The committee received the presentation slides on the October 2011 staff satisfaction survey results. The committee noted that staff from the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire districts had been surveyed jointly. The committee considered that there should have been separate survey results for this council as South Oxfordshire’s results were not relevant to this council. The committee noted that the reason for carrying out a joint survey was that most staff were shared between the two councils. They had the same managers and the same working terms and conditions and most individuals worked for both councils. There was also an objection to the joint South and Vale logo used in the presentation slides; they were separate council and should be recognised as such with their official separate logos. The officers agreed to feed these points back to the chief executive for review before the next staff survey.
The committee noted that it was not compulsory for staff to complete this anonymous survey as this might lead to a more negative result. The results showed more staff dissatisfaction in the planning service. Management team was investigating the reasons behind this and were involving the planning staff in a project to identify their main concerns and the actions that could be taken to address these. The strategic director was asked to circulate a note to committee members before the next committee meeting providing more detail on this.
Councillors noted that the October 2011 survey was carried out by a consultant survey specialist, surveying public sector organisations. In previous years, the survey had been for councils only. The cost of the survey included benchmarking with other public sector organisations. The committee queried the benefit the council gained from the extra cost of benchmarking with other public sector organisations outside local government. The committee asked management team to consider whether the council should continue this benchmarking in future years. However, the committee recognised the benefit of having year on year staff satisfaction information for this council.
RESOLVED: To
(a) note the results of the October 2011 staff survey and request that the results of the next survey show staff working for this council only; and
(b) request the strategic director to circulate a paper before the next committee meeting identifying the actions being taken to address the low satisfaction levels within the planning service.