29 March - A Finance meeting with almost nothing about money
Last Wednesday saw the final Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of the
current Council; at the next one it will be all change. The Agenda was headed Finance
but not a word about money for the first 30 minutes. The meeting was all over inside an hour. Not much different
to the interval between 301 buses in my recent experience. Twice!
Andrew Curtois was in the Chair and the first Agenda item after the formalities was a discussion on
the
People Strategy abd Culture Transformation Programme, people management being a
subject on which Bexley Council has previously shown itself to be a very poor performer.
In March 2024 Bexley Council admitted that staff morale was at rock bottom.
Mental Health was the largest cause of sick absence and there was a culture of
bullying. Staff were said to be scared. Has “fostering a high performing,
inclusive and supportive workforce” achieved anything at all?
The proportion of permanent non-agency staff has risen from 48% to 80% but it turned out that
that was over the past 14 years. Figures for recent years were not
available. Staff churn numbers were also said to be on an improving trend but
once again the Head of Corporate HR had no figures to back it up.
The report said that so far in 2025/26, 1,580 staff days had been lost to mental
health issues. “Was that an improvement?” asked Councillor Peter Reader
(Conservative, West Heath) . The Head of HR couldn’t say except for the usual
Bexley excuse of the numbers being better than some other unspecified local authority.
Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) thought the report was a good one and
particularly liked the fact that long serving (20 years plus) employees will be
allowed to add that fact to their email signatures. Staff are also being encouraged
to call themselves Ambassadors and Champions. (Oh, how I wish I had thought of
that when managing a 1,300 strong workforce 35 years ago.)
Two years ago one of the complaints was that managers didn’t speak to staff
but Council Leader David Leaf said that staff were now appreciative of managers who
made them feel welcome. 250 employees joined an on line “Let’s talk session” with management.
Council Leader Leaf knew more about HR statistics than the Director and said
sick absences were down by 55% so far this year compared to last, and by the
year end is expected to be about 5·16 days per employee. That is a pretty good score.
The Chairman summed up by saying the report is “a really good news story” and
addressing the Head of HR, said “thank you for answering our questions so
comprehensively”. Was he really listening?
Certainly there are some good initiatives within the report, just as Councillor Ball indicated.
Eventually Councillor Leaf got his excuse to talk about money. He doesn’t like
borrowing and prefers capital receipts and asset sales.
Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Caroline Newton, said she was still
looking for a new Monitoring Officer. Just how many has Bexley lost over the
years? Could it be that legal officers are uncomfortable with what they see in
the borough and what it asks them to do?
Councillor Leaf acknowledged that it was the last meeting before the election
and thanked everyone who had listened to his interminable, but usually interesting, speeches.