The Director of Finance and Investment, Shaer Halewood, introduced her report which provided Members with a progress update on actions taken by officers to address items of concern identified in the Annual Governance Statement for 2016/17. The report informed that progress was being made to address all issues identified in the action plan. Targets, timescales and responsible officers having been identified and tasks allocated and work underway.

With regard to the Improvement Plan following the Ofsted inspection of Children’s Services and in response to Members’ comments, Shaer Halewood stated that she would ask for a full action plan to come to the next meeting of the Committee and for the Director for Children, Paul Boyce, to present the report and answer questions.

Shaer Halewood also confirmed that walkthrough exercises had been conducted for all Business Continuity Plans of the 26 identified critical services. With regard to ICT Resilience Planning the new datacentre would be in place and completed by the end of February, 2018.

A Member expressed concern regarding the levels of absence due to mental health and commented that the Wellbeing Strategy should have been shared with Members prior to its launch to staff.

Another Member commented that the Wellbeing Strategy was a good approach and on the need to break down the stigma of mental health.

Shaer Halewood commented that the issue of training was taken very seriously; further training was being rolled out for managers and she would report back on this as part of the next report.

The issue of compliance with essential training for all staff was also raised and the Assistant Chief Executive, David Armstrong, responded that although there could be not a ‘one size fits all’ approach, he did acknowledge the need to do better.

In respect of performance appraisals David Armstrong confirmed that the workforce had been split into two groups, with Children and Young People’s Department (CYPD) having a completion rate of 59% and the rest of the workforce on 96% as at 8 January, 2018. A Member suggested that performance management was really weak in CYPD. Another Member queried whether this figure included agency staff, David Armstrong responded that he would assume it would only include payroll staff but an update would be brought to the next meeting.

Resolved – That the report be noted.