Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence and note any substitutions.

Members who are unable to attend this meeting must submit apologies by the end of Tuesday 4^rd July 2023 to enable a substitute to be arranged, if applicable.

Apologies were received from Cllr Nicholson.

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 20^th March 2023 and published on the Council’s website.

The Committee confirmed and agreed to the minutes of the meeting held on 20^th March 2023.

To receive Members’ declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the agenda for this meeting, in accordance with Waverley’s Code of Local Government Conduct.

No Declarations of Interests were received.

Committee to receive a report on the profile of Waverley Borough Council’s workforce for the year 2022/23.

Jon Formby, Interim HR Services Manager, addressed the Committee. He explained the main scope of the report; including protected characteristics data i.e. age profile, ethnicity profile, disability, profile, gender profile as well as turnover figures, sickness absence statistics and long-term and short-term statistics.

Councillors queried the staff sickness rates being 60% higher than the national average; notably that the statistics of mental health absences were 6 times higher than the national average. Jon Formby explained that this was somewhat impacted by a number of long-term cases in some of the service areas however it was an area of concern that the Council was looking to address through health and wellbeing initiatives. The Health and Safety Executive Survey and Joint Health and Wellbeing Survey across WBC and GBC looked at identifying areas for improvement; significantly workload and bullying (data suggested that this was coming to officers through members of the public most predominantly seen in planning and housing services). He noted that the Council was looking to improve guidance to members of the public as well as offering training on staff resilience and managing workload. In terms of benchmarking and comparing to other Councils, Jon noted that the Health and Safety Executive Survey allowed broad benchmarking against other councils, in which WBC performed in the upper quartile in terms of managing health and wellbeing however it did not allow for more specific comparisons. Robin Taylor further confirmed that item 9.2.2 of the Q4 Corporate Performance Report included commentary on staff sickness and staff turnover in comparison to other Surrey District and Borough Councils. Cllr Barker-Lomax suggested that more work is done to gain clearer benchmarking figures in relation to the Workforce Profile.

Members requested more information on vacancy rates by department. Jon Formby agreed to share this information with the Committee at a later date

Jon Formby addressed the Committee and noted that one key area of concern was the age profile of the workforce and noted that the Council were looking at initiatives and succession planning to increase our younger workforce as well as retaining them. Cllr Wicks raised a point around agile working, referenced in the report and questioned its effect on staff retention and morale. She indicated that this may particularly be effecting younger staff adapting to the office environment and more challenging aspects of the job due to lack of supervision. Cllr Barker-Lomax requested specific data on the number of staff working from home by department and which measures are in place to ensure representation is in place to ensure staff are available in person on a daily basis. Members were keen to receive a separate report based on agile working data and the impacts on staff performance, retention and morale. John Formby and Robin Taylor agreed to these recommendations.

Cllrs Davidson and Wicks noted a lack of declarations in the staff ethnicity and religion data and queried the validity of this data. Jon Formby noted that this was a difficult area but the Council offers staff  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

The Committee to receive short presentations from the Executive Heads of Service, outlining their service area and how it fits into the remit of the Committee.

Assets & Property – Marieke van der Reijden

Communication and Customer Services – Nicola Haymes

Legal & Democratic Services – Susan Sale

Finance – Peter Vickers

Housing Services – Andrew Smith

Organisational Development – Robin Taylor

The Executive Heads of Services addressed the Committee.

Abi Lewis, Executive Head of Planning and Regeneration Policy, sent apologies and agreed to circulate a presentation to the Committee Members at a later date.

The Chair noted that the Service Areas that fall into the remit of the Committee were outlined in the Q4 Performance report, as follows;

• Assets and Property – page 15

• Communications and Customer Service – page 19

• Finance – page 23

• Housing Services – page 27

• Legal and Democratic Services – page 36

• Organisational Development – page 39

• Regeneration and Planning Policy – page 42

(Corporate capital projects and housing delivery)

The Corporate Performance Report provides an analysis of the Council’s  performance for the last quarter of 2022-23. The report, set out at Annexe 1, is being presented to each of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees for comment and any recommendations they may wish to make to the Executive.

Committee to scrutinise the performance of the services areas and KPIs within the Committee’s remit

The Committee discussed concerns around Housing and Complaints and resolved to make the following recommendations:

-        Committee to set up sub-group to look at issues within Housing and rise in complaints linked to performance issues with responsive repairs, etc. Group to focus on repairs information, red KPIs and complaints. Remit of sub-group yet to be established in consultations with the Executive Head of Housing Services, Andrew Smith. Cllrs Lauren Atkins, Terry Weldon and Michaela Wicks put themselves forward to join the sub-group. 

-        The Committee commented on the need for benchmarking – a comparison with how WBC is doing nationally or in Surrey return in investment, staff turnover figures, etc. Cllr Follows noted DLUHC letter from Michael Gove introducing number of metrics to ensure Councils can be directly compared with each other across Local Authority boundaries. DLUHC issued an additional set of metrics. Letters to be shared with Committee. 

-        Rosie Plaistow to provide Committee with yearly figure on General fund summary table (pg.71), balanced to figures seen in the Q3 Performance Report. 

-        Committee to receive progress update report on the Ridge deep retrofit refurbishment

The Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee is responsible for managing its work programme.

A Scrutiny Tracker has been produced to assist the Committee in monitoring the recommendations that have been agreed at its meetings. The Tracker details the latest position on the implementation of these recommendations and is attached as Part C of the work programme.

Recommendation

Members are invited to consider their work programme and make any comments and/or amendments they consider necessary, including suggestions for any additional topics that the Committee may wish to add to its work programme.

The Executive Forward Programme is also attached for Members’ reference.

The Committee agreed to bring the following items to the work programme, with dates to be decided;

-        Collaboration and business transformation update; to include Services Review and Service Challenge process

-        Follow up on the Workforce Profile including; agile working, impact of collaboration on staff, vacancy rates by department, benchmarking and AI potential.

-        Asset Investment Strategy update/separate offline session on the Asset Investment Strategy

-        Economic Development Strategy update 

-        Separate offline session on MTFP and budget strategy to be set up in early September with Rosie Plaistow and Cllr Merryweather. O&S Resources Members to gain deeper understanding on how to scrutinise the budget.

-        Ockford Ridge deep retrofit refurbishment progress update

-        Report/update on Godalming and Farnham BID projects referenced on Executive Forward Programme

-        Committee to look at and discuss DLUHC request for metrics and comparative data

-        Committee to consider remit and terms of reference of the proposed Housing scrutiny sub-group.

To consider the following recommendation of the motion of the Chairman:

Recommendation

That pursuant to Procedure Rule 20 and in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items on the grounds that it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during the items, there would be disclosure to them of exempt information (as defined by Section 100I of the Act) of the description specified in the appropriate paragraph(s) of the revised Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act (to be specified at the meeting).