon retirement.

3. The normal retirement age for all employees is 65 years.* Upon reaching this age all employeesare required to retire unless there are special circumstances. All employment beyond age 65should be referred to the appropriate Departmental Personnel Officer and special arrangements forpension payments will apply.

4. An ex-employee who has retired and is receiving a Local Government Pension will not normally bere-employed by the County Council unless he/she has been selected by a full recruitment process. A re-employed pensioner is required to advise the Authority who pays his/her pension of any newemployment as his/her pension may be reduced in accordance with the Pension SchemeRegulations.

5. An employee who is aged 60 to 64 years may choose to retire by giving the appropriate notice.Those employees who have made sufficient contributions to the pension scheme will receive animmediate payment of pension, in accordance with Pension regulations. Employees arerecommended to contact the Pensions Department at CSL for information about any pensionentitlement and the arrangements for payment options.

6. Retirement with an immediate payment of pension before the age of 65 years may also arise for thereasons set down in paragraphs 8 and 9 overleaf and is subject to the conditions stated.

Special Retirements

7. In the case of the retirements referred to in paragraphs 8 and 9 a) and b) below re-deployment to

other appropriate employment will be considered, and offered where appropriate and available.

Ill Health Retirements

8. An employee who has been certified by an independent Occupational Health Advisor as beingpermanently incapable of discharging efficiently his/her duties or other comparable duties by reasonof ill health or infirmity of body or mind may retire at any age, with immediate payment of a pensionwhere sufficient pension contributions have been made.

Other Retirements requiring Personnel Urgency Sub-Committee Approval

9. The Personnel Urgency Sub-Committee may grant early retirement for employees aged 50 years andover in the circumstances set out in a) to c) below, taking into consideration the full cost of theretirement and the best interest of the council in making their decision.

(a) Redundancy after the Council's Redundancy Procedure has been followed. In thiscase employees will receive immediate payment of their pension entitlement and, whenappropriate, enhancement to their pension up to a maximum of 5 years, plus a statutoryredundancy payment. Nb. Where an employee has more than 2 and less than 5 years'service he/she will receive an immediate payment of pension. However, there is noentitlement to enhancements under the LGPS Regulations, although a lump sumcompensation payment may be paid at the Council's discretion.

(b) Where it is in the interests of the efficiency of the Council's operations. In this caseemployees will receive immediate payment of their pension entitlement. However, anenhancement to the pension will only be given in exceptional circumstances.

(c) Where an employee aged between 50 and 59 years wishes to retire with immediatebenefit. In this case employees will receive immediate payment of their pension entitlement.However, benefits will be reduced in these cases unless the "85 year rule" or compassionategrounds apply.

Redundancy with no Entitlement to Immediate Payment of Pension Benefits.

10. Where a redundant employee has contributed to the LGPS but has no entitlement to immediatepayment of pension, he/she may receive a lump sum compensation payment when appropriatethrough the Council's powers under the Discretionary Pension Regulations, which includes astatutory redundancy payment, where appropriate, based on actual pay. The concurrence of theCounty Personnel Officer is necessary in these cases.

*Special arrangements apply for school crossing patrol employees.

County Personnel Officer

Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS07, BV3



PERSONNEL BEST VALUE REVIEWBV3

Service Area Under Review PersonnelService budget £

Staff costs 1,564,000CSL contract (pay roll element) 431,000Proof Positive contract (advertising) 800,000Occupational Health physicians contract 15,600Counsellors contracts 8,800Management development (outsourced training) 229,900Departmental training budgets 1,036,700Income from Occupational Health -9,300Total £4,076,700

Core review teammembership

Sue Corrigan, County Personnel OfficerCatherine Atherstone, Best Value Co-ordinator, PPRUCllr Margaret GoddenRichard Ayres, Human Resources Manager, Buckinghamshire County CouncilMark Fysh, Branch Secretary, Unison Yvonne McDonald, Asst County Librarian, Cultural ServicesEvelyn Kaluza, Risk Manager, County Treasurer'sTim Paul, Financial Manager, County Treasurer'sVal Farmer, Personnel and Training Manager, Environmental ServicesVicky Field, Acting Head of Service(PATHS), Social ServicesLizanne Ryder, Personnel Officer, PPRU

Terms of reference (takenfrom the BV2)

Structural/Strategic Issues-Structure of Personnel and system of delegation of decision-making-Proportionally high resource areas i.e. training / management development

and recruitment -Grading structures and systems -Employee communications systems-Developing measurable targets and objectives by which to monitor personnel

performance

Operational Issues-Streamlining recruitment, including possible outsourcing of job applications

handling-Redeployment processes-Management of poor performance

Key Service Area to Focus on taken from BV2:

1. Structure of Personnel, system of delegation of decision making and appeals procedure.

Summary of Work Undertaken and Evidence Gathered

This BV3 paper reports on the work done to look at three issues:the structure of the Personnel function in OCC;the system of delegation of decision-making relating to SMR re-gradings and new posts; andthe appeals procedure.

1. Structure of Personnel

The current structure of the personnel service is a devolved one. There are 10.6 fte personnel staff based centrally. Each department has a departmental personnel officer (sometimes taking a multiple role) together with varying levelsof staffing. This breakdown is shown below:

Department Number of fte personnelemployees

Number of employees in dept. Sept 2000snapshot

Chief Executive's 10.6* 176Cultural Services 3.0 425Education 16.95 11,732Environmental Services 4.0 324Fire Service 2.0 323Social Services 30.3 3,224Trading Standards <0.5 44Treasurer's 1.7 87

*Includes corporate personnel staff.

The amount of personnel responsibility devolved to managers varies from department to department. Policies andprocedures are developed corporately and then implemented at a local level. There is wide variation across thecountry in terms of how local authorities arrange their personnel service, ranging from completely centralised throughto almost completely devolved and with varying levels of outsourcing. Oxfordshire is further towards the fully devolvedextreme of the spectrum. This review has examined whether the current system works effectively and whether it ismost appropriate for Oxfordshire County Council.

Consultation

Saratoga surveyThe Saratoga survey exercise undertaken with senior managers provided information on the breakdown of personnelservices provided centrally and departmentally, and people's views on the current split.

Currently the split of the cost of personnel by structure is as follows:

15% of personnel services are provided centrally (chiefly policy and management development)

66% are provided in departments (most of the 'front-line' personnel work such as recruitment and employeerelations)

19% of services are currently outsourced, including advertisement placement, management development trainingand occupational health physicians.

Managers were asked for their views on the preferred location of personnel activities. No clear picture emerged fromthis. For example, managers' views on how much of the service should be provided centrally varied between 2 and24%, for departmental provision between 15 and 38%, and for the amount best provided on a shared basis betweenthe corporate centre and departmental personnel between 10 and 42%. On a more definite note, in general managersscored the quality of service provision by departmental personnel higher than corporate provision. It is possible thatthis is due to greater familiarity with departmental staff and a lack of awareness as to what the central serviceprovides.

Consultation with Chief OfficersIn contrast to managers' equivocal views, Chief Officers are strongly in favour of maintaining the current devolvedapproach to personnel management, although there is an acceptance that some fine tuning may be required. Inparticular it was commented that this approach is consistent with the general delegation of managerial responsibilitythroughout the Council. The system aims to maintain close links between service delivery and personnel support.

Consultation with UnisonThe Branch Secretary of Unison in a member of the review team. Unison's written views on the current structure arethat 'it allows flexibility at a localised level whilst being part of a corporate framework that acts as a universallyrecognised tool of control and arbitration. This ensures consistency of approach which builds staff confidence andprevents a fragmented or distant approach that would affect industrial relations. The fact that departmental orlocalised personnel teams exist means that many situations have been dealt with effectively at the appropriate levelwith local knowledge of the personalities involved. … The current structure has proven to be effective in terms ofindustrial relations…'

Comparison with other County Councils – costs, staffing and structure

Saratoga Quantitative Feedback – costsThe information gathered by Saratoga on the current costs of Personnel within Oxfordshire shows that these arebelow the average for the 15 County Councils that have been surveyed at £97 per employee (43rd percentile). Forcomparison the 75th percentile equated to £128 per employee and the 25th to £90 per employee.

Benchmarking by Kent County Council – cost and staffing ratiosKent CC has undertaken a benchmarking exercise with 10 County Councils looking at the number of Personnel andDevelopment staff and the number of employees in the organisation as a whole. From this they have calculated theratio of P&D staff to employees and the cost of P&D per employee. In this sample, Oxfordshire ranks amongst thebetter performers in terms of the cost of personnel and development per employee (comparatively low) and the numberof employees per personnel/ development employee (comparatively high).

Number of employees per P&D staff

050

100150200250300

Council CCouncil BCouncil ECouncil ACouncil GOxfordshireCouncil D

NumberofemployeesperP&D

staff

The Personnel Managers' Yearbook – staffing ratiosSome further comparisons have been made based on information in the Personnel Managers' Yearbook.

This enables us to look at the number of fte employees per personnel staff. Again, of the sample of countycouncils shown below, Oxfordshire comes out as a higher performer.

0

50

100

150

200

250

East Sussex

Kent

Durham

Chesh ire

Bedford

sh ire

Worc

esters

h ire

Buckingham

sh ire

Oxfo

rdsh ire

Northum

berland

North Y

orksh ire

Num

ber o

f fte

em

ploy

ees

per p

erso

nnel

offi

cer

Comparisons with SOCPO group – structureComparative information on the structure of personnel services was gathered from nine other counties inthe Society of County Personnel Officers, Shire Counties Group. These counties are Northumberland,Bedfordshire, East Sussex, Somerset, Cheshire, Worcestershire, West Sussex, Northamptonshire andEssex. The table below summarises the information gathered:

County Current structureBedfordshire Follows executive/ scrutiny split. Now looking to outsource support services and the

majority of personnel staff will transfer. CPO has access to board as required.Cheshire Totally centralised following problems with departmental approaches 7 years ago. POs

rotate between departments they work with.Now under review. CPO currently reports to CE but changing to corporate director.

East Sussex Decentralised but highly co-operative.CPO has access to board as and when required.

Essex Devolved structure with awareness may be overstaffed.Each department has a head of personnel.CPO reports to CE and attends board.

Northamptonshire

Devolved structure working very co-operatively. CPO reports to Director of Resources andattends board as required.

Northumberland

Highly centralised with almost no personnel professionals in depts. other than SS trainingand H&S.CPO also Director of Corporate Services.

Oxfordshire Highly devolved but working cooperatively. CPO reports to ACE with access to board asrequired.

Somerset Very centralised structure recently added to by new CE. Big depts. still have own teamsworking to co-ordinate strategy.

West Sussex Totally centralised other than Fire, SS and schools training.Worcestershire

CPO reports to Director Corporate Services. All POs report to her including SS training.

In summary:

in five counties the structure is described as centralised

in four it is decentralised, as in Oxfordshire

in one county there are plans to out-source all support services, including Personnel.

A centralised structure is therefore slightly more common than a devolved one in this sample.

Where there have been recent changes in the structure of personnel, these have normally been because the previous

system was not seen to be working effectively. Those counties operating a devolved system all acknowledged thatinformal co-operation between personnel staff and a desire to work together are vital for the structure to workeffectively.

Visits to other authoritiesVisits have been made to two county councils where there has recently been a centralisation of personnel services.

Buckinghamshire County Council: the authority centralised its personnel function in 1999. Before local governmentreorganisation in 1997, each department had its own HR unit complemented by a small central core of HR staff. There was a drive, led by members, to centralise the function because of:

a perception that there was inconsistent advice to managers; and

duplication of functions between departments and the centre leading to higher than necessary costs.

A consultant was brought in following LGR and recommended total centralisation along functional rather thandepartmental lines, which was projected to achieve a saving of £300,000 in staffing costs. The service was dulycentralised into one HR department with three sections – Resourcing, Operations and Organisation, and EmployeeDevelopment.

The positive impacts of the changes have been that there is now greater flexibility over deploying personnel staff; thelocal interpretation of policy has been reduced; and the bottom line personnel staffing costs have reduced.

