Issue - meetings

Interim Corporate Director Finance and Resources

Shail Shah, Head of Audit and Risk, introduced the report focusing on the Culture and Ethics within the council, particularly issues raised within the Non-Statutory Review and the Report in the Public Interest. Richard Henderson, Director of HR and Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion provided additional information. They highlighted the following points:

(a)  An audit of culture and ethics within a local authority has been challenging to complete. The audit programme was developed  using guidance from the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors and Grant Thornton Best Practice Toolkit;

(b)  Culture is a key workstream within the Recovery and Improvement plan and progress is being reviewed by the Recovery and Improvement Board;

(c)  Much of the work on culture in this report is looking backward at where the Council was, as highlighted within the Non Statutory Review and the Report in the Public Interest because fieldwork was undertaken in February and March and the Culture workstream had only just been established;

(d)  HR colleagues are playing a lead role in the review of culture and ethics. A number of different projects have been taking place to assess and review culture and ethics within the Authority;

(e)  A series of interviews of Council Staff from all levels within the structure has taken place establishing a sense of how each individual feels they fit within the organisation, their role in decision making and accountability.

(f)  A culture mapping exercise took place, based on the Goffee and Jones model, starting with an organisation wide questionnaire, focus groups and direct feedback from colleagues about how it feels to be part of the Authority and how colleagues view culture. One of the most striking points from this exercise was that colleagues felt the current appraisal process was a tick box exercise that failed to develop them;

(g)  A new appraisal processes has been developed and is being rolled out, initially to SLMG staff in June and then wider roll out over the summer. This will help to draw the Council Plan down into Departmental Plans and to individuals appraisal allows a sense that each individual has a part to play in achieving the goals of the Council;

Following discussion prompted by questions and comments from Committee members the following points were highlighted:

(h)  Measurement of improvements in Culture and Ethics can be difficult, however in the plan set out there are concrete deliverable actions that will show progress is being made. These include the roll-out of the new appraisal process, the rewrite of the constitution and its implementation, as well as compliance with other governance factors;

(i)  There are targets set for all managers to ensure that culture change continues to move in the right direction, particularly around behaviour management for managers to ensure equality in leadership across the authority;

(j)  It is likely that work on culture change will be ongoing for the long term. Wigan Council started a programme which is still ongoing 10 years from its start, however big steps have already  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11