240809Paper5ResourcesCtteeDRAFTSCFMinutes240612

Paper 5

Draft Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Minutes

19 Feb­ru­ary 2024

For inform­a­tion Draft minutes of the Staff Con­sultat­ive Forum

Held via MS Teams and in per­son, Tromie meet­ing room, Grant­own on Spey Office Monday 19 Feb­ru­ary 2024 at 2.00pm

Present Adam Streeter-Smith Char­lotte Mil­burn Dav­id Camer­on Derek Ross (Board Mem­ber) James Lee Kate Christie Mari­aan Pita Nas­im Mehr­abi Paul Dav­is­on Pip Mack­ie Rus­sell Jones (Board Mem­ber) (Arrived late) Sarah Fletcher

Apo­lo­gies Richard Hardy (Pro­spect)

Item 1 Wel­come and Apologies

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) wel­comed everyone.
2. Apo­lo­gies were received from the above.

Item 2 Review of Minutes of 19 Feb­ru­ary 2024 Meet­ing and Mat­ters Arising

1. Minutes were agreed and action points were reviewed.

Item 3 Paper 1: Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy 2024 — 27

1. Kate Christie (KC) intro­duced the paper and high­lighted that the last Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment (OD) Strategy had been developed pri­or to Cov­id, since that time much had changed and this new strategy would replace the pre­vi­ous one. The res­ults of the Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey would con­tin­ue to be ana­lysed and anoth­er sur­vey with staff in salary bands D / E would be car­ried out to fur­ther explore reas­ons for poorer engage­ment by this group. We have also estab­lished a Cul­ture and val­ues steer­ing group and the exist­ing cul­ture and val­ues were cur­rently being revised and all staff have had the oppor­tun­ity to be involved. We have also gathered more inform­a­tion from staff through the last two Away Days. All of these inform­a­tion-gath­er­ing oppor­tun­it­ies have con­trib­uted to the devel­op­ment of the Organ­isa­tion Devel­op­ment and People Strategy (ODPS), which has sev­en themes, all of which sit with­in the CNPA’s aim of being best small pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tion in Scot­land. This is now the oppor­tun­ity for staff con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed OD strategy for next two years.

2. KC asked the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um (SCF) for feedback.

3. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) The pos­sib­il­ity of an organ­isa­tion organo­gram being provided. KC respon­ded that this was cur­rently avail­able on Eolas. b) The need for includ­ing Dis­play Screen Equip­ment (DSE) assess­ments and how they related to hybrid work­ing, includ­ing what CNPA do to sup­port people with home work­ing. It was con­firmed that this would be included in the facil­it­ies sec­tion. As an update the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee (H&S Comm) met in April and had a present­a­tion from the DSE team regard­ing assess­ments (includ­ing hybrid work­ing). The DSE team were cur­rently over­haul­ing the whole pro­cess, and this was due to be relaunched to staff soon. c) The need to include the organ­isa­tions ongo­ing com­mit­ment to sup­port staff volun­teer­ing. This was to be included.

4. DC thanked every­one for the feed­back. KC advised was a dynam­ic doc­u­ment and would be revis­ited as and when neces­sary to update.

Item 4 Paper 2: Inform­al Mes­saging Policy

1. Paul Dav­is­on intro­duced the policy. Two main points were high­lighted, that the use of inform­al mes­saging is per­miss­ible and can be used but any sub­stan­tial points of record need to be kept in the Elec­tron­ic Data Man­age­ment Sys­tem (EDMS) (Share­point), and the use of form­al groups (that are used for decision mak­ing, includ­ing those with extern­al mem­bers) need to be logged cent­rally, as a point of good gov­ernance. DC advised that this has been through Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) and had been signed off. DC asked the SCF for feedback.

2. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) An under­stand­ing that some inform­al mes­saging groups are time lim­ited and per­haps need to be deleted after a cer­tain peri­od of time. PD respon­ded that this could be included. b) Some mem­bers of staff using their per­son­al phones for work pur­poses. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought if this had implic­a­tions for Gen­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (GDPR) and the reten­tion of messages/​phone num­bers. PD respon­ded that the extent of the per­son­al data is lim­ited (usu­ally name / phone num­ber) but is a con­sid­er­a­tion for people leav­ing the organ­isa­tion. DC advised that a piece of work needed to be car­ried out regard­ing exit man­age­ment pro­ced­ures for mem­bers of staff (parts of this are already under­way between the IT and HR team). This policy would apply organ­isa­tion wide and so would include Board mem­bers, DC to speak to Sandy Brem­ner (Board Con­vener) regard­ing Board inter­ac­tions. c) The pos­sib­il­ity of work-related con­tacts being stored in out­look and there­fore linked to the cairngorms​.co​.uk account. PD respon­ded that this was poten­tially an option but inev­it­ably names / phone num­bers spill into oth­er con­tact records and it would need to be con­sidered in a wider context.