However, there have also been a number of negative results of the change: the morale of personnel staff has fallen considerably as people no longer feel they know their customers or are

providing the broad personnel function that they used to. There is now higher turnover. rather than departmental barriers between people there is now a central 'silo' system with internal communication

problems between the three sections. managers perceive a decline in the quality of service, particularly in the speed of response. in terms of the staffing cost savings, the £300,000 pa has not been achieved in the short term and service

departments have had to step in with extra resources. The net staffing cost saving is nearer £200,000 pabut this does not take account of the cost of the seven or so staff who took voluntary redundancy and earlyretirement as part of the restructuring. In addition it is impossible to cost any personnel work now carriedout by managers who no longer have local personnel support. In consequence it is difficult to assesswhether real savings were achieved.

The Buckinghamshire HR Manager, who sits on this review team, still thinks that the changes made in 1999 wereappropriate at that time but recognises that there is now a need to tackle the problems listed above.

Under its new structure, Buckinghamshire has 56.32 personnel fte for 12,750 employees (204 employees perpersonnel officer). This compares with Oxfordshire's 68.55 personnel fte for 16,335 employees (238 employees perpersonnel officer).

A significant difference between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire was that managers in Buckinghamshire appearedto be more aware of managerial personnel issues than is the case in Oxfordshire. It is thought that this is a result ofintroducing their Managers' Guide. Following the Saratoga exercise a decision has been taken to develop anOxfordshire managers' handbook to personnel. This will be produced during 2001-02 and should address the problemof low awareness and should better equip managers to undertake their personnel activities.

Hampshire County Council: as with Buckinghamshire, the move to re-centralise was driven by members followinglocal government reorganisation in 1998. The aim was to improve consistency and to streamline operations. Therewere no financial savings made. Hampshire's County Personnel and Training Officer reports that real change has beenslow to occur in some areas. There are still on-going difficulties with Chief Officers who were not generally in favour ofthe re-centralisation; and with departmental personnel staff who still tend to align themselves with their previousservice department rather than the central department. The CP&TO's opinion is that it would have been more effectiveif Chief Officers had 'signed up' to an agreed personnel agenda and priorities in advance to help make this changework better. Hampshire has approximately 170 personnel staff and 31,000 employees (182 employees per personnelofficer). The view of the CP&TO is that workloads are extremely high and morale is currently very low within theservice.

2. System of delegation of decision-making – re-gradings and new posts

Consultation, feedback from training courses and anecdotal evidence from managers and Chief Officers clearlyindicate dissatisfaction with the current levels of delegation for establishing new posts and deciding SMR re-gradingchanges. The current requirement to seek service committee approval to recruit to a post where funding has alreadybecome available can cause delays in starting service provision and frustration to both managers and personnelofficers. This review has looked at the level of delegation and considered whether it is efficient as it is currently setup. In addition, the requirement to obtain committee approval for all re-gradings in Senior Management Range, nomatter how small, is seen by Chief Officers as unnecessary and inefficient.

New posts

Feedback from fora such as the Chief Executive's consultative lunches and from training courses which touch onpersonnel issues repeatedly raises concerns about the time and effort needed to obtain committee approval beforeestablishing new posts when money is identified from within existing budgets or has already been made available tothe service, for example where a grant has been allocated to set up or expand a service. The feedback from theLeadership programme, which the top seniors managers have been through in the last 14 months, also highlighted thelack of devolved powers over new posts as an issue of concern.

Managers perceive this as a major delay inherent in the current system of delegation of decision making. Clearly it isadvantageous to include details of staffing in committee reports at an early stage wherever possible but this is notalways feasible. The anecdotal evidence suggests that the current system is creating problems for the operationalservice.

During 1999-2000 an Urgency Sub-Committees had to be convened solely for the purpose of establishing posts withinSocial Services which were financed through government funds, and to date in 2000-2001 a further 2 have beenrequired. In addition, 11 separate reports were submitted to various service committees to establish posts in1999-2000.

SMR re-gradings

To give an indication of the size of the issue, the following information was gathered:

22 SMR re-grading reports were considered by Personnel Urgency Sub-Committee in 1999-2000 and a further 9have been considered this year so far.

In total, 74% of these related to the re-grading of only one post.

All of the 31 re-grading proposals were granted, although 3 requests were first deferred for further information.

During the same period around 28 re-gradings for more junior posts were approved by COs under delegated powers.The current arrangements require a full report to be prepared for committee, although the amounts involved can be aslittle as £700 pa. During 1999-2000 only 3 of the grading proposals considered by the Personnel UrgencySub-Committee exceeded £5,000 pa.

3. Appeals procedure

There are currently four separate routes for personnel-related appeals coming before members. Most appeals areheard by Personnel Urgency Sub-Committee, which heard 20 appeals in 1999-2000 (12 of which were against theremoval of essential car user allowance). However, other arrangements apply for schools staff, centrally-employedteachers, and Uniformed Firefighters. Different groups of employees within the Council are therefore given differenttreatment in the appeals process. A second issue is that a range of members are involved in hearing appeals,sometimes as infrequently as once a year or less. This militates against members having the opportunity to developskills and knowledge in this area.

It is understood that these issues should be resolved under the new political structure for the Council. This is to bewelcomed. It is important to ensure that there is one open and fair process for all employees and that the membersinvolved are appropriately trained and experienced.

Conclusions Reached

Structure of Personnel

There does not seem to be any financial or operational case for changing the current devolved structure for acentralised structure:

the major customers of the service (COs, senior managers and employee representatives) are satisfied with adevolved structure

Oxfordshire's costs appear reasonable

in terms of productivity, the number of employees per personnel officer in Oxfordshire is towards the higher end ofthe spectrum (i.e. more employees per personnel officer)

the review has not highlighted any significant problems – for example cost, variation in practice, refusal to workacross the organisation – which might prompt a decision to centralise

problems which do need attention, such as speeding up recruitment, can be dealt with under the current structure.

This review has looked at the fundamental principle of whether or not the service should be structured in a centralisedor devolved manner. The conclusion is that it should remain devolved. The issue of whether there are certainfunctions within the personnel service that should switch from being centrally to departmentally provided or vice versais subject to ongoing review within the Personnel Officers Development Group.

More work is needed to clarify what it means to achieve success under the current arrangements. The reviewtherefore concludes that a definition should be put in place and once a year, there should be customer satisfactiontesting and an assessment of whether or not the service is working effectively through the devolved structure. Thecrucial factors in working effectively appear to be good working relations between personnel officers; the commitmentof Chief Officers; and a good working knowledge of personnel policy among managers. The proposed Managers'Handbook should help to ensure this last point.

The issue of maintaining consistency and efficiency within departmental personnel activities has been raised as amatter of concern by some members and the need for co-operation between departmental personnel officers and thecentre is clearly crucial to the on-going success of the current structure. The work undertaken for the review hashighlighted a number of ways in which the current devolved structure could be strengthened to enhance the currentmeasures aimed at preventing departments becoming autonomous in this area. These include:

regular attendance of DPOs at departmental management teams where not already the case

full implementation of the outstanding recommendations agreed by Personnel Sub-committee in June 1999designed to strengthen the current structure

introduction of a formal reporting relationship between the CPO and DPOs.

These proposals will:

formalise and strengthen the professional and structural links between the County Personnel Officer anddepartmental personnel officers

lead to better communication of corporate personnel priorities and values to departmental personnel staff andmanagement teams

help to ensure that corporate policies are implemented effectively and to time.

System of delegation of decision-making

New postsThere is anecdotal evidence from managers that the current requirement to gain additional committee approval toestablish a new post for which funds have already been identified is introducing delays in service provision. OnceChief Officers have identified funds from existing budgets or obtained finances to set up or expand a service it isconsidered inefficient to go back to committee solely to agree the establishment of that post. Clearly, Chief Officersshould ensure that details of staffing required are explicit in requests for funding wherever possible. However, if ChiefOfficers had the authority to recruit to posts where finances are available without further report to the ServiceCommittee this would have saved approximately £2,300 in 1999-2000 in personnel officer, committee administratorand senior managers' time. In addition, the time spent by members discussing the establishment of the new postwould be saved and the recruitment process would be able to start more speedily than is currently the case. This

would also be in line with the current arrangements by which budget information is used for monitoring purposesrather than 'staffing budgets' as was previously the case.

Re-gradingThe evidence from managers and COs is that the current system of delegation of decision-making on re-grading isinefficient. This is supported by the evidence of the numbers of re-grading decisions put before committee each year(22 last year); the number approved at first appearance (19 with the other 3 subsequently approved); and the value ofthe re-gradings (last year only 3 exceeded £5,000 per year).

It is concluded that the current system is inefficient and should be discontinued other than for CO gradings and thoseSMR re-gradings of a value of at least £5,000 pa.

This would lead to a saving in officer and member time. For each report to committee on a grading issue we canestimate that it takes three hours for a personnel officer to research, write and assist in presenting a committee reporton a re-grading issue; plus an hour of manager time to check and present to committee; plus an hour of committeeadministrator time to prepare paperwork etc and attend committee. The cost in officer time is therefore a minimum offive hours per item. The proposal above would have reduced the number of decisions put to committee by 19 whichwould represent a saving of 114 hours of officer time. With an average hourly cost for a personnel officer being £21(including on-costs), an Assistant Director, County Personnel Officer and Assistant County Treasurer at £34 and acommittee administrator £14.50, the proposed system would have meant a saving in officer time in 1999-2000equivalent to £3,000. Other benefits arising from the proposed system would include a reduction in member timespent considering re-gradings and speeding up of the process of implementing a re-grading once a decision to changegrade has been taken.

It is recognised that members will want to maintain oversight and control of the pay bill and there are mechanisms forthis through the budget-approval process.

Appeals procedure

If appeals are not conducted properly and are later judged as unfair by the Employment Tribunal there can be seriousconsequences for the Council. This is particularly so given the new financial penalties which can be awarded byTribunals. These now reach £50,000 for unfair dismissal and are unlimited in the case of sex and race discrimination.Sometimes a Tribunal will take account of a full and fair appeal hearing and even view it as compensating for anyprevious errors of process during a dismissal process. There are therefore strong incentives for the Council to have afair and effective appeals procedure.

The current number and variety of appeal panels means that we cannot be sure there is consistency. Also, somemembers do not have significant involvement in appeals and so have limited knowledge and experience to bring; and itis questionable whether service spokespersons are the most appropriate people to hear appeals relating to thatservice.

It is concluded that the current system is not fair and consistent and the proposed new arrangements which addressthis are, therefore, to be welcomed. This review concludes that in order for the appeals procedure to be moreconsistent and hence fair a pool of members should be trained in hearing appeals and, in order to foster objectivity,service committee spokespersons should not normally hear appeals relating to staff from that service.

Areas/Options for Improvement Identified

Structure of Personnel

Maintain a devolved system but introduce a measure for how we can assess whether the system is workingeffectively. Review performance against this on an annual basis.

Strengthen the devolved structure through a number of measures to ensure that the structure works effectively andmeets the new measure.

System of delegation of decision-making

Increase the delegation to COs of decision-making powers relating to re-grading to include all decisions below COlevel where the amount in question in less than £5,000 pa. This will lead to an annual saving in officer time equivalentto around £3,000 and a further saving in member time.

Remove the current requirement to gain committee approval for establishment of new posts where funds have beenidentified or allocated for new or developing services. This will lead to a saving in officer time equivalent to around£2,300 in addition to the members' time.

Key Service Area to Focus on taken from BV2:2. Operational Issues:-streamlining recruitment, including possible outsourcing of job applications handling-management of poor performance-redeployment processes-employee communications systems-developing measurable targets and objectives by which to monitor personnel performance


1. Streamlining recruitment

Recruitment is the second largest personnel activity undertaken after training accounting for 19% of personnel time.During 1999-2000, staff turnover averaged 15% across the Council and (excluding schools) approximately 720advertisements were placed.

Saratoga feedbackThe Saratoga exercise showed that managers are generally relatively content with the recruitment function. However,two aspects of the process have emerged from the survey and subsequent consultation as significant causes forconcern. First, managers believe the recruitment process takes too long to complete from a vacancy occurring tomaking an offer of appointment. Second, managers are critical of the current requirement to go through theadvertisement and appointment process where a temporary post becomes permanent and the temporary post-holderhas demonstrated satisfactory performance in the job. They regard this as unnecessary, time-consuming and unfairon the candidates involved.

