Agenda, decisions and minutes

The agenda and reports associated with this minute can be found here.

Please note that if any changes are made to this minute at the point of approval, these will be outlined in the subsequent minute and this document will not be retrospectively altered.

The Convener welcomed Liam Knox to the Committee, noting that he was substituting for UNITE as Mishelle Gray, Fiona Sales and Joe Craig were unable to attend.  She further welcomed Isla Newcombe, the newly appointed Chief Officer – Organisational Development, noting that she looked forward to working with her on the Committee.  Finally, the Convener welcomed Councillor Hutchison to his first meeting since replacing Councillor Allard on the Committee.

Members were requested to intimate any declarations of interest in respect of the items on today’s agenda, thereafter the following declarations of interest were intimated at this stage in the meeting:-

(i)       The Convener and Councillor Macdonald declared an interest in all items on the agenda by virtue of their membership of Unite the Union, but neither felt it necessary to leave during consideration of any items of business.

The Committee had before it the minute of its previous meeting of 3 September 2018.

The Committee resolved:-

to approve the minute as a correct record.

The Committee had before it the committee business planner as prepared by the Chief Officer – Governance.

The Committee resolved:-

(a)            to note that a service update had been provided in relation to item 9 on the planner (Recruitment and Retention of Lorry Drivers), but in light of the comments made at the meeting about evaluation of the grading of posts and the continued difficulty with recruitment, to instruct officers to take the comments into consideration and revisit the matter, with a follow up report to Staff Governance Committee in January 2019, to include figures in respect of the non-financial benefits to working for Aberdeen City Council if this could be quantified; and

(b)            to otherwise note the updates contained in the planner.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Resources which sought approval for the attached Supporting Attendance and Wellbeing policy to replace the existing Maximising Attendance policy. 

The report recommended:-

that Committee approve the Supporting Attendance and Maximising Wellbeing Policy to replace the existing Maximising Attendance Policy, to take effect from 1 January 2019 to allow for necessary training and other administrative arrangements to be completed.

The Committee resolved:-

to approve the recommendation.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Resources which sought feedback from the Staff Governance Committee ahead of submission to the City Growth and Resources Committee for approval of the amended staff travel policy.

The report recommended:-

that the Staff Governance Committee –

(a)        provide comment on the report from a staffing perspective; and

(b)        instruct the Chief Officer – Finance to consult with Trade Unions on the draft policy prior to its submission to the City Growth and Resources Committee.

The Committee resolved:-

to defer consideration of the report to the January meeting of the Committee to allow for consultation on the draft policy with Trade Unions.

The Committee had before it a report by the Chief Officer – Governance which summarised statistical health and safety performance information for the three-month reporting period July-September 2018 to provide the Committee with the opportunity to monitor compliance with health and safety legislation.

The report recommended:-

that Committee –

(a)      review, discuss and comment on the issues raised within the report; and

(b)      scrutinise and review health, safety and wellbeing policy, performance, trends and improvements.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       to note the update provided by officers in respect of the recent fire drill at the Town House, and to request that officers run another fire drill once all necessary checks had been undertaken to ensure that any issues had been rectified;

(ii)      in respect of section 3.4 in the report (incidents across all Functions), to note that officers would provide information outwith the meeting to clarify the figures in this section;

(iii)      in respect of section 3.9 in the report (HSE reportable incidents), to request that a report be submitted upon conclusion of the Health and Safety Executive investigation, to identify any areas of good practice raised and to include reference to any lessons learned from previous incidents;

(iv)     in respect of section 3.37 in the report (Mental Health), to note that officers would provide clarification outwith the meeting in respect of the percentage of employees by headcount who were absent for mental health issues and any variance in headcount; and

(v)      to otherwise note the report.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Resources which provided detail on the Shared Cost Additional Voluntary Contribution pension arrangement, and sought agreement to convert the existing Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVC) scheme provided by Prudential (in partnership with the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)) into a “shared cost, salary sacrifice” version (SCAVC) to take advantage of the National Insurance Contribution savings available to both employees and the Council.

The report recommended:-

that Committee approve the conversion of the existing Additional Voluntary Contributions scheme into a Shared Cost Additional Voluntary Contribution pension arrangement.

The Committee resolved:-

to approve the recommendation.

-      COUNCILLOR YVONNE ALLAN, Convener