10.DC thanked every­one and the policy was adopted.

Item 5 Paper 3: Chief Plan­ner Pay 11.KC intro­duced the paper advising that the role of Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ner was cur­rently out for recruit­ment. The Chief Plan­ner ele­ment is a stat­utory role that all Plan­ning Author­it­ies have to have and there­fore a con­tinu­ity in this role was

crit­ic­al if the post hold­er were to leave and as such the role required a three month notice peri­od to ensure that con­tinu­ity. Giv­en this, SMT had approved that the band max (Band F) would have 5% added to it (to £65,000). This was as spe­cified in the recruit­ment advert and for trans­par­ency pur­poses the organ­isa­tion wanted staff to be aware of the rationale for doing this.

1. There was no feed­back provided.

Item 6 Paper 4: MAD Sug­ges­tion Update

1. It was advised that this paper had been to fol­low but had been pulled from the agenda due to fur­ther inform­a­tion being required.

Item 7 Verbal Update: Pay Award ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ 14.DC intro­duced a short-writ­ten update high­light­ing the busi­ness case which had now been sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG). This con­tin­ued the line of dis­cus­sion from last year, when it was noted that SG imple­men­ted a two-year award for their own staff, whilst CNPA imple­men­ted a one-year award. CNPA’s cur­rent pro­pos­al for ²⁴⁄₂₅ was such that when taken togeth­er with the ²³⁄₂₄ award, closely mirrored SG’s two-year pos­i­tion. Noth­ing had yet been received from SG regard­ing this pro­pos­al but they had now issued the ²⁴⁄₂₅ pay met­rics (i.e. the award para­met­ers we are per­mit­ted to offer staff). The pay met­rics were some­what less than CNPA had pro­posed and included in the busi­ness case (as sub­mit­ted) and there­fore CNPA were now work­ing with col­leagues at SG to explore how best to take this for­ward. How­ever, giv­en we are seek­ing more than the met­rics per­mit, it was likely that our exist­ing busi­ness case may require fur­ther sub­mis­sion to the SG remu­ner­a­tion group, which is some­what com­plex and can take con­sid­er­able time.

1. KC advised that last year’s pay award was nego­ti­ated with staff and imple­men­ted. Imple­ment­ing the one-year award meant that the Sea­son­al Rangers could be included. If CNPA had to wait to receive approv­al for a two-year award, the organ­isa­tion wouldn’t have been in a pos­i­tion to include the Sea­son­al Rangers, as approvals from SG would not have been giv­en in time to make the award by Octo­ber. KC advised that CNPA were aware that it was now June and wanted to give update and advise that things are progressing.

2. Feed­back was provided as fol­lows: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought that CNPA have sub­mit­ted a pay award high­er than the SG pay met­rics. DC advised that this was cor­rect, the busi­ness case had been sub­mit­ted pri­or to SG issu­ing this year’s pay met­rics. Staff would be updated as soon as there was fur­ther inform­a­tion. b) A request to sim­pli­fy the pay award paper for staff into key points and post this on Eolas. It was agreed this would be done.

Item 8 Dis­cus­sion: Cred­it Unions

1. A staff rep intro­duced the oppor­tun­ity that Cred­it Uni­ons (CU) present to staff and that SG are keen to pro­mote their use. CU are inde­pend­ent sav­ings and loan cooper­at­ives. They can also offer a payroll deduc­tion scheme, which could sup­port staff in terms of budget­ing e.g. Christ­mas sav­ings account and a min­im­al amount allowed to be saved. They also allow sav­ing with min­im­al effort and as they are cooperative’s any profits go back to mem­bers. Giv­en the size of the CNPA it was felt they were worth­while look­ing at, espe­cially as some Loc­al Author­it­ies have part­ner­ships with organ­isa­tions of this type.

2. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought that if CNPA were to sign up to a par­tic­u­lar CU was the mem­ber of staff aware of any mech­an­isms regard­ing who we part­ner with e.g. High­land & Island / Grampi­an Cred­it Uni­on etc. The pos­sib­il­ity of hav­ing to part­ner with sev­er­al Cred­it Uni­ons as it may be depend­ent on where the mem­ber of staff lived. Input would have to be sought from vari­ous Cred­it Union’s to ask if they would cov­er all CNPA area.

3. A staff rep could see the bene­fits of CU’s. How­ever, was not sure that the organ­isa­tion should be advising staff to use these over oth­er meth­ods of man­aging money. The present­ing mem­ber of staff respon­ded that it would not be advising but hav­ing as a mech­an­ism (as part of staff bene­fits) for staff to save and that indi­vidu­als would make their own decision. It was con­firmed that any deduc­tions were from net pay and there­fore did not attract any tax sav­ings. DC respon­ded that the CNPA would be expli­cit that the organ­isa­tion was not advising or provid­ing advice to staff but stat­ing that it was avail­able should people feel it were appro­pri­ate to their circumstances.

4. A staff rep felt that either a range of options should be shown, or no options giv­en at all.

21.DC to con­sider how to take for­ward in liais­on with the HR team Item 9 Dis­cus­sion: Health and Safety Update

1. KC advised that DSE was in the pro­cess of being revised how it was car­ried out. The DSE assessors are Kath­er­ine Will­ing, Laura Byers, Jacki Mun­ro and Sara Den­ner. A home work­ing DSE assess­ment includ­ing a photo lib­rary of equip­ment and assess­ment form would be made avail­able via Share­Point soon. A staff rep asked if this would include the level of expendit­ure per­mit­ted for items. KC respon­ded that there would not be a bar set on this as it was very much depend­ent on indi­vidu­al needs. It was not for staff to pur­chase their own kit, The approach would be for CNPA to pur­chase items. This would be based on the DSE assess­ment that had taken place plus what rep­res­en­ted good value for the organ­isa­tion. It was sug­ges­ted that staff try new pro­cess, as the CNPA wanted staff to work as safely and effi­ciently as pos­sible. It was con­firmed that items for pur­chase do have to go through DSE team.

2. The Lone Work­ing and Acci­dent / Incid­ent report­ing pro­cesses will also be going on Share­Point. Once these have been developed and are up and run­ning staff work­shops will be held.

3. It was advised that not all line man­agers are going through the lone work Risk Assess­ment with their staff and identi­fy­ing what devices / level of lone work­ing is required for them. More inform­a­tion is now avail­able in the new line man­ager guid­ance on Eolas.

4. Week­end lone work­ing in the office was raised. KC respon­ded that this is some­thing that the organ­isa­tion does not want to encour­age staff to do, as there’s a need to pro­mote the import­ance of tak­ing time off, which includes week­ends. DC advised that the test of the lone work­ing policy is that it should be gen­er­ic enough to cov­er all even­tu­al­it­ies of lone work­ing. Rather than focus on spe­cif­ic examples, if staff are at risk of being in a lone work­ing envir­on­ment, then staff should recog­nise that pos­i­tion and fol­low the appro­pri­ate pro­cess. The new sys­tem will be rolled out and tested to ensure that it works for all eventualities.

5. A staff mem­ber quer­ied if work­ing alone in the Bal­later office was a dif­fer­ent situ­ation. KC advised that the lone work­ing policy iden­ti­fies dif­fer­ent pro­ced­ures for dif­fer­ent levels of risk. Lone office work­ing is likely requir­ing the use of the simplest form i.e. the buddy form as a min­im­um, as set out in policy.

6. A staff mem­ber stated that when work­ing in the office staff are under the aus­pices of oth­er Health and Safety, and there is a need to be care­ful that the pro­cess is not too oner­ous with forms etc for an extra hours work, wheth­er that is either early or late. DC advised that there needs to be a reas­on­able and achiev­able bal­ance. KC advised that office work­ing has been enhanced with sign in app and when the clean­ers lock up, they do a sweep of build­ing. It’s very rarely that any­one is in after they have left and that’s when the line man­ager should be aware of late working.

Item 10 Dis­cus­sion: Lead­er­ship 28.DC advised that the final Board Mem­ber appoint­ment had now been com­pleted, with Jack­ie Brier­ton join­ing on 01 June.

