Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Chief Fire Officer - Service Improvement – (HRMDC/17/1) attached.

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report of the Assistant Chief Fire Officer - Service Improvement – (HRMDC/17/1) that set out the performance in respect of absence management within the organisation together with an update in respect of the wider initiatives being undertaken that contributed to the health of the organisation.

 

The key points highlighted were that sickness absence was currently 6.36 days lost (April to December 2017) as compared with 6.61 days for the same period in 2015/16 which was a slight improvement in performance.  Reference was made to the new ME app that was displayed at the meeting which would enable staff to update their personal records on the system without needing to go through the HR department. 

 

The Head of Human Resources also drew attention to the sickness absence app which indicated that there were 79 positions showing as off sick with 77 people absent as at 24 March 2017.  Of these, 20 staff were absent due to long term sickness.

 

In terms of benchmarking information provided by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) for 2015-16, the position for the Service was 9.2 days absent as compared with 9.8 days for the public sector as a whole and 6.5 days for the private sector.  For all organisations, the average number of days absent was 7.5 days.  The Committee expressed concern that the Service was still not achieving the improvement in sickness absence that was required given that the National Office for Statistics – labour market statistics for 2016 showed a rate equivalent to 4.3 days. per worker.  The Head of Human Resources replied that the Service had implemented a range of measures aimed at reducing sickness absence, particularly for musculoskeletal injuries and mental health.  Councillor Julian referred to work undertaken by Devon & Cornwall Police in this area to reduce sickness absence and he enquired as to whether the Service had instigated similar actions in terms of diffusing straight after difficult incidents had occurred.  He also stated that the Service should ensure that its staff were physically fit.  The Assistant Chief Fire Officer (Service Improvement) replied that the Service was already redesigning its operational training and that there would be more emphasis on physical fitness in the future which would include staff undertaking training on their drill nights.  It was noted that the Service had established a Working Group that was looking at the levels of fitness and whether there was any direct impact to gender and age profiles so that it was able to provide the right levels of support to its staff.  The Service was also looking at its equipment to see if any redesign was necessary for health and wellbeing purposes.

 

The Committee enquired if there was comparable sickness absence data available from Devon & Cornwall Police so that it could benchmark against another emergency service that would have similar issues.  Information was also requested on the cost of sickness absence to the Service and it was requested that this be included within future reports to the Committee.  It was felt that an improvement needed to be made to the performance on sickness absence so that this culture did not continue to be replicated with future new recruits.

 

RESOLVED

 

(a)         That the Service continues to progress with developing a working    environment that was conducive to a high performing, motivated and healthy workforce, and

(b)         That as part of the performance measures for People and Resources,         this report be noted.

Supporting documents: