The Corporate Director, Resources will present this report.

Mark Keeble (Senior Business Partner) presented the update on the progress on delivering workforce changes to implement Service Challenge driven savings and the Employment Options Saving Programme and informed the Committee of the following:

·         Approximately £11million of the £28million of savings required by the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) for 2015/16 relate to reducing the size of the Council’s workforce;

·         Good progress is being made to remove 322 posts from the establishment to deliver savings of £10.791 million;

·         309 of these posts are expected to be deleted by the end of March 2016 to achieve full year equivalent savings of £10.224 million;

·         Further contribution to reducing the Council’s Full Time Equivalent (FTE) workforce (including both employees and agency staff) by 26% from 5.543 FTE in March 2010 to 4,110 FTE in September 2015;

·         CMT have decided not to repeat the Employment Options savings programme, as a result the programme will now end;

·         There have been 178 redundancies agreed by People Board Operations to date;

·         174 are VR/ER, all of whom have signed a Settlement Agreement;

·         The remaining 4 are compulsory redundancies and are just over 1% of the reduction in posts required (compared to 13% during 2010/11);

·         There has been a positive response from staff and Trade Unions during the consultations;

·         Failures to agree have cost £897k to date as a result of delayed implementation of savings;

·         This estimate takes into account agreed extensions to consultation periods and the vacant posts that would be deleted as a result of implementation;

·         A full list of savings proposals has been published and shared with Trade Unions and staff;

·         During this consultation process, every member of CMT met with Trade Unions to provide a briefing on their Directorate’s proposals and respond to concerns; and

·         Initial analysis shows that up to 20 of the proposals will have an impact on the workforce and will deliver savings of approximately £5million with a reduction in the Council’s establishment of less than 100 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees.

The Chair, Councillor Clare Harrisson stated that the Workforce Savings and Employment Options was a clear process and the information has helped everyone including staff and Councillors to understand the process. It is a flexible approach which is transformation drive and it is important to maintain an oversight of the process and to develop it further so that it is clear to everyone and is as smooth as possible.

During discussions members enquired about the following:

·         The savings of £11million required by the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) for 2015/16, are the savings being made year on year;

·         The £897k referred to in relation to Failures to Agree, where does this money come from; and

·         Is the Council looking ahead toward 2017/18 and putting things in place to support the decisions being taken now in relation to organisational reviews, redundancies and restructures.

Mark Keeble (Senior Business Partner) informed the Committee that the savings of £11m will be an ongoing saving to the General Fund. The VR/ER costs of implementing each restructure could be a maximum of 3 times the full year value of the saving achieved. This is in line with legal advice received. He also stated that feedback on the previous public consultation process was used to engage more with staff and Trade Unions during the recent Your Borough, Your Voice consultation. The £897k referred to in relation to Failures to Agree was covered on a one off basis from the Corporate provision for slippage contained within the 2015/16 budget if services requested to draw on it.

In response to a question from Councillor Chesterton, Simon Kilbey (Service Head, HR & Workforce Development) informed the Committee that initial discussions are taking place in the Management Team in relation to future planning by taking 2 methods of approach. Firstly by looking at the current approach and secondly learning from other approaches and looking at which model to use as plans for the future of the Council are developed. There are a few things to take into account as well that would influence the approach such as, legislative changes or Government guidance that would directly affect exit plans and redundancies. Nothing has been decided upon yet, but the Management Team are already thinking about it and will put arrangements in place to review policies and make robust plans to develop action plans and move forward. The Committee will be briefed on the proposed changes and the arrangements to manage their implementation.

Resolved that the report be noted.