29.DC also stated that the Board would have input into cul­ture and val­ues work over the Summer.

Item 11 Dis­cus­sion: Equal­it­ies 30.KC advised that an in-per­son event was to be held with intern­al inclu­sion and equal­ity advocacy group. This was to look at mem­ber­ship, terms of ref­er­ence and the remit of group. The group would seek to be open to people who want to be part of it, rather than pre­scrip­tion from a range of vari­ous grades / dir­ect­or­ates etc.

31.KC advised that the CNPA would be look­ing to get Carer Pos­it­ive accreditation.

32.KC advised that the CNPA had achieved LGBT Youth Charter – Found­a­tion status and the organ­isa­tion had been recog­nised for the level of work that had gone into achiev­ing this and iden­ti­fied both the Gender Diversity Policy and the Equal­it­ies Impact Assess­ment (EQIA) of this policy as exemplars.

33.KC stated that on 22 June there would be the Pride Parade at Inverness, CNPA has registered as an attend­ing group. Any­one can come along and be part of this group, who will be wear­ing the CNPA purple t‑shirts.

Item 12 AOB

1. KC advised that there had been two pieces of legis­lat­ive change which impacted on two exist­ing policies. The neces­sary changes had now been made to the policies. These had not been brought to SCF as they were not sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the policies and were required by law. The changes were as below:

2. Carers policy: If staff are respons­ible in caring for someone with a long-term con­di­tion, they were entitled to five days unpaid leave. Enti­tle­ment to this leave is a ​“day one” right which means it can be reques­ted from the first date of employment

3. Flex­ible Work­ing: Staff are now eli­gible to sub­mit a Flex­ible Work Request from their first day of employ­ment not after 26 weeks as pre­vi­ously. Staff can also sub­mit two requests per year, as opposed to one pre­vi­ously. Any request has to be dealt with with­in two months (includ­ing appeal time) pre­vi­ously this was three months and line man­agers must now meet with the mem­ber of staff to dis­cuss the request with­in sev­en days, instead of 28 days.

4. A staff rep raised an issue regard­ing the tem­per­at­ure and air flow in exten­sion. DC advised that this would be explored solu­tion in liais­on with the Facil­it­ies team and repor­ted back to SCF.

The meet­ing con­cluded at 15:22pm. Ref| Action | Respons­ible| Due Date —-| — -| — -| — - 06.12.21| Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme | | Para 19| Future updates to be brought back to SCF |KC| June 22 |27.06.22: Fin­ance team look­ing into and any pro­pos­al will be brought to MT| | | |07.11.22: Still pro­gress­ing| | | |25.01.23: Ongo­ing| | | 14.09.23| Gender Diversity Policy |KC| Mar 25 Para 5b| Policy to be reviewed in 12 – 18 months time Guid­ance brief­ing issued to staff inc. there being no hier­archy amongst the pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics, | | Dec 23 Para 5c| The Dig­nity at Work policy to be reviewed and brought back to SCF for dis­cus­sion| | Mar 24 Para 5^e| Addi­tion to Hand­book re organ­isa­tion­al cul­ture and event organ­isa­tion.| | |19.02.24: The guid­ance brief­ing was issued to staff. Cur­rently updat­ing Equal Oppor­tun­it­ies and Dig­nity at Work Policies were in the pro­cess of being reviewed. | | |12.06.24: Equal Oppor­tun­it­ies and Dig­nity at Work Policies still being reviewed. | | 19.02.24| Intern­al Recruit­ment Policy|KC| Jun 24 Para 21| Intern­al recruit­ment oppor­tun­it­ies not being cir­cu­lated to be raised with SEPA / NatureScot.| | |12.06.24: SEPA reques­ted that the intern­al recruit­ment of posts was paused. NatureScot are keen for this to be rein­stated, as are CNPΑ.| |

12.06.24| Inform­al Mes­saging Policy:| | Sept 24 Para 9b| Exit pro­ced­ures for staff with phone numbers|KC| |DC speak to Sandy Brem­ner re: Board inter­ac­tion with this policy.|DC| 12.06.24| Cred­it Uni­on| | Sept 24 Para 18| To con­sider how to take forward|DC| 12.06.24| AOB: Tem­per­at­ure in Exten­sion| | Sept 24 Para 34| To con­sider how to take forward|DC/KC|