Councillor Sue Dann (Cabinet Member for Customer Experience, Sport, Leisure and HR and OD) introduced the Plymouth City Council People Strategy and discussed:

 

a)     The People Strategy had previously been reported to the Scrutiny Management Board as “in development” and was now presented in draft form for pre?decision scrutiny prior to Cabinet consideration in December 2025;

 

b)    Development of the strategy had been highly collaborative, with over 300 conversations undertaken by the Service Director for HR and Organisational Development across all levels and directorates, making it the most co?produced People Strategy the Council had brought forward;

 

c)     The strategy reflected the significant challenges and opportunities facing the Council as an employer, including Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), the defence deal, the Team Plymouth programme, plans for a new town, an ageing workforce, persistent recruitment and retention issues, and anticipated changes arising from digital technology and new ways of working;

 

d)    The Council’s workforce represented the “front?facing public service” of Plymouth, with every resident affected by how teams performed, whether through refuse collection, planning applications or other services, and that it was therefore essential to look after staff as well as residents;

 

e)     Management and leadership development programmes had already enabled over 100 staff to achieve Level 5 qualifications, with a further cohort in progress, and a Level 3 programme underway to “grow our own” talent to address recruitment, retention and training challenges;

 

f)      The Council had invested in its Digital Academy, with nearly 50 staff undertaking AI and digital qualifications, ensuring the workforce was already looking towards the future;

 

g)     The strategy was firmly rooted in “Plymouth as a place”, reflecting the fact that most staff both worked and lived in the city and therefore directly benefited from improvements to services and outcomes;

 

h)    The strategy and supporting report before the Board set out the context, consultation findings and key proposals. The draft had already been discussed at Cabinet Planning and welcomed by Trade Union representatives, one of whom had commented that a positive shift in learning, development and culture was already noticeable among staff.

 

Chris Squire (Service Director for HR and Organisational Development) added:

 

a)     Design work had been undertaken in?house to align the strategy with the Council’s updated corporate branding, including the “Horizons are bigger here” imagery and contour?style lines based on the footprint of Council buildings;

 

b)    The document deliberately used photographs of real staff rather than stock images, with any remaining stock images being replaced once appropriate staff images and permissions were confirmed;

 

c)     The strategy had been shaped by workshops and discussions with managers and staff at all levels, across all directorates, alongside ongoing engagement with Trade Unions, ensuring that the document reflected the lived experiences and priorities of the workforce;

 

d)    The strategy was closely aligned with the city’s Economic Strategy, including major planned investment at Devonport Dockyard, which created substantial opportunities for Plymouth, but also posed acute workforce and pay?related challenges as the Council competed for skills;

 

e)     Approximately 50% of the Council’s workforce were aged over 50, a fact that underscored the importance of effective workforce and succession planning and of deepening relationships with schools, colleges and universities through work experience, internships, supported internships and apprenticeships;

 

f)      The Council had made strong use of its apprenticeship levy, investing it in new starters and upskilling existing staff, and had not returned any levy to the Treasury for around 15–16 months, while also transferring a portion to external providers, typically in the social care sector;

 

g)     The Digital Academy formed an important strand of the strategy, with an initial cohort of around 40 staff undertaking data and AI?focused apprenticeship programmes funded through an apprenticeship levy transfer from Microsoft. Planning was underway for a second cohort and additional digital bootcamps to spread digital skills across the organisation;

 

h)    The People Strategy was structured around four pillars: Plymouth People, Plymouth Place, Plymouth Passion and Plymouth Purpose. The ‘purpose’ pillar related to role clarity, workforce planning, succession planning and performance management, ensuring that staff clearly understood what was required of them;

 

i)      The strategy was intended to function both as a framework for internal development and as a recruitment and retention tool, with its positive, aspirational tone designed to attract and keep talented staff in a highly competitive labour market;

 

j)      The strategy emphasised clarity, collaboration, development and connection to Plymouth’s communities.

