Issue - meetings

The report of the Executive Manager – Transformation and Operations.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager presented the Diversity Annual Report which set out the Council’s performance against the objectives in the Single Equality Scheme during 2017/18. The information contained in the officer’s report compared the demographic information for the Borough and the latest census information, with that of the workforce. Data on the demographics of the Borough as well as Workforce Equality information were included as appendices to the officer’s report.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager noted that as a public sector employer the Council was expected to be an exemplar in this area. However, as reported in previous years the Council’s workforce does not reflect the ethnicity of the Borough though there were policies in place to encourage applications from underrepresented groups as vacancies are advertised. In addition, the age profile of council staff was in line with other local authorities but Rushcliffe had seen an increase in the number of under 25s due to our growing apprenticeship scheme which encouraged young people into employment. The number of disabled employees was static and the Human Resources Manager reminded the Board that the Council was a Disability Confident Employer. She informed the Board about a scheme the Council had participated in over the last two years with Leonard Cheshire Homes to provide 100 days of work experience to a disabled graduate to develop their employability skills.

Councillor Edwards expressed pleasure at the range of training courses under taken by staff at the Council and wondered what follow-up sessions or monitoring was done to establish the impact of having attended the training. The Human Resources Manager outlined the annual appraisal process for staff and how this is monitored throughout the year with six to eight weekly one-to-one sessions. The Human Resources Manager talked the Board through the Council’s Gender Pay Gap Statement and in response to questions by the Board, she agreed to provide further information and explanation with regard to the breakdown of beneficiaries of bonuses and how gender affects these, and the breakdown of the workforce by gender and type of role – manual or office based.

It was resolved that the Equality Annual report 2017/18 be endorsed.