Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Director for Transformation and Resources, to provide a summary of the initial findings from the first data collection exercise following the launch of the My Conversation Map earlier in the year.

sheThe Committee considered a report and presentation on the My Conversation map, presented by Daksha Desai, Head of Workforce Programme. The presentation set out the context within which the My Conversation Map had been launched, details of the map, the overall results and breakdown of results by area, details of the results in the Scope to Improve, Excellent Achiever and Ambitious and Strong Achiever categories, breakdown by BAME and disability compared to the overall Haringey population and planned next steps. The Committee noted that the results had not been moderated.

The Committee asked about areas of the Council where returns had been poor, and it was reported that the lower rates of return were spread across the Council, rather than being concentrated in any specific area. It was noted that services with a number of staff working in a non-office environment, for example on-street enforcement officers, might be expected to have lower rates of return.

Looking at the results for people in the Scope to Improve section of the map, officers advised that there was an expectation that people would not be in this category for longer than 6 months, and managers were encouraged to provide staff with the necessary support to achieve this. It was noted, however, that it would always be expected that there would be some staff within this area, and that people might be in the Scope to Improve category for a wide range of reasons. The demographic information for Scope to Improve in particular indicated that this was not representative of the workforce as a whole and mirrored some of the findings of the Equalities Audit – this demonstrated that there was more work to be done around issues such as unconscious bias, and it was anticipated that the results of the recent Mind survey and Stonewall survey would help to inform the work that needed to be done. In particular the Committee noted the over-representation of staff with disabilities in the Scope to Improve cohort, and asked what action was being taken to address this; it was confirmed that specific actions to address these issues may form part of the action plan arising from the results of the Mind survey, looking at mental health wellbeing. It was noted that the Council needed to refresh some of its data relating to disabilities as it was felt that there was some under-reporting in this area.

In terms of next steps, it was advised that there would be an audit of the My Conversation process, looking at the evidence underpinning the reported results, in order to provide assurance around the robustness of the process. It was noted that this data collection exercise had not captured any narrative in terms of the way that decisions had been reached, nor had any moderation been undertaken, for example where a manager was observed to have rated everyone in their team as Excellent Achiever, but issues such as this would be picked up as part of the audit process.

The Committee asked whether there was any data on differences of opinion between managers and staff regarding their placement on the map; officers advised that this was not captured as part of this data collection exercise, but agreed that this would be useful to record next time the data collection was carried out. The Committee also asked whether any work was being done to identify any common issues across the Scope to Improve cohort, in order to see if there were any particular supportive measures that the Council could implement which might be effective; officers confirmed that this was something that was bring worked on.

The Committee asked what the staff reaction to the new process had been. It was noted that there had been a mixed reception from the 800 staff who had attended training sessions when the process was being rolled out, but that in general people had welcomed a move to more regular opportunities for feedback from management. Staff were also being asked to provide their views around this as part of the current Pulse survey.

The Committee welcomed this as a positive piece of work and agreed that a further update would be brought back to the Committee in the new municipal year, following the next data collection exercise.

RESOLVED

That the content of the report be noted.