Speed of recruitment process: an analysis has been undertaken on the Council's recruitment process to identify anyunnecessary delays. This shows that the entire process, from a vacancy arising to an offer being made, can becompleted within eight weeks, which is considered reasonable. A guidance document on minimising time taken in theprocess has been issued to managers and personnel officers. Work is now being done to look at departmentalpractices to ensure that recruitment is being carried out in as timely and effective a way as possible.

Appointment of satisfactory temporary employees: investigation into selection processes shows that during the firsthalf of 2000-2001 there were approximately 355 temporary positions filled across the Council, not including schools.Of these, 41 temporary posts later became permanent and in just over half of these cases the temporary incumbentgot the permanent job following a second recruitment process. Clearly, a further recruitment trawl may still have beendesirable in cases where the temporary employee is not regarded as fulfilling all of the desirable requirements for thepermanent position. However, in many cases the temporary employee was regarded as satisfactory and appointedpermanently. As much as £58,000 could be saved over a full year in advertising costs alone (i.e. not includingmanagement and personnel time spent on recruitment) if these appointments had been confirmed without a furtherrecruitment process.

Re-advertisement of postsDuring the first half of 2000-2001, 98 posts had to be re-advertised because the appointment process was notsuccessful the first time. The average cost of a local advertisement is approximately £470 and of a nationaladvertisement £1,225. It is estimated that re-advertisements cost the Council in the region of £130,000 pa. Othercosts of failing to recruit include the time spent by managers and personnel officers on unsuccessful recruitment

activities and the costs of covering the vacant post which could involve overtime or agency workers.

Administering recruitmentSocial Services Department accounts for approximately half of the recruitment activity in the Council (excludingschools) and 43% of recruitment costs. Clearly, the scope for economies of scale are greater here than in smallerdepartments. A pilot is currently underway within Social Services which breaks down the recruitment function intoclerical and professional personnel activities. Those tasks designated as clerical – including receiving requests forapplication packs and sending out of application packs – have been delegated to the Department's Customer ServiceUnit since May 2000. This has relieved staff of a large volume of routine work which has allowed work on the transferof the resource centres to Barnardo's and additional work on recruitment and retention to be allocated to existingpersonnel staff without taking on extra personnel officers which would have otherwise been necessary. Other benefitsinclude a prompter response to enquiries, better management information and improved staff morale. Although thesystem is working well so far, the volume of work which has fallen on the Customer Service Unit has increasedsignificantly so that they now require additional administrative staff to cope. However, these additional hours will be ata grade which is more commensurate with the clerical tasks being undertaken.

Benchmarking with Buckinghamshire County Council involved a visit to their centralised recruitment team. Allrecruitment, including schools, has been brought into one team which uses a purpose-designed software package tomanage the process. All recruitment paperwork is handled through this office but there is no involvement withshortlisting or interviewing as managers undertake these activities. Nor is there any quality checking of howmanagers perform in these areas. This centralised recruitment team was introduced as part of the cost-cuttingmeasures introduced within Buckinghamshire. However, it is not without serious difficulties such as severe backlogsof work and staff retention problems because of the workload and relatively restricted nature of the work.

2. Management of poor performance

The Council currently deals with problems in staff performance through the appraisal system or for more seriousissues, the disciplinary procedure. However, personnel officers are aware that this aspect of management is notworking effectively since often performance difficulties are not addressed at an early stage and problems becomesevere before managers seek advice. A revised induction and probation policy was approved by PersonnelSub-Committee in June 2000 which goes some way to providing a base for managing poor performance for newemployees. However, there are no corporate guidelines for dealing with poor performance among long-establishedstaff, although in some departments local guidelines have been drawn up at managers' request. The development of aformal procedure for managing employee performance would help managers to tackle this difficult issue morepromptly, systematically and effectively. It would also ensure that the employee concerned receives a properopportunity to improve performance.

An additional benefit of a formal employee performance system would be that it would enable managers to reachreasoned and justified judgements about the suitability or unsuitability of temporary employees to take on permanentjobs where these become available.

3. Redeployment process

Redeployment has increased due to the development of policies which seek to avoid redundancy and early retirement.It has been an important factor in reducing the number of early retirements from the Council. From 1998-99 to1999-00 the number of early retirements has fallen from 95 to 69. Redeployment accounted for as much as 60% ofthis reduction .

A central redeployment register has been introduced to facilitate the process across all departments. During1999-2000 27 redeployments took place across the Council, excluding schools, with 24 of these being within SocialServices. 11 redeployments were for reasons to do with health, nine were to avoid redundancy or due toreorganisation, two were due to relationship problems and the remaining five were for a variety of other reasons.

The redeployment process is unpopular with managers who feel they are sometimes required to take on unsuitableemployees.

Redeployment of staff to avoid, where possible, early retirements and dismissals will need to continue. However, weneed to develop guidelines to ensure that employees are deployed to appropriate situations. Improved guidelines on

managing employee performance should contribute to this.

4. Employee communications systems

Communication is invariably a problem area for large organisations. Both the Employee Survey of 1999 and theSaratoga exercise confirmed that employee communications remains a problem for the Council. It is Personnel's roleto ensure that systems for communications are in place and working effectively. However, the responsibility forfulfilling the requirement to communicate with employees rests with line managers.

The Council approved a Communications Policy in 1999 and a survey was undertaken in October 2000 to identify theextent to which departments had implemented the policy. In general this survey showed that staff believe that theappropriate channels and vehicles for successful communications are in place. However, having the means ofcommunication in place does not ensure that messages are effectively communicated.

Although some departments have systems for employee briefing, none of these has been introduced in a systematicway and they are generally not audited for effectiveness. Social Services is now taking action to introduce theIndustrial Society's Team Briefing system. The benefits that Social Services hopes to see as a result include:increased contact and team identity to improve morale and service delivery; regular, systematic and structured flow ofinformation; face-to-face communication of sensitive and complex information and a means to address a knowndifficulty with the present communication arrangements. If successful, the arrangements will be implemented inother departments.

5. Developing measurable targets and objectives

Personnel is a support service which enables the organisation to carry out its business – delivery of services.Identifying outcomes for the personnel service is therefore more difficult than for front-line services. The ultimateoutcome of an effective personnel service in the County Council would be provision of a cost effective service bywell-motivated staff. To date, the targets relating to personnel have had to do with workforce statistics – % turnover,gender balance in the work force, number of applications per post and so on. These are statistics which areinfluenced by a whole range of issues including the local labour market, and do not necessarily measure the impact ofthe personnel service. A further complication is that personnel is devolved so any performance targets relate to across-departmental function rather than a self-contained team or service.

There is an increasing demand for target-setting and effective performance measurement in all areas of local authorityactivity. Some of the statutory Best Value Performance Indicators relate to the type of workforce statistics outlinedabove and the Council's medium term planning framework is requiring services to develop objectives and targets whichcan be measured and which focus on outcomes rather than inputs. In response to this trend, SOCPO developedsome draft performance indicators for personnel and circulated them for comment but they received a lukewarmreception because in many cases they were subjective and did not provide a means of numerical analysis.

The current situation within Oxfordshire is that there are targets for the workforce statistics which are monitored bycommittee; and also targets for statutory indicators in the Oxfordshire Plan. There is also an Employment Strategywhich outlines the areas of personnel work and development that the Council wishes to take forward. This isimplemented by an Employment Strategy Group comprising personnel and chief officers. However, there is not atpresent a personnel plan which all personnel officers in the county work to and under which departmental personnelplans sit.

Buckinghamshire County Council, which has a completely centralised service, has a framework of an outcome-drivenstrategy and under that, a practical annual service plan with specific targets and performance measures. Thedocuments are brief but relate the personnel service to the strategic aims of the authority and provide a means forpersonnel to demonstrate the outcomes it achieves.

Conclusions Reached


Speed of recruitment process: the analysis undertaken for this review shows that the current process should enable

a job offer to be made within eight weeks of a post becoming vacant. This is not considered unreasonable. Recentguidance issued to managers and departmental personnel officers should help ensure that more appointments aremade within this minimum time period.Appointment of satisfactory temporary employees: it is ineffective and inefficient to go through a recruitment processwhere a temporary post becomes permanent and the temporary employee is appropriate for the permanent post. Aninitial estimate is that we spend as much as £58,000 pa unnecessarily on advertising posts where the temporary postholder is subsequently appointed.

However, if it was not always necessary to advertise a temporary post which is becoming permanent there would bepotential for abuse or misuse in a way that compromises fair and open recruitment. A number of principles wouldneed to be adhered to in order to avoid such a compromise:

1.in the initial appointment all temporary appointments must be made following a full, open recruitment procedure

2.a sound system of managing the performance of temporary employees would be needed to provide the evidenceneeded to justify a decision not to advertise

3.such a system would also provide the evidence needed to justify to a temporary employee why her/hisperformance is not sufficient to enable them to be appointed permanently without a further recruitmentprocess.

4.Chief Officers would need to allow secondments among existing employees who apply for temporary jobswherever practical to allow them access to possible developmental benefits from the temporary role.

Re-advertisement of posts: failure to recruit in the first instance is very costly. Guidance on marketing posts andtargeting job advertisements has recently been issued to managers and personnel officers to try and ensure that asmany appointments are made as possible as a result of the first recruitment process. It will not be clear for at leastsix months whether this has had a positive impact on the rate of re-advertisement and therefore whether savings onre-advertising costs have been made.

Administering recruitmentIt is too early to say whether the Social Services pilot delegation of the clerical aspects of the recruitment process willbe successful in the longer term. This will be reviewed after a further 6 months and Chief Officers will be notified of thecosts and savings/benefits involved. If it is shown that there are net benefits, other departments should be encouragedto make similar arrangements although the benefits of scale would be less significant than in Social Services.

2. Management of poor performance

There is evidence that improved procedures, managerial guidance and training on managing poor performance arenecessary in order to address employee performance issues in a timely and effective way. Effective means ofmanaging employee performance would also have benefits in the areas of redeployment and making temporaryappointments permanent.

This is a sensitive area and it is essential that the process adopted is fair and seen to be fair. This would be helped ifthe Unison was involved in its development and implementation.


The redeployment process is a necessary part of the efficient management of the staff of the Council. It benefits theCouncil in that it avoids pension costs and other payments associated with dismissals and fulfills the Council'sobligations under the Disability Discrimination Act. It also benefits employees who are successfully redeployed as itpreserves their employment. However, there are problems with the system as it currently operates in that managersare unhappy with receiving redeployed employees. Introducing a clear system for managing employee performanceshould help expose any 'hidden' performance issues which managers fear when taking on a redeployee. This shouldboost managers' confidence in the process and reduce dissatisfaction.

4. Employee communications systems.

The Council adopted a new policy last year which set down the basis for improved communications. Chief Officersreport that this has been put in place. There has not yet been sufficient time for the new system to embed. It isintended to conduct a survey to assess its effectiveness by December 2001. It would therefore be inappropriate todevelop further policies at this time. However, if within a year the new policy does not appear to be yielding benefits,

a full review will be undertaken. If Social Services goes ahead and pilots a formal team briefing approach, the costsand benefits will be assessed after one year and if the system appears beneficial, the possibility of rolling out to otherdepartments will be explored.


In order for the personnel service to meet the growing requirements for target-setting and measuring outcomes, thereis a need to introduce a new system of planning. The Buckinghamshire model provides a good starting point andnothing better has been identified to date. There is a need for both a personnel strategy with identified outcomeslinking to the strategic objectives of the organisation, and departmental annual plans which set clear performancetargets. This will further strengthen the devolved personnel structure and will mean that there is a demonstrablecorporate framework within which departments are operating. This should be set in place for 2001-2002.



Promote the recent guidance on marketing posts and speeding up the recruitment process in order to minimise thedelays in recruitment and reduce the £130,000 pa spent on re-advertisement.

Abolish the requirement to re-advertise temporary posts which become permanent where it can be demonstrated thatthe temporary post holder is satisfactory. This should save the cost of advertising jobs where the temporary postholder is subsequently appointed (this sum was up to £58,000 last year).

