(a)

the People and Organisational Development (POD) Outline Business Case focused upon workforce delivery and accommodation and infrastructure; the intention was to have the right people in the right place at the right time with the right skills;

(b)

problems that the POD programme was expected to address included workforce planning to achieve the Council’s vision, a move towards a systems led culture of collaboration and the size and state of the Council’s current office space;

(c)

the aims of the programme included –

·         options to address the capability gap currently identified to ensure that staff had the required skill sets, training, knowledge and behaviour to provide increased capability;

·         to review current policies and procedures to assist the Council to work more efficiently;

·         addressing shared priorities for system improvement with partners through collaboration;

·         to release significant excess office space to reduce costs and enable flexible modern working spaces;

·         to encourage highly flexible working practices;

(d)

specific projects included –

·         the decant of the Civic Centre (due to commence in July and finish in September) to the newly refurbished Ballard House;

·         the renovation of a former commercial property in New George Street to accommodate frontline staff;

·         a focus upon workforce capability requirements;

(e)

issues excluded from the scope of the programme included the development of a high level organisational structure and detailed design as well as the commercial estate;

(f)

specific financial benefits had not yet been identified as the programme was an enabling programme which supported the other four transformation programmes;

(g)

benefits of the programme included a reduction in accommodation space across the city, a reduction in associated lease and operational costs of property occupation and maintenance;

(h)

it was expected that, by moving staff to alternative accommodation, there would be a reduction in sickness absence and an improvement in employee satisfaction;

(i)

costs associated with the POD programme were linked to staff training and the use of resources to ensure the correct people were employed, however Council staff would be used on projects where appropriate;

(j)

the main equalities and diversity issues for the POD programme included the provision of facilities which were DDA compliant and ensuring staff were equipped with skills to provide excellent services and the ability to deal with them, ie dementia, disabilities etc;

(k)

key partners had been engaged in the development of the programme through a variety of communication channels including a full stakeholder analysis, consultation with elected members and the development of a plan of key events;

(l)

the main risks to the programme included the availability of both capital and revenue funding to support the delivery of the assets required for the programmes, ICT requirements and the scale and number of changes across the Council; it was considered that these would be addressed through prior planning and co-ordination;

(m)

key events for the POD transformation programme included –

·         completion of Phase 1 of the refurbishment of Ballard House,  approximately 250 staff would move in during July; with the building populated by the end of September;

·         renovation of the New George Street property in readiness for First Stop;

·         continuation of shredding and removal of waste from the Civic Centre;

·         complete work with Business Architecture on a flexible working strategy;

(n)

it was hoped that scrutiny would help the programme by challenging where necessary.

Following members’ questions it was reported that –

(o)

an analysis of staff skill sets was being undertaken to determine what training was required for staff;

(p)

the Transformation Teams were being trained, and would achieve industry standard qualifications – Project Managers were studying for the PRINCE2 qualification;

(q)

negotiations needed to be held to determine the possibility of sharing buildings with other public sector organisations;

(r)

storage space in Ballard House would be very limited, and staff were now taking steps to reduce the amount of paperwork held on file, which had resulted in a large amount of documents being scanned and shredded;

(s)

the possibility of a permanent storage facility needed to be investigated;

(t)

highly flexible working practices would be a two-way process, with staff (in theory) being able to work in any other location owned by the Council;

(u)

a different style of leadership needed to be adopted; staff needed to work in a different way and more collaboratively.