Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Director, Transformation and Resources, to present a number of policies to be recommended by the Council from 8^th February 2017 for adoption by the governing bodies of the community, voluntary controlled, community special and maintained nursery schools which the Council maintains and to be implemented by the Council in respect of any unattached teachers it employs.  The policies for recommendation are as follows:

·           Family friendly suite of policies (incorporating maternity policy, adoption policy, paternitypolicy, sharedparentalleavepolicy, parentalleave policy)

·           Recruitment policy

·           Equality and diversity in employment policy

The Committee considered the report on policies to be recommended by the Council for adoption by the governing bodies of the community, voluntary controlled, community special and maintained nursery schools which the Council maintains and to be implemented by the Council in respect of any unattached teachers it employs. The report was introduced by Victoria Tricarico, Head of People and Change, who outlined the policies for recommendation, namely the Family Friendly policies (incorporating maternity policy, adoption policy, paternity policy, shared parental leave policy, parental leave policy), Recruitment policy and Equality and diversity in employment policy.

In response to a question from the Committee, it was confirmed that these policies applied only to schools and unattached teachers, not Council staff more widely.

The Committee suggested some amendments to the draft wording of the policies as follows:

Family Friendly Policies: Maternity policy

18.3.2 – final sentence to be amended to remove reference to ‘you’ for consistency.

Model recruitment policy

6.3.3 – First sentence to be amended to read “…must advertise a head teacher vacancy…”

6.3.5 – it was felt that the wording of the paragraph should be strengthened so as to make the inclusion of the ‘Positive about disabled people’ logo and statement that they are ‘An Equal Opportunity Employer’ in advertisements a requirement in the model policy. The wording as drafted was felt to be ambiguous.

6.6.6 – final sentence to be amended to read “…if people have not heard within 20 working days/ by the date of the interview…”

The Committee asked what was meant by the term ‘soft information’ in reference to paragraph 4.3 of the model recruitment policy. It was confirmed that this may be information held by the police (for example repeated allegations against a person) which had not led to a conviction and would therefore not be formally disclosable as part of a DBS check, but which it was felt would be relevant to share in relation to recruitment to certain posts, as a safeguarding measure.

The Committee asked about the response to the consultation process. It was reported that there had been a small number of responses, largely seeking points of clarification rather than in objection to the content of the draft policies. The response had generally been positive, and the trade unions had welcomed the changes, in particular the efforts made to make complex areas of policy as clear as possible to staff.

RESOLVED

i)             That the Committee approve the model family friendly, recruitment and equality and diversity in employment policies, attached at Appendix A, B and C, to:-

a)    Be recommended by the Council from 8^th February 2017 for adoption by the governing bodies of the community, voluntary controlled, community special and maintained nursery schools which the Council maintains;

b)  To be implemented by the Council in respect of any unattached teachers it employs from 8^th February 2017.

ii)            That these new policies will replace any existing policies and guidance that is currently in place.

iii)           That the Committee authorise the Assistant Director Transformation and Resources in consultation with the Chair of the Committee to make such amendments to the model family friendly, recruitment and equality and diversity in employment policies as he considers minor, any such amendments to be reported back to the meeting of the Committee immediately following the making of the amendments.