Analyse the costs and benefits of the split of administration of recruitment within Social Services in early 2001-02 anddecide whether or not to roll this out within other departments.

2. Management of poor performance.

Develop and introduce corporate guidelines for managing poor performance of all employees. The benefits will includebetter employee performance and strengthening of the redeployment process and the decision in some cases not tore-advertise a temporary post that has become vacant.


Continue with the current arrangements to promote redeployment but link to new guidelines on managing employeeperformance. This should increase the confidence of managers in accepting redeployees.

4. Employee communications systems

Assess the impact of the new communications policy by December 2001 and if by then there do not appear to bebenefits, conduct a full review of the system.


By March 2001, produce an outcome-focussed, cross-departmental personnel strategy linked to the Council'sstrategic objectives. Also by March 2001 produce departmental annual plans containing measurable targets for2001-2002. The benefits of this will be clear demonstration of the outcomes that result from the work of personnel anda strengthening of the devolved structure of the personnel service.

Key Service Area to Focus on taken from BV2:3. Major initiatives relating to personnel information and grading systems


At the Best Value and Audit Sub-committee on 12 July 2000, members asked that the work being done in relation to thecomputerised information system project was reflected in the best value review. Part of the review specification agreed onthat day was looking at grading structures and systems. The work done on the systems of re-grading has beenpresented in the BV3 on structure of personnel and system of delegation of decision-making. However, the review hasrepeatedly thrown up the fundamental issue of whether OCC should engage on a large scale job evaluation exercise toaddress the underlying problems relating to grading. It has therefore been decided to report on this issue together withthe computerised information system as both of these are major initiatives relating to the personnel service.

Computerised personnel information system

The current personnel information system is recognised as being inadequate for the organisation's needs. There is aclear need for a new system at the same time as there is a need to replace other corporate systems including thefinancial system. A project management board was set up in April 2000 to look at introducing an integrated systemwhich will include the Council's financial, property management, personnel and payroll systems. The four short-listedtenderers have now been selected and it is envisaged that a preferred supplier will be identified by April 2001 and it isanticipated that the new system will be introduced during 2002-2003 (this is dependant on advice from the preferredsupplier on the best timing of release of the new systems in relation to our annual business processes).

Review of grading systems

The current grading systems across the authority have developed in an ad hoc manner over a long period of time. Thishas led to discrepancies between and within departments which it is impossible to justify. To date we have not had toface an equal pay claim but if such a claim was put forward within certain parts of the organisation, the Council couldlose the case and face a compensation package of at least £1 million. The National Agreement of the Joint Council forLocal Government Employees requires all authorities to review their grading systems and strongly promotes the 'GreenBook' job evaluation system as the most appropriate method of assessing jobs in local government.

Comparison with other County CouncilsInformation on progress with job evaluation schemes was gathered from nine counties through the Society of CountyPersonnel Officers, Shire Counties Group; and two further counties were visited as part of this review. Seven of these 11have implemented a job evaluation scheme or have concrete plans to.

West Sussex: is currently implementing the Green Book scheme for employees up to £30,000 excluding schools. Thisshould be completed by March 2001. Above £30,000 there has always been use of the Hay evaluation system and thiscontinues. The major spur for West Sussex was that they had had to settle a £2.5 million equal pay case. An essentialelement of the scheme was having an effective computerised information system. The protection scheme negotiated withUnison and put in place permanently protects everyone who turns out at the end of the exercise within three incrementsof their initial grade. If someone is assessed as being four or more increments above their current grade, progress will bemade in annual increments. It is acknowledged that this generous protection scheme leaves them still open to equal payclaims. Overall, 80% of employees gained and 20% lost with very few having no change. Social Services staff were themain beneficiaries, especially ex-manual workers. Corporate and technical staff were the main groups which lost out.

In six years' time, the pay bill will have risen by £5 million (or 5%) as a result. This will be paid for in part by overtimecuts, loss of long-service increment system and withdrawing the outer London weighting from Crawley. Some employeeswho benefitted from the evaluation will now lose out with these changes. There are just under 500 appeals now pendingwhich WSCC feels is a reasonable number. Staff costs for the team doing the work were around £60,000 per year for twoyears. £40,000 was added to the personnel budget to cover maintenance of the scheme once up and running.

East Sussex: has been allocated £250,000 to implement a scheme which will fund 12 analysts and backfill formanagers. Benchmarking is now taking place.

Essex: has drawn up a structure to carry out a job evaluation up to SO2 based on broad bands with competencybreaks. ECC has delayed paying a 37 hour week until 1 January 2001 pending the new structure. The expected paycosts are £4 million.

Cheshire: already has the Hay scheme in place above SO2 and now plans to implement the Green Book up to SO2.The net cost is expected to be £1.7 million with considerable reduction in terms and conditions (cars, meals etc.) tokeep to this figure. It is estimated that 50% of employees will gain. The trade unions are not supportive but CCC maygo ahead anyway.

Somerset: will be using the GLEA scheme with standardised and generic job descriptions where possible to makeevaluation more straightforward. It will be staffed by the existing job evaluation analyst plus two advisers and oneco-ordinator.

Northamptonshire: £1 million has been allocated to undertake Hay job evaluation scheme throughout the organisation.Increased pay costs have not yet been allocated.

Buckinghamshire: no longer uses the national pay spine but has BucksPay, although at present it is almost the samein practical terms. For some years they have been using Hay evaluation scheme alongside BucksPay. There is one fulltime officer who maintains the job evaluation scheme and there are monthly panels of trained officers to hear appeals andevaluate new or altered jobs. In practice, very few appeals have been lodged since the system became embeddedbecause there is greater transparency to grading decisions.

Hampshire: has operated the old 'Purple Book' scheme to date but they are shortly going to change to either Hay orGLEA.

Saratoga feedbackFeedback from the Saratoga exercise shows that managers are not content with the current grading arrangements.Particular concerns include:

perceived low pay in Oxfordshire compared to other employers

difficulties in recruitment and retention in certain types of job related to the local low unemployment rates andnational shortages in some professions.

Job evaluation will not address these concerns in itself, although a review of pay will allow these points to be addressedalongside the evaluation.

Managers are also aware of discrepancies across departments and professions which they are calling for job evaluationto remedy.

Consultation with staff representativesUnison have recently made a presentation to Employees Joint Consultative Committee seeking the implementation of the'Green Book' scheme in Oxfordshire. It was agreed that a joint local working party will be set up to start exploring thepossible implementation of job evaluation for 'Green Book' employees. Locally there is concern about the volume of workinvolved in evaluation and the disruption which will be caused by the likely down-gradings for some employees.

Conclusions Reached


The current project should introduce a new integrated information system by the end of 2002-2003 (this is dependant onadvice from the preferred supplier on the best timing of release of the new systems in relation to our annual businessprocesses). It is anticipated that the benefits of the new system will include:

better management information

a user-friendly system

the need to carry out business re-engineering to maximise the functionality of the system and streamline thecurrent processes

automation of some of the 'high volume/;low value' administration work through workflow processes and moreeffective use of the internet and intranet, e.g. online recruitment

an interactive system with self-service operation.

Such a system will also be necessary if a job evaluation exercise is to be undertaken. It would not be possible to carryout job evaluation based on the current information system.


There is increasing pressure to introduce job evaluation.

Unison will seek to pursue the national agreement requirement to undertake a review and may come undermounting pressure from staff groups who believe they will benefit from job evaluation and some of whommay have strong potential to make claims under equal pay legislation.

Managers perceive unfairness in the current grades across departments and are dissatisfied with the currentsystem of re-grading based on increased duties and responsibilities which does not address relativities orprovide a systematic framework through which to explain grading structures.

Members who consider grading proposals and appeals find it increasingly difficult to decide on theseissues without a system of grading to refer to.

Individual employees have won costly equal pay claims in other authorities and Oxfordshire is potentiallyvulnerable to these claims without an evaluation system to justify gradings.

The SWOT analysis presented below summarises the issues around job evaluation currently facing Oxfordshire.

Strengths

Provides a rational system of grading across the Council

Allows widely different jobs to be compared e.g. Social Worker and Engineer

Provides protection against equal pay claims

Every job will be reviewed

Weaknesses

Will probably involve a proportion of staff being 'down-valued'

West Sussex had to come to an agreement with the TU to make implementation acceptable which laid themopen to equal pay claims anyway

The cost of implementing job evaluation is 3-5% of pay-bill, though some have done it more cheaply. The cheaperit is, the more employees are down-graded

The training and time involved in implementation would require significant resources probably at least £80,000 inthe first year (more if we back-fill much) and the same or a bit less in the second

Opportunities

Provides reason for increasing the pay bill i.e. a legitimate way to pay more to help to address recruitment andretention difficulties

Redresses known inequities in the structure

Should feel fairer for most – boost to some morale

Provides an opportunity to revise the current appeal system

Would allow the Council to fulfil its obligation to review jobs under the Green Book

Threats

Hopes of pay rises may be disappointed

Significant numbers of staff may leave or lose morale because their jobs are down-valued or down-graded

Relations with Unison could deteriorate and they may be unable to cope with their membership's criticism

Job evaluation may drive up costs of external service provision as providers have to match pay to compete forstaff.

Although there are significant costs and resource implications involved in implementing job evaluation, the pressures toat least plan to take this road are becoming increasingly difficult to resist. An initial outline timetable for implementing ascheme is presented below.

Action Start Complete1. Meet to discuss with Unison working party November 2000 On-going

2. Formally select a job evaluation scheme Mid-2002 March 20033. Pilot exercises to gauge likely costs April 2003 June 20034. Undertake job evaluation September 2003 September 20045. Implement outcomes of job evaluation October 2004 January 20056. Hear appeals April 2005 October 2005



Continue with the planned implementation of an integrated system to include a number of corporate support functions.


Implement a job evaluation scheme across the organisation starting in 2002 to ensure a fair and transparent gradingsystem and to remove the threat of being subject to an equal pay claim.

Key Service Area to Focus on taken from BV2:4. Proportionally high resource area of training/management development.


Background

The management structure for training and development mirrors the devolved structure for personnel management ingeneral, with the exception of Management Development which is managed centrally within PPRU. All training anddevelopment which is not specifically defined as management development is managed within service departments,including professional training.

100% of formal training is delivered by external providers, except in Social Services where there are 13 training officers(approximately 7 fte) who spend approximately 40% of their time providing direct training in a range of specialist socialservices and associated training, as well as some general skills.

There are approximately 2.8 fte employees working on Management Development centrally.

Costs

Training and development was identified as an area for this review to look at because it is relatively costly in terms of stafftime. It absorbs around 24% of personnel officers' time which is around 16 fte or £342,400 pa. 44% of this expenditureis within Social Services. The employee costs of the training and development function ( not including expenditure onout-sourced training delivery) is £20.95 per employee, which the Saratoga exercise showed to be below average for the15 County Councils surveyed (43rd percentile). However, this also shows that the proportion of personnel time spent onthis activity is relatively high at 71st percentile compared to the other 15 County Councils.

Consultation evidence

Additionally the Saratoga feedback showed dissatisfaction with aspects of training and development, including thefollowing:

training needs analysisevaluationlack of consultation/communication about needs and effectivenesscomplexity of systems e.g. competencieslack of focus on culture change in training provided.

Comparison with other county councils

As part of the review, visits were undertaken to Worcestershire and Hampshire County Councils specifically to look athow they arrange their training activities.

Worcestershire County Council: all generic skills and corporate training is managed centrally rather than departmentallyand, given the breadth of training, there is considerably less staff time allocated to the function than in OCC. 2.5 fteorganise all the corporate training for the Council and deliver 48% of this in-house, the rest being delivered by externalproviders. WCC acknowledges that the function is under-resourced and that this has implications for the quality ofservice provided. For example, they have difficulty in adhering to procurement requirements. As with OCC,Worcestershire uses external training venues.

Hampshire County Council: has fully centralised organisation of training and provides 80% of training through in-housetrainers. Hampshire uses its own in-house development centre topped up with some external venues which are alwayspublic sector venues. Recent changes in the funding of training by central government, especially in Social Services,have resulted in the need to make changes within the Hampshire training function which are currently underconsideration. Since the trainers are in-house this will inevitably mean that changes or termination to contracts ofemployment will be involved.

