The Assistant Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development introduced the report of the Director of Resources which provided the Senior Officer Appointments and Staffing Sub-Committee with the annual Workforce Equality Report for 2021/22. Additionally, it provided the Sub-Committee with an update in relation to actions outlined in the action plan in terms of progress made since the previous year for information

In response to a Member query on how the Council was attracting young people to join the workforce due to under representation in ages 16-25, the Assistant Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development outlined that apprenticeships and graduate programmes were used and that the hybrid working policy was an opportunity to attract more young people to jobs in Local Government either as an alternative to University or as a career afterwards and acknowledged that the challenge was to be creative in recruitment.

Members noted that although hybrid working was attractive to some staff, others may prefer the office environment and this was echoed by the Assistant Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development who reported that the approach that had been taken was for managers to outline the requirements and regularity for staff to be in the workplace and that this was something that teams used to keep in touch and work collaboratively. The importance of support for new staff was emphasised as joining a working environment that was completely virtual could be challenging as well as the onus on managers to develop new skill sets to keep in touch with staff and be aware of any personal or professional matters that they were faced with. The Assistant Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development informed Members of a suite of policies and arrangements that could be made to support staff with caring and other responsibilities such as carers support, work life balance and reasonable adjustments.

Resolved – That

(1)  publication of the annual Workforce Equality report to meet the legal requirements under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) 2011 be approved.

(2)  the position in relation to workforce equality performance and the progress made by the Council in relation to producing, analysing and publishing workforce data be noted.