 

In response to questions, the Board discussed:

 

k)     Concerns informed by previous HR experience, that strategies could sometimes be developed and then infrequently used. Members expressed desire for Scrutiny to receive regular oversight updates on progress and outcomes;

l)      Observations that existing measures in the strategy referred primarily to monitoring by the Senior Leadership Team, and the suggestion that elected members should have a route to scrutinise whether the strategy was succeeding, drawing on the considerable, often informal feedback councillors received from both residents and staff;

 

m)   Links between the strategy and the Civic Engagement Agreement. Officers confirmed that the Civic Engagement Agreement had been signed by four anchor institutions: Babcock, Plymouth City Council, the University of Plymouth and University Hospitals Plymouth. The agreement set out the organisations’ shared civic responsibilities in relation to recruitment, retention, community engagement and, in some cases, procurement;

 

n)    Action: Officers to circulate the Civic Engagement Agreement and briefing to enable members to question large employers in their wards about what they had done under the agreement to support local people;

 

o)    The strategy was already being supported by work such as the Council’s neurodiversity staff group, which had highlighted that recruitment processes could be difficult for neurodivergent applicants, prompting changes within both the Council and Team Plymouth partners. Similar work was underway around corporate parenting and opportunities for care?experienced young people to access Council jobs;

 

p)    Concerns around how the Council would champion health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace despite a reliance on vacancy savings and vacancy?related budget measures, noting that these placed additional pressure on existing staff covering vacant posts. It was clarified that health and safety was the top priority, and that staff numbers had in fact increased slightly over the previous year. Significant pressures remained due to rising demand in adults’ services, children’s services and homelessness, all of which impacted staff workloads;

 

q)    Confirmation that the Corporate Management Team regularly discussed workforce pressures, budget challenges, and their implications for staff, including mental wellbeing;

 

r)     Concerns regarding hybrid and home working, particularly perceived disparities between frontline staff and office?based staff who could work remotely, and the risk of isolation for young apprentices and new starters working from home;

 

s)     Clarification that the intention of the policy was not to occupy office space, but to ensure staff presence where visibility, collaboration and connection to Plymouth were needed. Teams were trialling structured approaches to decide which tasks were best done together in person and which could be done from other locations;

 

t)     Reassurance that working solely at home was not considered appropriate, especially for apprentices and new starters, who needed to learn in a collaborative office environment, and that this principle was explicitly embedded within the tools being used to support teams in planning hybrid working arrangements;

 

u)    Acknowledgement that flexibility still had value, particularly in helping the Council compete with employers such as Babcock in a tight labour market and for staff with caring responsibilities, but that this must be balanced against organisational needs and fairness to frontline staff;

 

v)     Recognition from officers that more than half of the workforce could not work from home (for example, waste crews, street cleansing staff and library staff), and examples of how flexibility was offered in different forms to those staff, such as four?day working weeks based on compressed hours;

 

w)   Confirmation that a separate Hybrid Working Strategy was being developed and would return to the Board for detailed scrutiny, following consultation with Unions and staff, as set out in the work programme;

 

x)    Assurances that staff involved in particularly challenging pieces of work, such as the Armada Way scheme, had received targeted support, and that the Council remained committed to offering support where staff needed;

 

y)     Queries around how environmental and sustainability impacts of AI were being explained to staff as AI use expanded within the Council. It was acknowledged that this area had not yet been addressed in detail within staff communications or training, but that this would be further considered;

 

z)     Queries about how the success of the strategy would be measured, and a request for clear key performance indicators (KPIs), dashboards and regular reporting so Scrutiny could see progress over time, including in relation to recruitment, retention, sickness, training, hybrid working and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Officers confirmed that core workforce indicators such as sickness, staff turnover and agency spend were already monitored and were currently improving, and that further work would link these metrics to initiatives under the People Strategy;

 

aa)  A new HR system was being implemented which would significantly improve recording and reporting of staff training, health and safety compliance and other success measures, enabling better dashboards and data for both management and Scrutiny;

 

bb)Emphasis that due to the competitive labour market in Plymouth, the Council needed to measure and improve not only pay but job satisfaction, career development and the sense that staff were “making a difference”, particularly if it wished to “grow its own” workforce effectively;

 

cc)  Suggestions that productivity impacts should also be tracked where possible, particularly in relation to investment in skills, hybrid working and inclusive practices;

 

dd)Clarification that the Council’s approach to AI was focused on using technology proactively and positively to reduce low?value administrative work and allow staff to spend more time on complex, people?facing tasks. AI had already been used to streamline Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) processes, enabling officers to better engage with parents and children, leading to positive feedback;

 

ee)  Clarification that many of the performance indicators and reports which would show the impact of the People Strategy were already in the public domain, and that the key task was to connect people?management work to shifts in those publicly reported measures.

 

The Board agreed:

 

1. To note that the People Strategy remained in draft form, pending comments from Scrutiny and Cabinet approval;

 

2. To support the new People Strategy for Plymouth City Council;

 

3. To request that the People Strategy return to Scrutiny at suitable intervals to enable ongoing scrutiny of progress, performance and impact;

 

4. Action: To request that a briefing note on the Civic Engagement Agreement be circulated to members.