Areas covered by the review

In the light of the evidence from managers' feedback and comparison with other county councils, it was decided for thisreview to concentrate on a small number of discrete issues relating to training and development:

operational aspectstraining accommodationprocurement of trainers.

1. Operational aspects

Three main issues have emerged under this topic:provision of generic skills trainingneeds analysis and type of provision of trainingevaluation of training provided.

Provision of generic skills trainingThe provision of training in generic skills is a shared requirement across all departments of the Council. All aspects ofthis training, except those associated with management development such as performance management and leadership,are currently devolved to departments. Social Services Department has a dedicated training officer to provide this type oftraining. However, personnel officers in other departments believe that generic needs are either not being met adequatelyor are being met in an ad hoc way rather than as a result of planning. Since this training is provided on a piecemealbasis, often without OCC having prior knowledge of the selected providers, it is inevitable that this training is of variablequality and relevance to the County Council. When a training course is reported as being inadequate, the only responseavailable at present is to try another provider in the hope that they will be better suited to our needs. Clearly, as coursescan cost £600-£800 per day, this trial and error approach is wasteful of both time and funds.

The following list gives some examples of the types of training where there is concern about the effectiveness andco-ordination of delivery:

communication & persuasiontime management negotiating skillsrunning meetingspresentation skillsdisability awareness.

Needs analysis and type of provisionManagers have identified in the Saratoga feedback that training needs analysis is currently inadequate. Someimprovement will result from the new Appraisal system which for the first time provides a systematic mechanism for theassessment of individual training needs across the organisation. Some departments use evaluation follow up forms aspart of supervision, although this is patchy and does not feed into the appraisal system automatically. There is noconsistent mechanism for drawing common threads from individual assessments and the assessment of the needs ofgroups of employees has not been addressed. Those departments which have obtained IIP status have identified thatthe development of mechanisms to deal with common needs was an area which required significant development in the

progress towards the award. Those departments which have not yet progressed to IIP probably have a considerableneed for further development. There is no corporate co-ordination of shared needs information across departments underthe current arrangements. This means that the same needs could exist within several departments without this beingrecognised and each department could set about tackling them individually rather than together.

In addition to concern over the way in which needs are identified, Saratoga feedback showed that managers aredissatisfied with the current reliance on courses to fulfil training requirements, especially for senior employees. The maincriticisms are that courses do not take into account the varying level of experience or the individual complexities faced bymanagers. There is some indication that coaching or mentoring might be more popular and successful than courses asthis can be tailored to the individual rather than cater for a breadth of experience and requirements.

Evaluation of the training providedManagers gave particularly low marks in Saratoga feedback to the current methods of evaluating training and theperceived use of the feedback given. Discussions with other councils have confirmed that it is difficult to provide aworkable and meaningful system of evaluation. Most organisations, including Oxfordshire, use 'evaluation forms'immediately after the training event. However, these are seen as being superficial and unable to gauge the longer termeffects of training. They also do not provide the view of the trainee's manager or colleagues on the effectiveness of thetraining received.

2. Accommodation for courses.

Current expenditure on training and management development venues has been assessed and is estimated at just under£70,000 pa across departments. In addition, the Council's own facilities are extensively used but the cost of this is notavailable. There is great difficulty in identifying suitable training venues in Oxford city and some venues used are notacceptable to all employees. If the County Council were to provide its own training centre there would no longer be aneed to find, assess and pay for outside venues which is currently a time-consuming activity. It might also be possibleto run it on a fee-earning basis to help cover costs. The savings in venue charges and administration time may beabsorbed by the need to run the new centre.

The Director of Environmental Services is aware of the difficulties and costs involved with finding appropriate trainingvenues and is considering these needs alongside others in the reviews of property which are taking place at present. Nosuitable accommodation has yet been identified.

3. Procurement Requirements.

Apart from in Social Services, training is almost totally delivered by external consultants across the Council. Thetendering and selecting of training providers is governed by the Council's Standing Orders and Financial Regulations. The processes are time-consuming and geared mainly to financial control and do not necessarily facilitate the selectionof the most appropriate training provider.

Conclusions Reached

1. Operational Aspects.

Provision of generic skills training.The current arrangements for the provision of cross-departmental training needs are ad hoc and uncoordinated. This isleading to inadequate training which wastes both training funds and trainees' time and fails to meet the needs of thetrainees or the organisation.

Although the need to address the issue of shared training has been identified here, the size of the problem has not beenquantified or analysed in detail. It is proposed that an assessment will be undertaken in PPRU to identify the following:

the type and extent of shared training needsthe shortfall, if any, in meeting these needs under the current arrangementshow these needs would best be metthe resources which are currently used in providing these needsthe resources which will be required in order to fulfil the needs satisfactorily.

The analysis will also make recommendations for improving the current provision including an agreed means of fundingthe preferred option. For example, if the conclusion is that these shared needs would be best coordinated and managedcorporately, the funding option may be to top-slice departmental training budgets to cover the cost of the training andassociated costs. In this case some reductions in workload in departments would result which may assist in identifyingfunds.

Social Services already provides a considerable amount of this training for its managers and staff. One option forproviding the training in a coordinated way would be for Social Services to provide it for the rest of the organisation. Inorder to test whether this is feasible, it is proposed that a pilot takes place between April and July 2001 whereby SocialServices will offer generic skills training to employees in other departments on a fee-earning basis.

The outcome of the assessment and the pilot exercise together with conclusions for the way forward will be reported toPersonnel Sub-Committee for approval in October 2001.

Needs analysis, type of provision and evaluationIt is clear from the consultation undertaken and feedback from managers that despite significant efforts in somedepartments, the current systems for involving managers in planning and developing training and development do notwork consistently across the Council. This is a complex area which will require concerted attention over a period of timein order to develop acceptable and successful systems.

The effectiveness of training needs analysis, type of provision and evaluation rests on closer working relationships andeffective communication between training officers and managers. It is proposed that a Training Forum is established tofocus issues such as identification of common needs and organisational needs. Such a forum would consist of trainingofficers, managers and people from external organisations to ensure an appropriate mix of skills and expertise and thenecessary independence to generate fresh ideas and bring a new perspective to the issues. Potential outline objectivesfor the forum could be to:

more accurately identify and target training needsidentify a mix of training methods to be used as appropriateimprove the evaluation processundertake benchmarking to compare operations with other employers and gather and apply innovative approaches

in the provision and management of training identify and promote best practice throughout the organisation.

The proposed forum would also help to increase managerial awareness and interest in the development of training andimprove communication about training. The forum would be organised corporately by the Management DevelopmentOfficer.

2. Accommodation for Courses

There is currently no suitable property available which would provide a potential in-house training facility. The currentexpenditure of £70,000 pa would be inadequate to run a purpose-built facility unless the Council was able to let this toother organisations. Suitable training venues are sought- after in Oxford and a business analysis, including anassessment of the market need, would be necessary before such a venture was entered into. This cannot be undertakenmeaningfully until potential facilities are identified.

The need for training venues is also affected by the type of training provision. For example, if the outcome of theproposed training forum was to address training needs through an increase in mentoring for managers this would clearlyreduce the need for special training facilities in the longer run.

It is not within the scope of this review to carry out an adequate analysis of training accommodation or the establishmentof an in-house training centre. It is proposed to refer this to Director of Environmental Services, with a clear brief ofrequirements and to ask for his assistance in addressing this issue when appropriate accommodation is identified.

3. Procurement Requirements

Discussions with legal advisers indicate that Oxfordshire already does only the minimum to fulfil procurementrequirements when taking on a new training provider on a contract for services. Therefore, there is no scope for reducingthe complexities of the tendering process at present and no further action is appropriate.


Provision of generic skills training.

An assessment of shared training needs to be undertaken centrally by PPRU, working with departmental trainingofficers, to report to Personnel Sub-Committee in April 2001.

Pilot Social Services provision of generic needs training to the rest of the organisation April to July 2001 and report toPersonnel Sub-Committee in October 2001.

Needs analysis, type of provision and evaluation.

Set up a training forum of training officers, managers and representatives from external organisations to developimprovements in the analysis of training needs, delivery styleand evaluation systems and to improve communication.

Accommodation for courses.

Ask Director of Environmental Services to examine property which becomes available to identify a potential in-housetraining centre. A brief will need to be provided for this. If suitable property is identified a business analysis will need tobe undertaken before deciding whether such a centre would be commercially viable and beneficial for the organisation.

Procurement requirements.

Continue to operate within the current requirements when taking on new training providers.

Preferred Options for Service Improvement

Option 1 Maintain and strengthen the devolved structure of personnel and introduce measures to ensure that it is w orkingeffectively and improve that effectiveness.

Option 2 Increase delegation to Chief Officers in the areas of re-grading decisions and establishing new posts.

Option 3 Abolish the requirement to re-advertise temporary posts w hich become permanent w here it can be show n thatthe temporary post holder is satisfactory.

Option 4 Develop and introduce corporate guidelines for managing poor performance of all employees.

Option 5 Develop a cross-departmental personnel strategy and departmental annual plans w ith measurable targets andobjectives.

Option 6 Develop, in consultation w ith unions, a consistent appeals procedure.

Option 7 Implement a job evaluation scheme across the organisation starting in 2002-03.

Option 8 Improve provision of generic skills training w ithin OCC. Specifically, undertake a needs analysis and pilot theprovision of such training by Social Services.

Option 9 Introduction of a training and development forum.

Personnel, 09/01/01. PERS08



AGENDA ITEM PERS8

THE LOCAL GOVERNMETN (EARLY TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT) (DISCRETIONARYCOMPENSATION) (ENGLAND AND WALES) REGULATIONS 2000 AND THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTPENSION SCHEME REGULATIONS 1997 AS AMENDED - DISCRETIONARY POWERS

Report by Assistant Chief Executive and County Treasurer

Introduction

1. The Local Government (Early Termination Of Employment) (Discretionary Compensation) (Englandand Wales) Regulations, effective from 21 June 2000, revoke and replace much of the LocalGovernment (Discretionary Payments) Regulations 1996 and subsequent amendments. The 1996Regulations contained the provisions enabling the payment of Gratuities and Injury Allowances andthese are still current. The new regulations provide the discretionary powers used by the CountyCouncil to provide enhanced benefits for employees, other than fire-fighters and teachers, leavingemployment as a result of redundancy or in the interests of the efficient exercise of the authority'sfunctions.

2. These regulations represent a consolidation of the previous regulations effective from 1996 and thevarious amendments subsequently issued. As such these Regulations do not impose majorchanges to current practice, although the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions[DETR] has introduced a small number of technical alterations, and introduced some changes to theterminology used.

Changes

3. The following table shows the differences between the current practices under a number ofregulations and the effects of this consolidation.

Previous arrangements; various statutes Proposals under New RegulationsRedundancy Payments, OCC has discretionto base payments on actual pay if above theStatutory week's pay [£230 per week]

No changes, continuing with currentpractices.

OCC redundancy payment scheme, usingweek's pay information based on statutoryredundancy pay guide.Payable to staff leaving due to redundancy orefficiency before age 50 and to those agedmore than 50 if no immediate pension ispayable from the LGPS.

Discretion was under the Oxfordshire LocalAct.

Single lump sum compensation payment willuse the weeks pay information at the last dayof service.Continues the current practice for the basis ofnumber of weeks' pay in the calculation, butreplaces in name the OCC RedundancyScheme for employees eligible to bemembers, and current members of theLGPS.May be used as alternative to awardingcompensatory added years. [Creditedperiod]

Payments are made using the discretionarypowers of these new Regulations, not theOxfordshire Act.

Compensatory added years Now called Credited period

Fixed formula for abatement of pensions,

Resulting in reduction of enhanced benefits iftotal new earnings exceed amount could havereceived if remained in original job. Alsopotential for reducing enhanced pensionsafter retiring if the total new pensionexceeded the amount of pension would havereceived if member had remained in theformer employment.

Local discretion for abatement formula to beincluded in the policy statement, to showhow new earnings on re-employment willaffect enhanced pensions in payment andafter retiring.Intention of the regulations is still to ensurethat the individual is not profiting at publicexpense from a re-employment.

