Archived decisions

Contact: Pauline Lucas, 01962 813840; [email protected]

List of contents

1. Introduction

In 2004/5, Internal Audit conducted 3 audits within the newly formed Human Resources Department as part of the normal audit programme.

These audits were:

¬ Corporate Governance

¬ Recruitment and Selection

¬ Departmental IT review and Data Protection.

A number of concerns were expressed to HR Centre Heads by Audit and subsequently to the Corporate Governance Committee through the annual audit opinion.

2. Addressing the Concerns

The Human Resources Department recognise the valuable improvement opportunity afforded by the independent assessments carried out by Audit Services and concerns expressed in the audit reports have been reviewed in detail by HR Centre Heads.

Appropriate actions to address these concerns have been agreed with both the HR Departmental Management Team and Internal Audit. These actions plans and the activities contained in them, which address Audit concerns, have been subject to monthly review by the HR Management Team.

3. Current Status of HR Actions Plans

3.1 Corporate Governance

a) HR People Strategy

The HR Strategy "Success through People 2005 - 2010" has been produced and will be presented to CMT and Cabinet during October / November 2005

b) Service Level Agreement

A comprehensive Service Level Agreement for HR Services within HCC has been completed and is currently being reviewed by senior mangers within customer departments during October 2005. Following this review and discussion period, the SLA will be agreed with each customer department with a completion date of December 2005.

c) Service Plans

The HR Department Management Team have decided that a retrospective overall HR service plan for 2005/6 will not be produced as the critical service elements are already documented within the department and Centre Heads are aware of the requirements for service delivery.

Staffing difficulties especially sickness absence at a senior level and the significant resources needed for Pay and Benefits has meant that HR need be concentrate on producing a comprehensive service plan for 2006/7 and beyond (3 year outline plan) and to achieve this an internal Service Planning meeting has been arranged for the end of October 2005 to agree responsibilities and time scales for planning development.

Service plans for Education Personnel Services, Hampshire Learning Centre and Social Services Learning and Development have been agreed for this year.

d) Complaints, Comments and Compliments

A new, web based, process for people to raise complaints, comments and compliments has been introduced on the HR intranet web pages.

There is a process for dealing with such communications, especially complaints, and they are reported and reviewed on a monthly basis at the departmental management meeting as part of the departmental management indicators / performance metrics.

e) Freedom of Information Training

Freedom of Information training, both as specific training events and as part of the standard HR induction of new staff have been carried out during September 2005 to ensure staff have received the required knowledge. A further review of who has not received such training is being conducted and further courses, including e learning, are planned for the end of 2005.

f) Governance - Scheme of Delegation

A scheme of delegation, based on the new corporate model, has now been produced and published on the HR web site. This covers both the general scheme of delegation and the financial delegation / responsibilities of HR staff.

3.2 Recruitment and Selection

a) CRB Requests

Standard CRB documentation has now been produced, after consultation with both CSCI and CRB, to ensure consistency in requesting and processing such information. This covers, in detail, the procedures for storing, processing and communicating with both CRB and HCC managers. Training was held earlier this year and further training in these new processes is planned for the middle of October 2005 to ensure all staff have the knowledge to meet the required standard.

A corporate project is underway and has been initiated as a result of a number of factors:

The HR Resourcing Centre being centralised in October 2004, it became evident that there were different ways of working in relation to CRB checking across HCC.

Operational issues raised by individual Departments in terms of the policy and procedures for CRB checking.

The changing guidance by CRB, DoH, DfeS, CSCI.

The increasing number of internal transfers has led to questions over the overall CRB procedure .

CRB has now been in place for 3 years, there is guidance that suggests that re-checking needs to take place across certain Departments

The portability of CRB's across local authority employers

This project covers all areas of Hampshire County Council that carry out CRB checking together with umbrella checking to other organisations and the objectives are:

To create and maintain a corporate CRB policy, suitable procedures / guidance / communication, communication channels and effective training across the areas of the Council that require CRB checks to be carried out.

We will be seeking to utilise the SAP system to track and monitor our CRB checks.

Information for Managers, relating to CRB checks, has been updated and published on the HR website and all forms used by managers and applicants reviewed and updated. Guidance notes, for the most complicated forms have been written and are due for publication in October 2005.

