(a)

CIP 13 – Supporting Council Staff to Perform Better aimed to ensure effective staff development and to ensure performance management arrangements existed to help the council achieve excellence by 2012;

(b)

the key activities in achieving the priority were –

·         

to equip managers and staff to manage change and improve performance;

·         

to embed performance management arrangements across the council;

·         

to improve the quality of information gathered on the workforce, their capacity and productivity;

(c)

many of the milestones within the key activities were completed early which allowed scope for CIP 13 to stretch its targets including monitoring staff productivity to enable staff to deliver services more effectively and efficiently and to develop better working relationships with partners in order to reduce the  duplication of work;

(d)

of the 16 milestones within CIP 13 there had been 13 completed, two part completed and one which hadn’t been completed, this was the Communications Strategy which was a work in progress and was designed to improve communication with staff to ensure they felt informed;

(e)

in completing the milestones CIP 13 had some big successes including the Single Status Agreement, Job Evaluation, and the Competency Framework Appraisals;

(f)

there was a corporate drive to improve workforce development following the successful development of the workforce within Children’s Services;

(g)

at the end of 2010 the staff survey would be conducted which would aim to improve the quality of information gathered on the workforce;

(h)

in order to achieve the stretch targets of CIP 13 activities have been identified to be undertaken which include –

·         

modernising terms and conditions around leave ensuring that there was a flexible approach;

·         

embeding competencies and performance-linked pay;

·         

designing and implementing a reward and recognition scheme for staff who exceeded expectations;

(i)

CIP 13 had witnessed a very strong and targeted approach and a lot of success but it was also recognised that there was still a long way to go in achieving its desired outcomes.

(j)

changes to staffing levels and the way the authority worked could not be ruled out, however, nothing would happen until details of the spending review had been released;

(k)

the results of the staff survey would be used as a tool for benchmarking;

(l)

although the Communications Strategy had not been achieved it was understood that engaging with staff was vital and that this was being achieved by regular dialogue on financial positions being included in all employees payslips;

(m)

staff and management were being informed about change and encouraged to change the way they worked in a number of different ways including –

·         

a management development programme advising staff on change and how to deal with change;

·         

presentations at Departmental Management Teams and Team Plymouth;

·         

a new policy on change management;

·         

customer service training in a new programme called FISH;

(n)

employee skill gaps were being addressed via the appraisal system and also by an apprenticeship and graduate programme which had been introduced.

(1)

due to the Panel’s concern about how the council is communicating with staff internally a request be made to Richard Longford, Head of Communications in respect of the Communications Strategy asking for a report highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the Communications Strategies through a SWOT analysis to be provided by 10 September 2010.