Agenda item

Invitees:         Rhys Cornwall (Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate)

Tracy McKim (Head of People, Policy and Transformation)

Janice Dent (Policy and Partnership Manager)

Donald Mutale (Senior Equalities Officer)

Amanda Bouadana (Senior HR & OD Business Partner)

The Head of People, Policy and Transformation (PPT) introduced the report and the Policy and Partnership Manager and Senior Equalities Officer gave a summary of the report.

Questions:

The Committee noted that there had been significant improvement since last year.

The Committee queried why the section on Education focuses on exclusion and attendance but not on attainment.

·       The Policy and Partnership Manager was unsure attainment had not been included in this report, but assured the Committee that it would be included in the next plan. The Policy and Partnership Manager highlighted that information would be available in other education reports and that the Welsh Government had paused mandatory reporting of these standards during Covid.

·       The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate highlighted that Education attainment would be monitored in the Performance Scrutiny Committee - People. The Committee noted that the report demonstrated how the authority collected data on attendance and accepted that the results of the process are reported elsewhere but the process regarding attainment was not mentioned.

·       The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate noted the feedback of the Committee and suggested that the Committee could recommend that it is included in the next report.

·       The Senior Equalities Officer noted that when setting objectives, they worked closely with the Equalities Human Rights Commission and attendance and exclusion are included within these objectives.

The Committee noted that not all residents are IT literate and questioned what more could be done to support this demographic. The Committee also noted that the Pride March was successful and wanted to thank everyone involved.

·       The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate stated that people who are able to use IT to access services opens up more capacity for non-digital access availability for those who need support. The Strategic Director noted that there would be an end-to-end customer services review and one of the aims would address fair access which included people getting the appropriate access to services.

The Committee queried whether the amount of people who are unable to use the online services and then subsequently call the Contact Centre was recorded.

·       The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate assured Committee that they could obtain that data and there was evidence that more people used online services.

The Committee noted that the report outlines how the Council gathers lots of data, but the only data provided in any detail relates to the council workforce.

·       The People and Partnership Manager noted that the workforce data was a statutory requirement for reporting.

·       The Senior Equalities Officer explained that there are some areas where data has been included as it informs strategic decision making and was reported in other plans including the Corporate Plan and Service Area Plans.

The Committee noted that high staff turnover put pressure on all officers.

·       The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate highlighted the overall aim of recruiting and retaining talent; two thirds of the workforce are in schools with the rest delivering varied services and turnover would be different throughout each service.

·       The Senior HR and OD Business Manager assured Committee that they would be able to obtain and analyse that data to understand why people were moving on and this can be fed back to service areas. The Senior HR & OD Business Manager noted that some people are leaving for development opportunities where there is not a post available within the Council but were leaving with a positive experience of their employment at the Council.

The Committee noted that the statutory data did not include redundancies.

·       The Senior HR & OD Business Manager assured the Committee that redeployment was always the first option for staff at risk of redundancy. The Senior HR & OD Business Manager noted that they collaborated with staff and trade unions but in challenging budget situations, there were regrettably redundancies.

Conclusions:

·       The Committee asked to be provided with further information regarding the number of people who contact the City Contact Centre via phone as they were unable to use digital services.

·       The Committee highlighted the importance of ensuring that Newport City Council offers accessible and usable services that fulfil residents requirements when interacting with the Council. The Committee highlighted that this was not exclusive to this report but was a wider theme across the Council.

·       The Committee recommended that pupil attainment be included in the next Strategic Equalities Plan.

·       The Committee recommended that more information about the data used to evidence the need for changes or improvements, and to measure the outcomes, be included in reports.