Agenda and minutes

Venue: QEII Room, Shoreham Centre, Shoreham-by-Sea

Contact: Neil Terry
Democratic Services Lead
01903 221073  Email: neil.terry@adur-worthing.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

JStC/1/19-20

Substitute Members

Any substitute members should declare their substitution.

Minutes:

Councillor Daniel Humphreys substituted for Councillor Paul Baker.

JStC/2/19-20

Minutes

To approve the minutes of the Joint Staff Committee meeting held on 18 March 2019, copies of which have been previously circulated.

Minutes:

Resolved that the minutes of the Joint Staff Committee meeting held on the 18 March 2019, be approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chairman.

JStC/3/19-20

Declarations of Interest

Members and officers must declare any disclosable pecuniary interests in relation to any business on the agenda.  Declarations should also be made at any stage such an interest becomes apparent during the meeting.  

 

If in doubt contact the Legal or Democratic Services representative for this meeting.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest by those present.

JStC/4/19-20

Public Question Time

To receive any questions from members of the public.

 

(Note: Public Question Time will operate for a maximum of 30 minutes.)

 

Minutes:

There were no questions from the public present at the meeting and no questions had been submitted in advance.

JStC/5/19-20

Items Raised under Urgency Provisions

To consider any items the Chairman of the meeting considers to be urgent.

Minutes:

There were no items raised under urgency provisions.

 

JStC/6/19-20

HR Policies - Out of Hours Policy pdf icon PDF 136 KB

To consider the report by the Director for Digital and Resources, attached as Item 6.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Digital & Resources, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of these minutes as Item 6.

 

The report sought approval of the Adur & Worthing Councils Out of Hours - Standby and Call Out Policy.

 

It was noted that the Councils did not currently have a policy on the management and remuneration of their Out of Hours provision. The purpose of the policy was to ensure that the Councils had the capacity to respond to situations, events and urgent issues outside of working hours and for the limitations this imposed on employees.

 

The policy set out the remuneration and expectations of those staff on an Out of Hours rota.

 

The Committee sought clarification regarding recommendation 2.2 and what was meant by ‘minor and non-consequential amendments’ and in paragraph 9.2, what was meant by ‘reasonable time’. Officers advised that minor and non-consequential amendments would cover grammatical changes to the policy but not changes that would fundamentally alter what the policy was aiming to do. All substantive changes would be brought back to the Committee for consideration. In regards to ‘reasonable time’ it was noted that this would be job dependent. Officers agreed that the wording of the policy could be amended to say ‘to be agreed with the Head of Service’.

 

A Member sought clarification regarding the current cost of £54k. Officers advised that the current cost of out of hours allowances was £54k and that the policy wasn’t expected to cost any more.     

 

Decision,

 

The Joint Staff Committee,

 

1.    approved the Out of Hours - Standby and Call Out Policy with an implementation date of 1st January 2020;

 

2.    delegated authority to the Head of Human Resources (in consultation with the Chief Financial Officer and the Head of Legal Services, where relevant) in order to make minor and non-consequential amendments to the Policy at any time.

JStC/7/19-20

Referral of Motion on Notice from Adur District Council pdf icon PDF 145 KB

To consider the report by the Director for Communities, attached as Item 7.

Minutes:

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Communities, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and a copy of which was attached to the signed copy of these minutes as Item 7.

 

The report set out a motion (attached as Appendix 1) referred from the meeting of Adur District Council on the 31 October 2019. Members of the Joint Staff committee were asked to consider and determine the Motion.

 

Councillor Lavinia O’Connor, the proposer of the motion, was invited to explain the motion to the Committee. The Committee were informed that:-

 

·       the LGA estimated that Councils would face a funding gap of £8 billion by 2025; 

·       that the local government workforce had endured years of pay restraint with the majority of pay points losing 22 percent of their value since 2009/10;

·       across the UK, an estimated 876,000 jobs had been lost in local government since June 2010 - a reduction of 30%, with local government being hit by more severe job losses than any other part of the public sector.

 

Cllr O’Connor advised that the financial implications of the proposals must be funded from central government and that current recruitment and retention issues experienced in local government, would be addressed by the proposal.

 

During consideration of the motion on notice, Members debated a number of issues including:-

 

·       the need for staff to be treated with respect and credibly;

·       the credibility of a 10 percent uplift across all other pay points in 2020/21;

·       the appropriateness of the Councils, as an employer, encouraging staff to join a union;

·       the suitability of the Councils intervening in pay negotiations being conducted at a national level;

·       the role for the Councils, as employers, to lobby on behalf of employees.

 

It was stated that Adur and Worthing Councils were Members of the LGA and that the Councils were lobbying for greater funding for local government. It was suggested that more could be done to share these endeavours with staff through the staff newsletter.

 

Decision,

 

The Joint Staff Committee did not support the motion as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.