A communication plan, to ensure that the knowledge of the latest forms and processes is disseminated to relevant managers is being developed.

b) Evidence of Eligibility

New mini checklists have now been included on relevant forms to ensure that the necessary information is collected. A project is currently been carried out to review that manner in which eligibility for employment is determined and recorded. The output of this project is being reviewed internally and recommendations will be implemented, as appropriate, once the review is completed (October 2005).

c) Safe Storage of Files

The high level of applications for employment in HCC results in a large volume of documentation that must be stored for a minimum of six months. The storage of these files is a significant problem to HR, due to the limited amount of storage space available within Athelstan House. An assessment of storage facilities is due to be carried out during October 2005 by HR Business Support to ensure that files are secure and that Data Protection requirements are met. On a longer term basis a corporate project relating to the storage of both electronic and paper documents, which is led by senior HR staff and involves IT Services, has been commenced to look at the options for the council to safely retain the required records and to dispose of them in a secure and timely manner. As this is a longer term project involving the configuration of a corporate document management system, an interim electronic solution is being implemented over the next two months.

d) Tracking of Information

Limited progress has been made in improving this area. The existing Excel Spreadsheet is still being used, albeit with some refinements. SAP has proved to be less than useful in this area and alternative complimentary software may be necessary. A project to review the electronic solution available either through SAP or other stand alone systems has been initiated with support from an external source, Logica CMG for the systems part , and Treasurers consultancy for the business systems review.

2 workshops have been held to date and recommendations for ways forward are likely to be published in November 2005.

e) Consultation

To ensure there is suitable consultation with HCC managers (Recruitment Customers) a feedback questionnaire is sent out at the end of every assignment, the feedback from which is analysed and reported. Customer surveys have also been carried out and an HR Focus Group formed, which includes senior representatives from all Customer groups.

A new Complaints/comments/compliments process has also been introduced to ensure customers have the opportunity to raise issues, make comment and or report their satisfaction.

3.3 Departmental IT review and Data Protection.

a) SAP Roles in HR

A complete review of SAP access, within HR, has been undertaken and it is deemed that the current staff have correct levels of access according to their roles within the developing department. A project has been set up with Enterprise to link standard roles and associated SAP access needs to ensure that as HR job requirements develop and change, as a result of further re-organisation of the department, the access levels are automatically set by the type of job role. This will ensure consistency of access according to the job requirements.

Additional Data Protection training has been carried out to ensure HR staff understand their responsibility in handling and preserving integrity of personal data, such as that held in SAP.

b) Hantsnet Profile Groups

Between now and December 2005, the logon format for all HR staff, including those in the new Shared Service Centre (Previously Treasurers staff), is being changed to reflect their HR centre. In addition, the folder structure of the shared drive (I Drive) and other areas such as shared e-mail addresses are being changed to reflect the new organisational groups in HR. Along with this, revised profile groups and their access requirements are being implemented.

This will also ensure that only the appropriate HR staff have access to HR accounts, except where there is an IT requirement for access.

c) Business Continuity Plan

Business continuity requirements for critical work areas is currently being reviewed by HR Centre Heads with a view to producing an overall risk assessment which in turn will facilitate the production of specific plans by the end of December 2005

3.4 Hampshire Learning Centre - Income Targets

As a quasi business unit, HLC only receives a proportion of its running costs in the form of a Cash Limit. The shortfall between this cash limit and the overall operating costs is met by a number of income generating methods.

The corporately provided learning (equating to an SLA with CMT) is funded from the agreed cash limit. Based on priorities for HCC, HLC assign a proportion of their time and finances to support this activity.

Remaining training delivery time is then identified to allow the level of additional income to be determined along with the methods of cash generation.

The HLC Service Plan then breaks down the different products available and assigns delivery targets aligned with the level of income generation required.

The income target created form three layers:

¬ An overall HLC target

¬ A particular product target

¬ A team target (below the product target)

Strict financial controls, which HLC have in place, ensure a detailed evaluation of performance against targets thus allowing timely remedial actions to be taken when necessary to maintain the stability of the centre.

4. Medium Priority Actions Review

A progress review of medium priority actions was carried out with Internal Audit during September 2005. The current situations were discussed with the auditors and evidence of progress made and presented.

Other, lower priority actions were also reviewed and evidence presented as to their current status.

5. Conclusion

The Human Resource Department has made significant strides in addressing the audit concerns and is on target to meet the improvement plans in their entirety within the timescales agreed.

6. Recommendation

That the Governance Committee endorse the progress made in addressing audit concerns.