2019 (Part 2)

 

G0436 - Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme - 311219

A member authority is currently reviewing the pension advice provided to staff regarding their existing Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme. Please can you answer the following:

• Do you operate a Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme?
• If so, what advice/pension information do you provide your staff in relation to the scheme?

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G0435 - Local authority IT upgrade to Microsoft 365 - 271219

1. Do you have experience of upgrading/ moving to Office 365?
2. Are you able to provided information regarding costs?
3. What are the benefits/ disadvantages of this platform?
4. Are their any major pitfalls which we should be aware of and if so how were these overcome?

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G0434 - 5G/Digital Strategy - 161219

APSE 5G Working Group is investigating the possibilities for Local Authorities to benefit from the introduction of 5G

• Do you have specific strategies for the following:
  - 5G?
  - Smart Cities?
  - Digitalisation?
  Please share the documents or send a link
   
• What are your current channels of engagement with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)?
• What is your experience of utilising council assets to sell/lease to MNOs to date?

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G0433 - Driving to work policies - 111219

A member authority is reviewing their Driving at Work Policy in relation to both driving council vehicles and driving personal vehicles on council business. They would like to compare and contrast what others are doing on this and have in place, what councils record and how they monitor compliance.

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G0432 - Models of Delivery and Cost Efficiency in FM Services to schools - 291119

This APSE member council is exploring options for its FM services, in particular catering and cleaning services to schools. They are finding schools resist to ethical issues such as the cost of the Living Wage paid by the council over the lower prices sometimes charged by private contractors who do not pay the Living Wage of support decent pension provision. They would therefore be interested to hear from any councils that have received ‘buy-in’ from schools / head teachers to only procure in an ethical way that supports local employment and the local economy. In particular they would welcome information on the following:-

• Have schools / head teachers signed up to an ethical charter to support good employment practices in the FM sector?
• Has the council itself made a decision to support the FM services with a subsidy to ensure fair employment / fair wages?
• Have other efficiencies been made to ensure the services remain competitive? For example reduced menu choices / one pot recipes / clean desk / spot cleaning policies to reduce service costs?
• Have you adopted a different delivery model to the in-house traded service? Such as a Teckal Company / Public Sector JV or other model

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G0431 - Highways and Street Lighting Insourcing - 291119

The APSE member council is exploring approaches to delivering highway maintenance and street lighting services following the upcoming expiration of existing contracts. They are actively considering insourcing.

They would be interested to hear from other APSE member local councils who have recently insourced any of these services. They would be particularly interested to learn about the reasons for insourcing, any costs savings made and, in relation to street lighting, if any decisions were related to PFI or investment arrangements where maintenance contracts have been brought back in-house.

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G0430 - Domiciliary Care Insourcing - 291119

This APSE member council is interested in approaches to rebuilding capacity in adult social care, in particular domiciliary care services. They are aware of authorities that have insourced domically care in an emergency situation, such as a provider company collapse. However they would like to hear from any councils who have set-up some internal capacity in advance of bringing care back in-house. For example rebuilding capcity tod elveri say 10-20% of care hours through an in-house team.

• They would be interested in outcomes to insourcing domiciliary care including cost issues and service continuity
• The benefits or disadvantages of this approach
• The recruitment issues surrounding domiciliary care staff / advantages to employment standards/skills and training

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G0429 – Job Description and Salary Scales for Commercial Strategy Manager - 201119

This APSE member council is looking to appoint a commercial strategy manager to develop their approach to commercialisation. They would welcome copies of job descriptions and person specifications to assist in scoping the role and remit of this new position. Please could you provide examples by sending your response to [email protected], including any copies of documents.

It would be helpful if you could also provide information as follows:-

• Did you limit this role to income generation / trading in services or also include assets and investments as a work-stream?
• Did you include any sales incentives (commission for sales / income for example?)
• Where did you find this role sits within your directorate / corporate structures?

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G0428 - Commercial governance - 201119

An APSE member council is currently reviewing their delegations register with the intention of introducing new delegations that would permit services to be more commercially agile, reduce decision making and implementation timeframes.

1) They are keen to know what commercial governance arrangements and delegations exist within the constitution / financial regulations of other local authorities in relation to the following:

A) The setting of fees and charges and any adopted corporate policy that governs the method of review and approval.

B) Authorising bids and tenders for the provision of services by the Council to third parties.

Please specify the adopted process and the post holder/s to whom delegation is afforded, along with any financial thresholds. Copies of relevant policy documents would be greatly appreciated.

2) We would also be keen to know of any adopted policy or directive that requires Council services to seek to purchase services from their in-house provider (internal procurement directive).

For the avoidance of doubt the above query relates to services directly delivered by the Council and not governance in relation to LATCo or Teckal arrangements.

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G0427 - Homeworking - practices and policies - 301019

A member authority is interested to find out other local authorities approach and policies regarding homeworking

• Do councils employ home workers (i.e. employees who are permanently work at home on the whole time basis as opposed to flexible workers who work from home and other locations as well as the office base)?
• What are the roles they perform?
• What technology do they use?
• Are there any policy documents that support this way of working, and whether these could be shared with us?
• What had to be done to change the culture to manage this change?
• How much did it cost in financial terms?