[This abatement policy is in addition to thatdeveloped for the pension benefit paid fromthe pension fund]

Gratuity arrangements, for periods ofemployment when not eligible to join theLocal Government pension scheme.Not used in Oxfordshire

No change to current practice but not part ofthese regulations.

Injury Awards

Powers to pay discretionary awards as aresult of injury at work.

No change to current practice but not part ofthese regulations.

Proposed policy statement under new regulations

4. The County Council has to produce a policy to show how it will exercise the discretionary powersgranted within these regulations in the areas described above. Additionally the opportunity has beentaken to include other areas where the County has a power of discretion although its use has beenvery infrequent in the past. The Sub–Committee are reminded of the requirement, set by theseRegulations, to keep these decisions under review. When considering changes a new policystatement must be published within a month of the decision and the new policy may not come intoeffect until one month after the publication of the policy statement. This policy must be considered toensure that a serious loss of confidence in the public service does not occur and that the policy isworkable, affordable and reasonable having regard to foreseeable costs.

Council's Retirement Policy

5. Annex 1 is the proposed Policy statement required by these new Discretionary PaymentRegulations. The statement attached at Annex 2 is the proposed Retirement Policy agreed atEmployees' Joint Consultative Committee in September 2000 following negotiations with Unison.Further negotiations are still continuing on further changes to the added years [credited period]enhancement. However, these are not likely to be concluded for some time, so Annex 2 is includedfor approval in order to fulfil the requirement of the Local Government (Early Termination ofEmployment) (Discretionary Compensation) regulations 2000, and consolidate the changes to date.

Staff Implications

6. As this is a report of consolidation regulations and continued practice there is no foreseeableadditional staffing implications.

7. The Sub-Committee should note that earnings and benefit caps would apply to all re-employmentswith any employer able to contribute to the Local Government Pension Scheme.

Financial Implications

8. The Sub-Committee are reminded that any award using the discretions within these regulations is notpaid from the Pension fund. Early retirements due to redundancy or 'efficiency' with an immediatepayment of pension from the pension fund are reported to the Personnel Urgency Sub-Committeeand will continue to include details of any awards and the full costs to be borne by the revenuebudgets of the employing departments

Environmental Implications

9. There are no environmental issues arising from the report.

Implications for People Living in Poverty

10. There are no direct poverty implications created by this report.

Recommendation

11. The Sub-Committee are recommended to receive the report and adopt the proposed policystatements in Annex 1 and Annex 2.

Stephen CapaldiAssistant Chief Executive

CHRIS GRAYCounty Treasurer.

Contact Officers: Sue Corrigan, County Personnel Officer Tel: (01865) 810280 and Jenny Wylie,Pensions Officer Tel: (01865) 815530

December 2000




AGENDA ITEM PERS8

THE LOCAL GOVERNMETN (EARLY TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT) (DISCRETIONARYCOMPENSATION) (ENGLAND AND WALES) REGULATIONS 2000 AND THE LOCALGOVERNMENT PENSION SCHEME REGULATIONS 1997 AS AMENDED - DISCRETIONARYPOWERSAnnex 1

Policy statement: Oxfordshire County CouncilEmployees entitled to be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme

1. Redundancy Payments

The County Council will calculate a statutory redundancy payment on the actual weeks pay

2. Lump Sum Compensation

The County Council will award a Lump Sum Compensation payment to those eligible who leaveemployment due to redundancy aged 18 or over but under age 50, with at least 2 years of qualifyingemployment. At least 1 year of qualifying employment is required for the over 50s.

No payment will be made if a credited period has been awarded by the Sub-Committee following thisredundancy.

There will be no award for termination of employment in the efficient exercise of the Council'sfunctions

3. Award of Credited Period

Those eligible aged at least 50 with a minimum of 5 years membership to the LGPS will receive up tothe maximum credited period of up to a maximum 5 years* following early termination of employmenton grounds of redundancy. *subject to the restrictions within the Early Termination DiscretionaryPayments Regulations

There will be no award following an early termination of employment on the efficient exercise of theCouncil's functions.

4. Abatement of pension on re-employment

The annual pension resulting from the award of a credited period will be reduced or suspended ifcombined total of pensions in payment exceed the value of the current rate of pay of the formeremployment.

After ceasing the re-employment the credited period will be adjusted or stopped altogether if theresulting pension from the re-employment and the basic pension exceed the value of the pensionwhich could have been paid if the member had remained in the first employment until age 65.

5. Pensions for dependants

Where more than one spouse has survived a deceased person the annual pension will be dividedequally.

A Spouses' pension will continue to be paid even if the spouse remarries or co-habits, unless at1.4.98 a pension was already suspended due to remarriage.

In the very rare event of a children's pension being payable in circumstances not covered by the mainPension Regulations full details will be supplied to the Sub Committee for a determination.

Note: The County Council retains the right to change policies at any time, this policy confers nocontractual rights and the policy which is current at the time a relevant event occurs to a schememember will be the one applied to that member.




AGENDA ITEM PERS9

PATERNITY, PARENTAL & EMERGENCY LEAVE PROVISIONS: EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

DRAFT

PARENTAL LEAVE SCHEME FOR EMPLOYEES IN SCHOOLS

Who can take parental leave?

1. Any employee with at least one year's continuous local government service who has responsibility*for a child born or adopted on or after 15 December, 1999.

2. The school may require you to produce evidence of the child's date of birth or other confirmation ofyour entitlement to parental leave.

How parental leave can be taken

Parental leave is unpaid.

3. Each parent is entitled to a total of 13 weeks' parental leave for each child.

4. Your entitlement is to a total of 13 calendar weeks' leave, irrespective of whether you are full-time orpart-time. If you work term-time only, your entitlement will be calculated as if you worked all theyear round. For example, if you work one day a week term-time only, your leave will be 13 days intotal, equivalent to 13 working weeks in your case.

5. You can take up to four weeks' parental leave in any one year, starting with the date of thebirth/adoption.

6. If you have taken your full entitlement to leave under the County Council's maternity scheme (63weeks) or paternity scheme (45 weeks), this will be deemed to have included the four weeks ofparental leave to which you are entitled during the child's first year.

7. Parental leave must be taken before the child's fifth birthday unless one of the following applies:

the child has a disability*, in which case the leave must be taken before the child'seighteenth birthday but it must still not exceed 13 weeks overall.

the child is adopted, in which case you can take parental leave before the fifth anniversaryof the adoption or before the child's eighteenth birthday, whichever is the earlier.

Notice required

8. If your leave will be four working days or fewer, you must give your school at least 5 working days'notice. If your leave will be five working days or more, you must give your school at least 21 days'notice. In both cases you must specify the period when you will be away from work.

9. If your governing body believes that the school will be particularly disrupted if you take the leave atthe time you request, they can postpone it for up to three months. Notice of postponement must begiven to you in writing within five days of your original request being received, must give the reason forthe postponement and must suggest alternative dates when the leave may be taken. TheHeadteacher may make the decision to give you notice of postponement but you will have a right ofappeal against this decision to a sub-committee of the governing body and any appeal must be heardwithin three weeks.

10. If you feel that your need for parental leave is urgent and cannot be deferred, you may be entitled toEmergency Leave. Please see the separate procedure for Emergency and Special Leave.

Right of Redress

12. You have a right to complain to an Employment Tribunal if you are prevented from takingparental leave or victimised for taking it.

Notes

* Having "responsibility for a child" is defined as having parental responsibility under theChildren Act 1989 or being registered on the birth certificate as the child's mother or father.

* A child with a disability is defined as one who is entitled to Disability Living Allowance.

DRAFT

EMERGENCY AND SPECIAL LEAVE SCHEME FOR EMPLOYEES IN SCHOOLS

Who can take emergency leave and what is it for?

1. All employees are entitled in law (Employment Relations Act 1999) to unpaid time off work to dealwith an emergency involving a dependant. The amount of time you are entitled to take is whateveris sufficient for you to make alternative arrangements and it is expected that 1 or 2 days will usuallybe sufficient. A dependant is defined as:

your spouse, child or parent; someone living in the same household (other than a tenant or lodger); any other person who relies on you for help.

2. In addition to this legal entitlement to unpaid leave, Oxfordshire County Council employees areentitled to be considered for paid time off in certain emergencies. Governing bodies have thediscretion to decide whether or not to grant this but it is recommended that paid leave be agreed inthe following circumstances:

up to 10 days' leave in the case of the death of a close relative, or other person where you areresponsible for finalising the deceased's affairs;

sufficient time off to attend the funeral of a close relative; up to 10 days' leave in a period of a rolling year in the case of sickness of another person who

needs your attention when no other arrangements can reasonably be made; up to 3 days' leave in a period of a rolling year in cases of illness in your immediate family

unless the circumstances described in the bullet point above apply.

3. In the past, requests for leave of absence for other urgent or personal reasons have also beenconsidered, for example:

moving house; attending the weddings of relatives or friends; attending funerals not covered by paragraph 2 above; seeing relatives off abroad; religious festivals; playing representative games, e.g. for the County.

In these cases, salary has been paid for up to a total of 3 days (in aggregate) in a period of a rollingyear.

Study Leave

4. Requests for study and examination leave have also been considered, for example for taking adegree or similar qualification. Payment of salary has in the past been agreed for up to 6 days for a3 year course, plus the days of the examinations.

Notifying the School

5. You must notify the school of your intention to take unpaid Emergency Leave or to request paidEmergency Leave at the earliest possible opportunity, giving full details of the circumstances andhow long you expect to be absent.

Longer Periods of Leave

6. Governing bodies can approve additional unpaid leave up to a maximum of 12 months.

Other Relevant Policies

Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave, Parental Leave

EMERGENCY & SPECIAL LEAVE: SUMMARY

Legal Entitlement Governing Body Discretion(recommended)

*Dependant gives birth Unpaid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

See Paternity Leave scheme ifappropriate

Death of *dependant Unpaid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

Paid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

Attendance at funeral of*dependant

Unpaid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

Paid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

Finalising affairs of *dependant Unpaid for 1 or 2 days asnecessary

Paid for up to 10 days asnecessary

Attendance at funeral of otherrelative or friend

none Paid or unpaid

Sickness of *dependant Unpaid for a few days asnecessary

Paid for up to 10 days in arolling year

Unexpected incident involving*dependant child during schoolhours/trip


Paid or unpaidSickness of other close relative none Paid for up to 3 days in a

rolling yearBreakdown in carearrangements for *dependant


Paid for 1st day up to amaximum of 3 days in a rollingyear

Moving houseWedding of relative/friendReligious festivalsSeeing relatives off abroadPlaying representative sport

nonePaid for up to 3 days in onerolling year in total

Study and exams forqualification

none Paid for up to 6 days per 3year course + exam days

This list is not exhaustive

*for definition of "dependant" see paragraph 1




AGENDA ITEM PERS10

RELOCATION EXPENSES POLICY

Relocation Scheme for Newly Appointed Employees

The aim of this scheme is to provide financial support to people who need to move in order to take up a newjob with Oxfordshire County Council. We hope that this scheme will help new recruits to secure a home closeto their workplace so that the stresses of commuting are reduced and the distance travelled to work isminimised, in line with the Council's "Travelwise" policy.

General Conditions.

1. This scheme is for the reimbursement of expenses incurred by newly appointed employees whoneed to move home to take a new job with Oxfordshire County Council. New employees will receiveassistance with their expenses in the following circumstances:

the newly appointed employee must move over 25 miles from his/her original home;

the newly appointed employee must move closer to his/her place of work;

the newly appointed employee will move to Oxfordshire or to a location which is acceptable totheir Chief Officer.

2. The application of this scheme to a particular post or a particular individual is at the discretion of theappropriate Chief Officer.

3. Only expenditure incurred within a year of the appointment date will be covered by this scheme,unless special arrangements have been agreed with the appropriate Chief Officer before the year isexpired.

4. If an employee who has benefited from this scheme leaves the Council's employment within 2 yearsof his/her starting date he/she will be required to repay a sum equivalent to the allowance received,reduced by one twenty-fourth for each completed month of service.

