Meetings

Hayley Rees presented an update on the interim review of capability provided to Management Board on 19 October, making further recommendations on building organisational capacity based on the Learning Needs Analysis conducted from May to December 2017.

The current budget challenges and themes established from the Capacity Review had influenced the review in highlighting the need for greater alignment of capability planning to business priorities. The review considered the current offering and a learning needs analysis consultation had been undertaken to identify gaps in current skills and knowledge, based on organisational priorities.

As a result, a framework of learning had been developed, with five key learning pathways, aimed at building employee capability and improving organisational performance. To enable this to be taken forward the Board agreed the following recommendations:

·                capability planning, through learning and development forecasts, to take place annually;

·                learning and allocation of resources would be aligned with the framework;

·                a restructure of budgets to:

·            provide a contingency budget to service heads to support learning that could not be forecasted, initially administered by HR;

·            capture all corporate licences and awards administered by HR to better reflect L&D expenditure

·            devolve administration of memberships and subscriptions to service areas.

·                annual authorisation by the Head of HR on all individual learning of £3,000 or more, with a claw back arrangement to recoup if staff leave within a time period;

·                improve evaluation and measurement of performance, with increased line management accountability;

·                an L&D champion in each service area to coordinate and advocate learning.

The Board also asked HR to look at possible alignment between staff and AMSS induction and other training, to review the secondment budget, and to ensure that distribution of budget across services took account of where training in certain skills cost more. (ACTION)

The Board welcomed the recommendations and thanked Hayley and the L&D team for all their work on the review.

Paper to be tabled

Lowri Williams presented the HR data for the period July to September. There had been a rise in absence rates in the period although the rates were within the public sector average. Mental health issues were the highest cause of absence over the preceding 12 months indicating the pressures staff were under.

The Board discussed reasons behind the rise, how to encourage and enable staff to achieve a balanced approach to work and the importance of reporting absence and accurately identifying the reasons. Lowri asked Heads to approach HR at an early stage for help or advice if they had concerns.

Lowri Williams presented the quarterly HR Dashboard, which provided a range of information on staffing levels and absence and provided the Board with an overview of the organisation and the opportunity to identify any issues.

Following the capacity planning process and the VES exercise, the per capita number had dropped in May 2016 but had subsequently increased as expected, with churn reducing. Absence had improved although there was a spike in January, reflecting last year’s spike in February.

Further narrative would be added to the dashboard to provide greater clarity of the data.

Leanne Baker attended the meeting to discuss in detail with Management Board the absence rates, how the Assembly faired against the broader absence picture and recommendations on managing sickness. Despite being lower than the public sector, sickness absences had been increasing over the past few years, with mental health being the main cause for long term sickness. The Board agreed that managing absence effectively and supporting the health and wellbeing of staff was very important. Sickness absences could contribute to low staff morale and, potentially, impact on standards of service, as well as being costly.

The Board discussed how the absence policies were applied across the organisation and perceived issues. It was suggested that management data for Heads could be refined further to enable them to identify the issues and understand why absences had increased. The Board considered the recommendations in detail and agreed:

·               additional training on attendance management would be beneficial, but targeted in areas where there were issues, ensuring that the individual’s responsibilities, as both employee and manager, were clear;

·               focused support, through awareness raising, training, toolkit and guidance, to strengthen the capability of managers to deal more effectively with absences;

·               increasing awareness of preventative measures, such as wellbeing initiatives with a possible pilot training to help managers understand mental health matters; considering the extension of existing occupational health support;

·               provision of more detailed data to Service Heads;

·               consideration of how more effective support could be provided to those with caring responsibilities, including through existing policies and if exceptional subsidies are possible;

·               consideration of ways staff could be encouraged and supported to take responsibility for their own wellbeing in relation to work;

·               ensuring support was provided for managers to timely and sensitively deal with health matters - whether a health issue or absence issue - and balance support for the individual with having an expectation of their ability to deliver.

·               using MyView to set automatic alerts to employees and managers through, for example, to prompt managers to keep in touch with absent staff, complete return to work interviews or close absences.

The HR team would arrange to attend team or Service meetings to discuss this further.

7.1   The next meeting of Management Board on 23 November would be dedicated to the capacity and resource planning discussion. A pack of HR data would be available to inform the Board ahead of the meeting.

7.2   Action: Management Board members to contact Lowri Williams if further help was needed to prepare for the meeting.

5.1   Leanne Baker introduced a paper outlining proposals for procedural changes to a number of policies linked to the Recruitment Policy, including allowances, secondments, priority postings and pay and reward policies.

5.2   The purpose of the Recruitment Policy was to ensure the Commission was able to recruit and retain the people it needed to deliver outstanding parliamentary support to the Assembly. The changes were developed in line with the recruitment principles agreed in March 2015 of merit, fairness and openness.

5.3   In particular, the Board discussed: rationalising the payment of allowances for taking on additional responsibilities; arrangements for secondments and internal transfers without unnecessary impact on capacity planning and colleagues; the policy on priority postings to support employees without a substantive post to return to; and the approach to permanent recruitment to vacant posts.

5.4   The Board agreed that the policies were a reasonable balance of consistency and flexibility, subject to some minor clarifications.

5.5   The Board also agreed that it was important to regularly scrutinise and challenge resourcing and remuneration decisions collectively, to understand the actual practices in different parts of the organisation and ensure that policies remained workable.

5.6   The proposals would be discussed in detail with the Trades Unions.

5.7   Actions:

•    Lowri Williams to meet with Heads separately to revisit detailed points raised; and

•    Management Board to receive regular management information.

6.1   Wayne Cowley outlined a possible approach to staff pay when the current agreement ended in October 2016. The Board discussed the implications and asked for further work to be done to ensure there was the right balance between positive change and affordability.

Leanne Baker and Elin Hughes joined the meeting to present the new shared parental leave policy, following new legislation that came into force on 5 April 2015.

Management Board were asked to consider the amount of shared parental pay available under the policy and whether the policy should be enhanced, in line with the Assembly's existing suite of policies for family and carers. It was confirmed that the same principles would apply to adoption.

The Board agreed to the enhancement and that it was important to promote the policy and that it reflected the Assembly's position as an exemplar employer.  HR were also thanked for their efforts to simplify for staff a complex piece of legislation.

HR would provide staff drop in sessions to publicise and explain the policy and through business partnership meetings with service heads to actively ensure staff had information on all relevant policies. HR would review the impact of the policy after the first 6 months.