Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Town Hall, Watford

Contact: Ian Smith/Alan Garside  Email: democraticservices@watford.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for absence/ committee membership

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor M Mills.  Councillor M Turmaine substituted for her.  

 

2.

Disclosure of interests (if any)

Minutes:

There were no disclosures of interest.

 

3.

Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 27 February 2019 to be submitted and signed.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 27 February 2019 were submitted and signed.

 

4.

Workforce Monitoring Report pdf icon PDF 582 KB

  • View the background to item 4.

Report of the Group Head of Human Resources.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee received a report of the Group Head of Human Resources & OD.

The Group Head of Human Resources introduced the report, summarised the key points and in particular, section 17 of the report.  This dealt with the demographics of applicants for jobs with the council.  A very high percentage of applicants had not disclosed their demographic backgrounds.  The Group Head of Human Resources postulated that this was most likely a result of the new on-line application methods. 

 

A question was asked if the low reporting percentage might be a result of fear of being judged by ethnicity.  The Group Head of Human Resources assured the committee that the data collected was anonymised and used solely for reporting purposes.  It was never shared with the managers recruiting for staff.  He added that he would revisit the wording on the applications.

 

Comment was made that these issues were similar to last year and clearly people did not wish to respond, but the significant lack of replies meant that it was difficult to draw conclusions from the statistics.  This point was agreed by the Group Head and he detailed a range of measures that the Council employed to ensure that they were a fair and equitable employer; but the option not to reply, had to remain. 

 

 

RESOLVED –

 

thatthe committee approves the Workforce Monitoring report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rating button