5. Any uncertainty or queries about the scheme should be referred to the officer who conducted theappointment interview or to the relevant Departmental Personnel Officer.

6. If a newly appointed employee believes he/she has been unfairly treated in regard to the schemehe/she can refer his/her case to his/her Chief Officer for re-consideration. If he/she remainsdissatisfied with the outcome he/she may refer to the matter to the Chief Executive, whose decisionwill be final.

Expenses Payable.

7. The scheme covers expenditure incurred in any combination of the following categories, up to a totalmaximum of £6500 inclusive of VAT.

(a) A general resettlement allowance of £1,000, payable to all employees who fulfil the criteria inParagraph 1 of the scheme. (This is subject to income tax and National Insurancedeductions unless receipts are produced in accordance with the note below.)#

(b) Removal and storage costs.

(c) Legal, estate agent's, survey and mortgage redemption fees incurred in selling theemployee's old property and/or buying a new property

(d) An allowance for fixtures and fittings, payable to a maximum of £2,000 according to theparticular circumstances of the case and at the Chief Officer's discretion.

(e) A separation allowance of up to £80 per week where 2 homes are maintained.

(f) Travelling costs between the old and new homes for the period during which the separationallowance is payable, paid at public transport rates or on the Inland Revenue 'All Car'mileage rate.

(g) Travelling costs for the new employee and members of his/her household to move from theold house to the new, paid at public transport rates or on the Inland Revenue 'All Car'mileage rate.

(h) The interest on a bridging loan of up to 2 months. Applications for this assistance must bemade to the relevant Chief Officer before the loan is taken up.

Note: where reimbursement of expenditure on goods and services is claimed a VAT invoice or receipt, madeout to the claimant, should be provided. Reimbursement which is not covered by a receipt will usually besubject to the deduction of income tax and National Insurance contributions.

8. This scheme applies to identified posts advertised after 1 April 2001.

County Personnel OfficerJanuary 2001.



PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 9 JANUARY 2001Agenda item PERS11ANNEX 1

UNISON – CHARGES FOR ACCOMMODATION

Ms S CorriganCounty Personnel OfficerOxfordshire County CouncilNew Road Oxford OX1 1DB

22/11/00

Dear Sue

Payment of rent for new UNISON offices

UNISON would like to ask the Council that the payment of rent for the above be discontinued; the reasonfor this request is that the branch finds itself under financial strain at this point. I would, of course expectthe Council to ask whether we had taken steps to reduce our expenditure and this has been done. Wehave, in fact reduced the number of people that now work for the branch along with other cost savingmeasures.

We have also tried to increase the money that we receive from UNISON regionally and nationally as weonly get 27% of income generated. This is under national review and I do not expect that will have anoutcome for a great deal of time.

The reason for this plea is the fact that we have been, and continue to be an active branch in terms ofdealing with employee issues individually and collectively. All reserves and avenues are now used and wecannot continue to offer this level of service unless our finances chance for the better.

I feel sure that the County will recognise the value of the good industrial relations that this branch hasfostered and look forward to a reply

Yours truly,

Mark FyshBranch Secretary


Strategy & Resources CommitteePERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 9 JANUARY 2001

AGENDA ITEM PERS13

OCC & EMPLOYEES JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE – 7 DECEMBER 2000

MINUTES of the meeting commencing at 2.00 pm and finishing at 3.15 pm

Present:

Representing the Council

Councillors David Buckle, Margaret Godden (in place of Councillor Tom Snow), Mrs J. Heathcoat, DonSeale, Sylvia Tompkins, David Turner.

Representing the Employees

Mr Challis, Mr Fettes, Mr Fryer, Mr Fysh, Mr James and Mrs Sutton

Ex Officio:

Councillors Brian Hodgson and Keith Mitchell

Officers:

Whole of meeting: S. Corrigan and M. Leeding (Chief Executive's Office).Part of meeting: Sue Tanner (Education Department).

The Joint Consultative Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained orreferred to in the agenda for the meeting, copies of which agenda and reports are attached to the signedMinutes, and in relation thereto determined as follows:-


RESOLVED: that Mark Fysh (Employees' Side) be elected to chair the meeting.

76/00 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS

Apologies for absence, temporary appointments and Group Leader substitutions were reported asfollows:-

Apology from Temporary Appointment/Substitute

Councillor Snow Councillor Margaret Godden

77/00 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee held on 7 September 2000 wereapproved and signed.

78/00 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES EXCLUDING HEALTH & SAFETY MINUTES

Minute 41/00 – Job Evaluation

The Employees' Side reported that they had recently organised a very successful Seminar on thistopic at which Councillors had been present. They believed the Seminar was very constructive andwould help with working together with the employers on this matter.

Minute 45/00 – Staff Care Manager

Ms Corrigan reported that, following consultation with the Chief Officers Management Group, none ofthe Chief Officers felt it was necessary to employ a Staff Care Manager in their department. Theybelieved that, with the existing Occupational Health Service and UNISON's own facilities, there weresufficient "places" for staff to turn to. The provision of any other arrangements could, in the view ofChief Officers, lead to confusion and possible duplication.

MEETING AS THE HEALTH & SAFETY COMMITTEE

79/00 MATTERS ARISING ON THE HEALTH & SAFETY MINUTES

None were raised.

80/00 HEALTH AND SAFETY JOINT WORKING PARTY(Agenda Item 6)

The Committee received the report of the Joint Working Group held on the 5 September 2000.

(a) Page 1, Item 2

The Employees' Side referred to the recent successful seminars on prostate cancer andosteopathy. They had been well received and they wished to thank the County PersonnelOfficer for her efforts in setting them up.

(b) Page 2, Item 3

Ms Corrigan stated that she would be exploring the suggestion contained in the report onSocial Services - Violence to Staff. She would ascertain who was to write the report and towhom it would be presented.

(c) Page 2, Item 5 – Liaison Committee Minutes

The Employer's Side enquired whether, if staff brought their children to work there would beany insurance cover provided by the Council in the event of an accident.

Ms Corrigan confirmed that no insurance cover would be available in those circumstancesunless it was proved that there was an element of negligence on behalf of the Council. Thesituation did not arise very often and managers were asked to tackle it as and when

necessary. The policy however was to avoid such a situation occurring.

The Employees' Side noted the report but reminded employers that for some parents therewas in fact no option but to bring their children to work if no other care facilities wereavailable either through expense or inconvenience. A "blanket" insurance ban of the kindstated could disadvantage those parents.

(d) Page 4, Item 8 – Over 70s at Work

The Employees' Side stated that their policy was to oppose staff working beyond the normalretirement age set by the Council.

Ms Corrigan confirmed the normal retirement age was 65 and if there were to be anyproposals to go beyond that, these would be subject to separate discussion with UNISON.

The only exception was school crossing patrols where retirement age of 70 was in place,owing to difficulty in obtaining such staff.

Employers mentioned that School Crossing Patrol officers were an essential part of schoolprovision, both in urban and rural areas.

RESOLVED: that subject to the above the Minutes of the Joint Working Group bereceived.

MEETING AND JOINT COMMITTEE

81/00 RESTAURANT AND BEVERAGE MATTERS(Agenda Item 7)

None were brought forward.

82/00 CONTRACTING OUT OF SERVICES(Agenda Item 8)

Ms Corrigan reported that unfortunately she had not been able to obtain sufficient information tomake an oral report on the contracting out proposals in Social Services.

From the Chair, Mr Fysh, on behalf of the Employees' Side, said that at present the union were givingpriority to making their members aware of the issues. They were also in discussion, but notnegotiation, with the 2 short-listed providers and had been given the facility of attending the relevantsub-committee. They were encouraged that both providers said they would apply to joint the LocalGovernment Pension Scheme and had agreed to trade union recognition agreements.

The Employers said that throughout the discussions UNISON had been helpful and constructive.

The Union side also referred to two recent public meetings on this topic which had highlighted 4particular concerns about the contracting out item:

(a) there was a lack of knowledge in the public in general about what was being proposed and ifthey did become aware they then were concerned;

(b) there was general concern at the suggestion of closing any homes for older people;

(c) they believed that the record of private trusts in running old peoples homes in the country leftsomething to be desired;

(d) they were concerned adverse comment in a national newspaper about one of the bidders,recently.

From the Employers' Side it was pointed out that the priority the Council was giving was to providing

the proper level of accommodation for old people and some of the existing homes neededrefurbishment which could not be afforded from within existing resources.

Mr Fysh said that he would be visiting one of the bidders to discuss the recent adverse publicityabout their industrial relations.

On contracting out generally the Employees' Side reported that there was a sea change in attitude ofprivate sector employers. With Isis Accord there was now a proper union recognition agreement andgood industrial relations and the same applied with the contractors providing the school mealsservice.

RESOLVED: to receive the reports.

83/00 CAR ALLOWANCES(Agenda Item 9)

The Committee received the report of the Assistant Chief Executive as set out on the agenda.

The Employees' Side indicated they wished to reopen negotiations and pressed the Council toreturn to the use of NJC rates as at present staff were loosing out, particularly those in receipt of"frozen" mileage rages. They were also concerned at the large numbers of staff being paid casualuser rates.

The Employer's Side noted the request and stated they would await the outcome of negotiationsbetween UNISON and the County Personnel Officer at which point a report would go to PersonnelSub-Committee.

84/00 OXFORDSHIRE WEIGHTING(Agenda Item 10)

The Employees' Side put the case forward for payment of Oxfordshire Weighting. They pointed outthat turnover rates of staff were high, costs of housing and costs of living in Oxfordshire were alsohigh and that it was difficult to recruit good quality staff. Also London weighting was already beingpaid to some authorities who were 50 miles from London. In summary, in their view, there was a verystrong case.

As on the previous item the Employer's Side said they noted the claim being put forward and wouldawait the outcome of negotiations between the County Personnel Officer and the union.

85/00 VARIABLE HOURS CONTRACTS FOR SUPPORT STAFF IN SCHOOLS(Agenda Item 11)Annex 1 Sue Tanner reported that, mainly as a result of recruitment and retention issues for these staff andthe reorganisation of schools in Oxford City, there had been extensive discussions with UNISONabout this item. The proposal was that the changes would apply to all such staff apart from thosestaff working on an individual basis with pupils with special needs. The intention was that this lattercategory would also be brought into the proposals after further discussions with the heads,particularly of small schools.

She stated that after further consideration part of the proposal would need to be changed so thatparagraph 4 of the report, line 6 would delete the words "without triggering redundancy" andsubstitute "within the terms of this contract". This had been brought in because there would be nocircumstances in which the Council could or would wish to prevent staff exercising their right ofappeal in redundancy matters to a tribunal.

For the Union Side the proposal was welcomed as a whole but they sought clarification on twoissues:

(a) would there be as a result, staff on two different types of contract;

(b) clarification concerning those staff working with special needs pupils.

Sue Tanner confirmed that all new staff would be on the new contract and existing staff would retaintheir old contracts. The only alternative was to terminate old contracts and issue new ones and shewas not aware that this was something that UNISON would support.

The employers hoped that proposals could be adopted as they would provide a degree of certainty tothese staff, something which had been lacking for some time.

The Employer's Side also expressed concern at the statement by employees that there were somestaff who were in possession of any contract in this category. Ms Corrigan said she would look intothis issue.

RESOLVED: both sides in favour, and subject to clarification of the two issues raised by theEmployees' Side at a meeting with officers, to RECOMMEND the Personnel Sub-Committee:

(a) to endorse the proposal to include the wording set out in paragraph 4 of the report,as amended, in all new contracts for support staff in schools with the exception ofcaretakers, cleaners and learning support assistants employed to work with pupilswith special educational needs;'

(b) to authorise the officers to continue discussions with headteachers and governorswith a view to introducing such a clause for those LSA who work with SEN pupils;

(c) to ask officers to report back to Personnel Sub-Committee on their progress withthese discussions or when agreement was reached.

86/00 UNISON - CHARGES FOR ACCOMMODATION(Agenda item 12)

The Committee were reminded that this matter had been discussed at a previous meeting butunfortunately the letter from UNISON had not reached the Personnel Sub-Committee at its lastmeeting. A copy of this letter was circulated with today's agenda and the Employer's Side, whilenoting it asked that there should be more examples included as to the practice in other authorities.

