Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were submitted from Councillors Carl Doran and Pauline Helliar-Symons.

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 4 November 2019.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Personnel Board held on 4 November 2020 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any declarations of interest

Councillor John Kaiser declared a personal interest in relation to Item 26, Change of Wording of Pension Scheme Employer Discretions Statement of Policy, by virtue of the fact that he was a member of the Pensions Board.  Councillor Kaiser remained in the meeting during discussions and took part in the vote.

To answer any public questions

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of this committee.

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Committee or an item which is on the Agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

There were no public questions.

To answer any member questions

There were no Member questions.

To consider a change of wording of the Pension Scheme Employer Discretions Statement of Policy.

The Board considered a report proposing a change of wording to the Council’s Pension Scheme Employer Discretions Statement of Policy to enable a Shared Cost Additional Voluntary Contribution to be implemented.

Mark Gibbons, HR Specialist, explained the proposed change to the AVC Scheme which  would enable employees and the Council to save money through being able to reclaim national insurance contributions. Mark highlighted the change of wording that was required to the Policy in order to enable the salary sacrifice scheme to be implemented.

During discussion of the proposed change it was confirmed that there would be no impact for anyone on the current AVC scheme if they wished to move to the new scheme.

RESOLVED: That the wording on the Council’s Employer Discretions Statement of Policy be altered to enable the salary sacrifice scheme to be implemented without contradicting the Council’s own policy.

To receive the Gender Pay Gap report.

The Board considered a report setting out information relating to the Council’s gender pay gap, which measures the difference between men and women’s average earnings across the Council. 

Sarah Swindley, Lead Specialist HR, introduced the report and highlighted that the Council’s workforce was made up of 74% female and 26% male employees.  As the Council offered a large number of part time opportunities, most of which were lower grade roles, this leads to a gender pay gap of 15.23%.

Sarah advised that work would be undertaken by the Employment Equality Working Group to see what actions could be taken to lower this figure. 

RESOLVED:  That the Gender Pay Gap report that will be published before 31 March 2020 be noted.

That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act (as amended) as appropriate.

RESOLVED:  That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act (as amended) as appropriate.

To receive an update on agency worker usage.

The Board received an exempt report relating to the Council’s use of Agency Workers.

RESOLVED:  That the report setting out the current Agency Worker usage be noted.