Venue: Committee Room 5, Guildhall, Swansea. View directions
Contact: Democratic Services: - 636923
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Disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: In accordance with the provisions of the Code of conduct
adopted by the City and County of Swansea, no interests were declared. |
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To approve & sign the Minutes of the previous meeting(s) as a correct record. Minutes: RESOLVED
that the minutes of the meeting held on 13 January 2016 be agreed as a
correct record. |
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Councillor Champion Update. PDF 44 KB Minutes: Councillor J P Curtice attended the Cabinet Advisory Committee and provided a verbal update on her work as the Councillor Champion for Older People. She detailed the events she had attended as Councillor Champion and highlighted the issues she was encountering in the role, many relating to safeguarding. She added that she had been in contact with the Older Peoples Commissioner and the Older Peoples Champion for Wales. The Committee asked the Councillor Champion a number of questions regarding her role and the many issues encountered by older people. The Chair thanked the Councillor Champion for providing her report. |
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Proposed Gender Pay Gap Project. PDF 59 KB Additional documents: Minutes: The Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development
and Organisational
Development Project Officer provided a briefing note regarding the proposed gender pay gap
project. It
was outlined that the Welsh Specific Equality Regulations 2011, the so-called
‘Equal Pay Duty’ required the Council to address not only disparities of pay
but also to address the structural labour market factors that can cause gender
pay gaps. With this in mind, the Head of HR&OD invited Dr
Alison Parken of Cardiff University, the leading research specialist in this
area, to meet with the Chair and HROD Officers about the research she has
undertaken with 3 public sector
organisations in Wales, including a Local Authority in South East Wales. A copy of the presentation provided by Dr Parker
was provided at Appendix 1. The
research had highlighted a number of issues, particularly the way that the public
sector structures jobs and contractual working hours which may be contributing
to a gender pay gap that could contravene the Equal Pay Duty. For
example, in the Council studied, an analysis of grades 1-3 (lowest paid posts)
indicated that women held part time posts while their male counterparts held
full time posts, suggesting an inequality in opportunities for career progression. This was due to the traditional notion of
‘women’s work’ being part-time, as it was assumed that women prefer this type
of work. The research found that this
was not the case, as many women undertaking part-time work had more than one
part-time post in order to build their earnings. More importantly, however, the evidence showed that
permanent full-time posts were predominantly held by male employees, but the
majority of local authority staff were female.
This indicated that the way Councils structure posts and offer contracted
work could be contributing to a potential
gender pay gap because of the way work is being structured within the Council. The Committee asked
a number of questions of the Officers, who responded accordingly. Discussions centred around the following: - ·
Undertaking
a project to understand our current Gender Pay situation, not only to comply
with the Equal Pay Duty regulations, but to assist us with moving forward to
ensuring that the Council becomes an organisation that addressed the any
potential gender inequalities within the workforce; ·
Working
arrangements within the Council such as flexi-time, flexible working, maternity
leave, ‘keeping in touch’ and term-time working and examples provided from
other local authorities whereby jobs were brought together in order to create
full-time posts; ·
Utilising
the WAVE Project toolkit; ·
Unconscious
bias training and the packages available; ·
Mandatory
training provided by other large organisations locally. RESOLVED that: - 1)
The
contents of the report be noted; 2)
A
report be provided at the next scheduled meeting giving
a snapshot of one directorate in order for the Committee to discuss the issue
further. |
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Work Programme 2015-2016. PDF 52 KB Minutes: The Chair presented an update Work Programme 2015-2016. The Committee discussed the topic of Agency Workers and requested the Chair clarify with the Cabinet Member if he wished the investigations to proceed and not wait until the end of the Commissioning Review into Waste Management. The Democratic Services Officer confirmed the details of the site visit to Helping Hands on 23 March 2016. RESOLVED that: - 1) The contents of the report be noted; 2) A further report on the Proposed Gender Gap Project be added to the workplan; 3) The Chair clarifies with the Cabinet Member his requirements in relation to Agency Workers; 4) A site visit to Helping Hands at Ty Blodau, Singleton Park takes place at 1.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 23rd March 2016. |