Issue - meetings

(i)       to note the responses to questions from members; and

(ii)      to endorse the agreed recommendations for improvement as contained in the internal audit report.

The Committee had before it a report by the Chief Internal Auditor which presented an audit on Attendance Management  which was undertaken to obtain assurance that controls in this area were designed and operating effectively and to determine whether the Council’s Absence Improvement Plan was having a positive impact on attendance.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee review, discuss and comment on the issues raised within the report and the attached appendix.

In response to a question regarding whether benchmarking had been undertaken with other organisations, the Interim Chief Officer – People and Organisational Development advised that benchmarking had taken place to look at practice which would be more visible if audited in the future.

In response to a question regarding whether there had been any improvements due to other policies and procedures being implemented, the  Interim Chief Officer – People and Organisational Development advised that there had been a significant reduction in statistics following a data cleanse allowing alerts to be issued to managers and preventing multiple records for employees.  She explained that advisers had been assigned to hotspots across the organisation to assist managers and that a toolkit for managers had been issued.

In response to a question regarding the statistics and whether these contributed to the performance reports discussed at service committees, the Interim Chief Officer – People and Organisational Development advised that the statistics were produced in the management system and linked into the system used for producing the performance reports.

In response to questions relating to Mental Health and Wellbeing and whether work was being done, specifically for employees working at home where there may be issues identified, the Interim Chief Officer – People and Organisational Development advised that each case would be dealt with individually with a range of tools available to managers to ensure that the best option for the employee was in place.

The Committee resolved:-

to endorse the agreed recommendations for improvement as contained in the internal audit report.