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G0426 - Income generation options to help with care costs - 301019

A member authority is inquiring if any other authorities have implemented below. They are looking to see what possibilities can be generated to increase options to help with care costs. They currently have a very normal attachment to property when sold in place. They are wondering if they should be looking at developing their own equity release scheme or also rent the family home back to the council for a long term secured rent to assist with care home costs.

 

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G0425 - Employee time off for volunteering – 221019

A member authority is considering developing a volunteering policy and wonder:

1. How much time off do other employers grant to allow employees to undertake volunteering activities?

2. Is it paid or unpaid?

3. Is there any learning from other employers in terms of pitfalls or issues that we need to be aware of if we were to introduce such a scheme?

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G0424 - Drug and alcohol policies - 221019

A member authority is considering the introduction of a Drug & Alcohol Policy. They would be grateful for any information from other authorities which have policies they would be prepared to share?

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G0423 - Disability Related Absence - 141019

This APSE member authority has seen a recent increase in disability related absence. To establish if the authority is above a benchmarked average are you able to provide the % absence within your authority that is attributed to disability related absence? Either for year-end for 18/19 or quarter one for 19/20? If you have noted a rise in disability absence and are aware of any reasons as to why or any actions taken to address the causes of the rise please also provide information.

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G0422 - Calculation of Leave Allowance moving from days to hours - 200919

This APSE member authority is changing the way in which it presents annual leave moving from an allowance represented as a number of days to one using hours. In order to help inform discussions with trade unions they would like to look at how other authorities have dealt with this issue. If you are able please supply the following information by completing the boxes below ( You may find it easier to ‘forward’ the email to reply so that you can complete the table below:-

• Council/ Organisation Name
• Annual leave entitlement calculation (hours or days)
• Bank holiday entitlement calculation (hours or days)
• If some calculated in days and others in hours, specify groups of staff that are calculated in days
• Did you change how leave was calculated? Y/N
• If YES, did you offer compensation for the change? Y/N
• If YES please provide compensation arrangements or contact details if you would prefer to provide the details verbally

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G0421 - Making council venues dog-friendly - 200919

A member authority is exploring the possibility of making all their venues, civic buildings, leisure centres and other public properties dog-friendly (not just working-dogs). We would like to know if:

1. If any other council has considered making their properties dog-friendly and what considerations were taken into account to inform the decision
2. If any council has a dog-friendly policy to allow dogs into council buildings and would be willing to share the policy

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G0420 - Health and Safety KPI's – 170919

A member authority is enquiring whether any authorities produce KPI’s for Health & Safety performance, especially to report in to “corporate” Committee or a version of Management Team?

They have been asked to produce something similar for their committee/Management Team, and rather than use the usual “lagging” measures such as number of RIDDOR’s etc. they would rather use something “leading” and more meaningful.

Therefore they would be interested to know if anybody use any such KPI’s that seem to work well?

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G0419 - ‘Supported Employment’ of staff with physical or mental disabilities - 271119

An APSE member authority would like information regarding the ‘Supported Employment’ of staff with physical or mental disabilities. This may have been under the DWP Work Choice contract or similar.

• If the ‘Supported Employment’ of staff has been at a cost to your Authority, has this been demonstrated as a cost saving measure for other services? (such as Adult Social Care, NHS, Doctors, Social Workers etc)
• Are there any facts, figures or research that can be shared that demonstrates that employing someone at £xxx salary cost per year creates a saving against potential costs of £xxx?
• For example, if that employee were not in employment and therefore reliant on the support services relevant to their condition?

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G0418 - Health and Safety provision - 110919 

A member authority is going through further restructures following being formed from various districts and a county council in April 2019.

• The member authority would like hear what Health and Safety provision your authority has?
• What is the size of your authority?
• Would you be happy to share structure charts and job descriptions of posts?
• They would be particularly interested in the Health and Safety support to Place directorate and whether you have your own in-house workforce for grounds, highways, travel etc?
• If you have contractors for above services – what Health and Safety staff support do you have for these teams?

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G0417 - Health and Safety risk assessment matrices - 110919

A member authority is currently implementing a Health and Safety system SHE and inputting existing risk assessments.

Risk assessments are scored using a 5 X 5 grading which is in line with our Corporate risk system (Pentana).

Our Corporate Health and Safety team are advising against using a 5 X 5 matrix and saying we need to revert back to a traditional 4 X4 matrix which are often preferred by Risk and Health and safety managers

They are therefore enquiring as to the type of systems other local authorities are using.

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G0416 - Improving Recruitment and Retention of New Staff - 210819

An APSE member authority is looking at ways to make their new starters feel welcome with a view to improving recruitment and retention of staff. They are interested in knowing how other councils make their new staff feel part of the team and welcomed in to the council environment. Please can you provide the following information:

• What kind of induction process do you offer to new starters?
• Do you have consistent processes for new starters across all services?
• How do you train your managers to deal with new recruits?
• What is your labour turnover %?
• Is there a standardised 1st day template that teams use as a schedule for a new starter?
• Do you have a 'gift/Welcome box' that you give to a new starter?
• Once your new recruit has received their confirmation from HR, does anyone from their new team contact them with additional information about their 1st day?
• Are they given information about their new role to read before their start date, such as legislation, 'How to-' guides, maps of the area?