Agenda and draft minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

RESOLVED that a Vice-Chair was not required on this occasion.

There were none.

Members who have an interest to declare are asked to:

a)  state the Item Number in which they have the interest;

b)  the nature of the interest

c)  whether the interest is personal, or personal and prejudicial

Any Member who is unsure about the above should seek advice from the Monitoring Officer prior to the meeting in order to expedite matters at the meeting itself.

There were none.

There was none.

There were none.

There were none.

These were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Senior Human Resources Consultant highlighted the key aspects of the report.

She explained that following the removal of the statutory default retirement age, the Council needed to determine its policy in respect of any age at which it would compulsorily require its staff to retire in future.

There were essentially two options only: i) to retain a compulsory retirement age for some or all members of staff or ii) to remove the compulsory retirement age. The report set out details of the advantages and disadvantages of each option and associated processes.

The Head of Human Resources distributed copies of an email containing the response of the Trade Unions to the proposal contained in the report (appendix 1 to these minutes). 

In view of the issues outlined in the report, Option 2 was being recommended to the committee. Consultation with other local authorities in the South West confirmed that a similar approach was being adopted. It was acknowledged that a policy of no compulsory retirement would not have an immediate impact on the age profile of the Council, though the general population was ageing and the current financial climate meant that people might have to consider working longer.

Continued monitoring would show longer-term trends. Experience to date did not suggest a significant reduction in opportunities for younger workers and indeed the Council was providing a good number of apprentice opportunities. It was confirmed that the policy adopted would be commended to schools where the Council remained the employer

Following discussion that included issues relating to current practice and experience, impact on pension schemes and state benefits, the prospects for younger workers and the importance of dealing with performance in an age neutral manner, it was

RESOLVED

(a)  that the Council’s current policy should be revised so that it will in future operate with no compulsory or fixed retirement age;

(b)  to note that the policy and age profile of the workforce will be kept under review as part of on-going workforce planning and monitoring activity.

The Divisional Director - Policy and Partnership presented the report and introduced the Communities Projects Officer, who made a presentation (appendix 2 to these minutes) setting out the context in which the scheme had been developed and demonstrating how the community, staff and the Council had benefited. Other employers in the area were considering this kind of scheme; there was an opportunity for the Council to provide leadership.

In the discussion that followed confirmation was provided on a number of operational issues, and main points were noted as follows:

• Participants in this sort of initiative reported the value of them for both team and individual benefit, and they could offer very cost-effective staff development as well as giving benefits back to the community both immediately and over a longer term.

• A number of authorities had been operating schemes over a number of years. Take up in B&NES had been estimated based upon experience elsewhere but it was stressed that targets did not form part of the proposal.

• Questions were asked about the number of days of authorised absence that could be granted under the proposed scheme in the context of overall levels of take up, impact on service deliver etc. It was generally agreed that it would be preferable to reduce this and to monitor during the first year of implementation to assess impacts

• Concern was expressed about the use of the term ‘volunteering’ in the context of this proposal and it was agreed that if approved this should be removed in publicity etc.

• It was agreed that any scheme should be monitored during it first year of operation with a further report being brought back to the committee on take-up, achievements and impacts etc.

RESOLVED to approve the implementation arrangements for the Council’s Employee Community Involvement Scheme as set out in Appendix 1 to the report, save that the second sentence of the first bullet point in section 2 should be amended to read:

“This would equate to one day’s authorised absence, with an additional day if this is matched by one day of the employee’s own leave pro-rated as appropriate.”