Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Counter.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Hines-Randall after the meeting. 

There were no disclosures of interest.

To approve for signature the minutes of the meeting held on 28 February 2011.

The minutes of the meeting held on 28 February 2011 were submitted and signed.

Report of the Head of Human Resources

The Committee received a report of the Head of Human Resources detailing the profile of Watford Borough Council’s workforce from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011.

The Head of Human Resources introduced the report informing Members that this report was brought to the Committee on an annual basis. He drew attention to the list of equality characteristics on Page 7 and noted that ‘disability’ had been repeated in error. He added that sexual orientation would be added in future.

He referred to the Human Resources Performance Indicators on Page 9 of the report. These were now joint targets with Three Rivers District Council as part of Shared Services. The Performance Indicators HR4 and HR5 relating to disability were disappointing, there was, however, very little data on levels of disability amongst Council employees. Human Resources had encouraged staff to complete the equality questionnaire on the Council’s online HR system, Resourcelink, but many had not done so. This had a distorting effect on the statistics; although the percentage of top paid staff with a disability was reported as 0%; there was no data for a significant number of these staff..

The analysis of the spread of employees by band showed a good percentage of Black and Minority Ethnic officers represented in the structures. Women were also very well represented at senior levels.

Post-meeting note: the Head of Human Resources reported that the missing piece of data in the table on Page 16 (percentage of employees in bands 9 to 11 who were women) was 41.46%.

The Head of Human Resources informed the Committee that the analysis by religion or belief and sexual orientation was a new indicator and so the data reflected a relatively small number of applications. The data will show a clearer picture next year.

The training budget for the current year had not been significantly reduced during Service Prioritisation and remained at 2010/11 levels.

Members were invited to ask questions and make any comments.

The Chair suggested that when references were made to the last census it would be helpful to indicate when it took place and when the data from the 2011 census will be available.

In response to a question from a Member, the HR Business Partner said that it would be difficult to compel staff to fill in the equality questionnaire. Applicants for jobs filled it in, but the response amongst current employees was low.  The Head of Human Resources added that there it was important to understand why staff were reluctant to provide information, especially about disability and to provide education, if necessary.

The Chair referred to the loss of equality data which occurred when the Council changed HR systems. The Head of Human Resources explained that the previous system, CHRIS, did not transfer data to the new system, Resourcelink. Therefore historic data had been lost. Manual attempts to update data had been undertaken but relied on individuals completing personal details online. 

RESOLVED –

                   that the report be noted.