The point was also raised as to whether this matter related, and if so in what way, to the Council'spolicy on subsidising the provision of accommodation.

RESOLVED: that UNISON be asked to submit a letter to the next meeting of the PersonnelSub-Committee on the lines of that circulated with additional information about specific examples ofother authorities practice

in the ChairDate of signing 2001


Strategy & Resources CommitteePERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE – 9 JANUARY 2001

AGENDA ITEM PERS13

ANNEX 1

OCC & EMPLOYEES JOINT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE – 7 December 2000 VARIABLE HOURS CONTRACTS FOR SUPPORT STAFF IN SCHOOLSReport by the Chief Education Officer

Introduction

1. It has been a source of concern for some years that a substantial number of support staff in schoolsare employed on fixed-term contracts, often renewed year by year. This is particularly true ofLearning Support Assistants and Classroom Assistants. As a result, these employees feel moreinsecure, have difficulty in applying for mortgage and other credit facilities and may feel lesscommitment to the school. Schools have tended to use these temporary contracts because ofperceived uncertainties in funding and in order to give flexibility in their staffing arrangements.

2. This has become more of a problem now that we are trying to ensure redeployment for support staffin City schools which are due to close because of reorganisation. We have traditionally taken theview that only those on permanent contracts can be given priority for redeployment. It would helpthe reorganisation process considerably if we could grant some element of permanence to supportstaff in this situation and would be of benefit both to staff and to schools. It does, in fact, restore aflexibility which was in place for some years up to the mid-eighties.

3. There is also a growing problem with recruitment and retention of school support staff, andpermanent contracts are likely to make posts more attractive to new recruits and to existing staff.

Proposal

4. It is proposed that, with immediate effect, all new contracts for support staff in schools (includingrenewals of expired fixed-term contracts) should be open-ended (i.e. "permanent") and shouldinclude an additional clause, as follows: "Your hours are subject to variation by theschool/establishment upon the giving of one calendar month's notice of any change. A reduction ofup to one third of your hours may be implemented without triggering redundancy, subject to thehours not reducing below two-thirds of your original contract (i.e. …. hours in your case)".

5. The only exceptions to this proposal at present should be caretakers and cleaners and thoseLearning Support Assistants (LSAs) who are employed to deal with pupils with special educationalneeds (SEN). This last group should be excluded at the moment because further discussionsabout them are needed with Headteachers and governors in order to make sure that the change canbe introduced without causing undue problems for small schools, in particular.

6. The new clause would not apply to existing staff on permanent contracts. It is hoped and expectedthat it would enable schools to make more appointments permanent instead of temporary orfixed-term. However, it would still be possible for temporary or fixed-term appointments to be madeif there is a valid reason. The reasons which are accepted as valid at present are as follows:

to cover for maternity or sick leave; to cover for secondment or leave of absence; interim arrangements pending the arrival of permanent staff, for up to 2 terms; clear likelihood of a budget reduction within 12 months which would necessitate a reduction

in staffing; the post is dependent on funding external to the County Council; where the Council has agreed to recommend the reorganisation or closure of a school

within the next year.

7. It would still be possible, for budgetary or other substantial reasons, for a school to reduce thehours of an individual employee by more than a third if the employee agreed: but, if agreementcould not be reached, a redundancy might occur. Representative Heads have already welcomedthe proposal in principle and it is suggested, therefore, that there should be no delay in introducingit for the majority of staff. The proposal is supported by Unison.

Financial Implications

8. It is possible that, under this proposal, a small number of employees might be entitled toredundancy payments who might not otherwise have qualified because their contracts aretemporary at present. The number is likely to be small for two reasons. Firstly, many temporaryemployees already qualify for redundancy payments if the reason for the redundancy is a budgetshortfall. Secondly, for the foreseeable future it seems likely that anyone no longer needed in oneschool could be redeployed to another one and no redundancy costs would be incurred.

Staff Implications

9. The proposed change in contracts is intended to improve the employment conditions of a significantnumber of employees who would otherwise be on temporary contracts.

Environmental Implications and Implications for People Living in Poverty

10. There are no environmental implications. The employees in question are amongst the lowest paidin the Council. The proposed improvement in their conditions should help them to access mortgageand credit facilities and this is likely to be of benefit to them.

RECOMMENDATIONS

11. The Consultative Committee are RECOMMENDED to RECOMMEND the PersonnelSub-Committee to:

(a) endorse the proposal to include the wording set out in paragraph 4 in all newcontracts for support staff in schools with the exception of caretakers, cleaners andLearning Support Assistants employed to work with pupils with SpecialEducational Needs;

(b) authorise officers to continue discussions with headteachers and governors with aview to introducing such a clause for those LSAs who work with SEN pupils;

(c) ask officers to report back to Personnel Sub-Committee on their progress withthese discussions or when agreement is reached.

G.M.BADMAN

Chief Education Officer

Background papers; NoneContact Officer: Sue Tanner, Senior Education Officer Tel: 01865 815472

November 2000

Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS14a


PERSONNEL SUB-COMMITTEE –9 JANUARY 2001

AGENDA ITEM PERS14(a)

PERSONNEL URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE –13 OCTOBER 2000MINUTES of the meeting commencing at 9.30 am and finishing at 9.45 am.

Present:

Voting Members:

Councillors David Buckle, Mrs Ann Davis and Tom Snow.

Officers:

Whole of meeting: S. Corrigan, J.T. Hehir, Dr. H. Simpson (Chief Executive's Office); B. Phillips (CountyTreasurer's Department).



RESOLVED: that Councillor Snow (Liberal Democrat) be elected to chair the meeting.

88/00 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Sub- Committee held on 28 September 2000 were approved andsigned.

89/00 EXEMPT MINUTES

RESOLVED: that the public be excluded during the consideration of items 7E to 9E in theAgenda since it was likely that if they were present during those items there would be a disclosureof "exempt" information as described in Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972,i.e. information relating to a particular employee, former employee or applicant to become anemployee of, or a particular office-holder, former office-holder or applicant to become an office-holderunder, the Authority.


90/00 Exempt minutes

(Agenda Item 7E)

The Exempt part of the Minutes of the meeting held on 28 September 2000 were approved andsigned.

91/00 Matters arising from the exempt minutes(Agenda Item 8E)

Minute 56/00 – Early Retirement – Environmental Services

It was reported that CSL would be making an increased offer shortly. It was likely to be half of thecost of augmentation.

92/00 GRIEVANCE APPEAL(Agenda Item 9E)

It was reported that the appellant was absent from work due to sickness.

RESOLVED: to defer consideration of the appeal until a future meeting of the Sub-Committee.

in the Chair


Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS14b



AGENDA ITEM PERS14(b)

PERSONNEL URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE –10 NOVEMBER 2000MINUTES of the meeting commencing at 9.30 am and finishing at 12.58 pm

Present:

Voting Members:


Officers:

Whole of meeting: S. Corrigan (Chief Executive's Office).Part of meeting: J.T. Hehir and Dr H. Simpson (Chief Executive's Office); R. Smith (EducationDepartment); B. Phillips (County Treasurer's Department).

The Sub-Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in theagenda for the meeting, together with additional information in relation to the reports 7E(a)-(d), copies ofwhich agenda, reports and additional information are attached to the signed Minutes, and in relation theretodetermined as follows:-


RESOLVED: that Councillor Mrs Davis (Conservative) be elected to chair the meeting.

94/00 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 13 October 2000 were approved andsigned.

95/00 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES(Agenda Item 5)

It was reported that CSL had made an increased offer which was likely to be accepted as 50% ofthe cost of the full pension.

96/00 ITEM OF URGENT BUSINESS

In accordance with Standing Order 19(3) and the provisions of Section 100(B)(4) of the LocalGovernment Act 1972 the Chair was asked to add the following item to the agenda as an item ofurgent business:

APPOINTMENT OF NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE(Agenda Item 6(a))

The Strategy & Resources Appointment Sub-Committee set up to deal with the appointment of a newChief Executive met on 9 November in order to agree the timetable, appointment process and keydocuments relating to this post. It was the unanimous decision of the Sub-Committee that the postshould be advertised on the basis of a fixed-term contract for five years in the first instance at asalary of up to £110,000 per annum, subject to negotiation. They accordingly resolved torecommend the Personnel Urgency Sub-Committee to agree that the post of Chief Executive can beadvertised with a maximum salary of £110,000, to be subject to negotiation with the successfulcandidate.

It was reported that it was essential that this item was considered as a matter of urgency to enablethe post to be advertised during the week commencing 20 November 2000, in accordance with thetimetable agreed by the Appointment Sub-Committee. The Chair, accordingly, added the item to theagenda as item 6(a).

The Sub-Committee then considered the salary level proposed for advertisement of the ChiefExecutive's post. The comparability of the salary proposed with those for Chief Executives in otherauthorities was reported and the officers responded to members' concern about the "knock-on"effects of the proposals for Chief Officer and subsequently Senior Management Range gradings. Inresponse to members' questions it was reported that there was no formal relationship between theChief Executive's salary and other Chief Officers' salaries.

RESOLVED: that the post of Chief Executive be advertised with a maximum salary of£110,000, to be subject to negotiation with the successful candidate.

97/00 EXEMPT ITEMS

RESOLVED: that the public be excluded during the consideration of items 7E and 8E in theAgenda since it was likely that if they were present during those items there would be a disclosureof "exempt" information as described in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972and specified below each item in the Agenda, i.e. information relating to a particular employee,former employee or applicant to become an employee of, or a particular office-holder, formeroffice-holder or applicant to become and office-holder under, the Authority.


98/00 ORDER OF BUSINESS

RESOLVED: to consider agenda item 7E(a)-(d) following item 8E.

in the Chair


* The reports relating to the exempt items have not been made public and should be regarded asstrictly private to those members and officers entitled to receive them.

BELOW IS A SUMMARY OF THE EXEMPT MINUTES ARISING FROM AGENDA ITEM 7E-8E

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT – REGRADINGS

(Agenda Item 7E(a)-(d))

The Sub-Committee agreed to regrade 26 posts on the grounds of increased duties and responsibilities.

APPEAL AGAINST DISMISSAL

(Agenda Item 8E)

The Sub-Committee determined an appeal.

Personnel, 09/01/01, PERS14c



AGENDA ITEM PERS14(c)

PERSONNEL URGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE - 15 DECEMBER 2000MINUTES of the meeting commencing at 10.00 am and finishing at 11.50 am.

Present:

Voting Members:


Officers:

Whole of meeting: S. Corrigan (Chief Executive's Office).Part of meeting: C.J. Impey and J.T. Hehir (Chief Executive's Office); B. Phillips (County Treasurer'sDepartment).



RESOLVED: that Councillor Mrs Davis (Conservative) be elected to chair the meeting.

100/00 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 10 November 2000 were approved andsigned.

101/00 EXEMPT MINUTES:

RESOLVED: that the public be excluded during the consideration of items 7E-11E in the Agendasince it was likely that if they were present during those items there would be a disclosure of"exempt" information as described in Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972and specified below each item in the Agenda, ie information relating to a particular employee,former employee or applicant to become an employee of, or a particular office-holder, formeroffice-holder or applicant to become an office-holder under, the Authority.


102/00 ORDER OF BUSINESS

RESOLVED: to consider agenda item 9E following item 11E.

103/00 EXEMPT MINUTES

The Exempt part of the Minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 10 November 2000were approved and signed.

in the Chair


* The reports relating to the exempt items have not been made public and should beregarded as strictly private to those members and officers entitled to receive them.

BELOW IS A SUMMARY OF THE EXEMPT MINUTES ARISING FROM AGENDA ITEM 7E-8E

GRADING APPEAL AGAINST DISMISSAL

(Agenda Item 9E)

The Sub-Committee determined an appeal.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S OFFICE – REGRADING

(Agenda Item 10E)

The Sub-Committee considered an application to regrade a post on the grounds of increased duties andresponsibilities.

PREMATURE RETIREMENT

(Agenda Item 11E)

The Sub-Committee considered an application for early retirement.

a g e n d a - oxfordshire county councilmycouncil.oxfordshire.gov.uk/data/personnel...

Documents