The Committee considered a report on the work under development to encourage staff to speak up when they were aware of errors, poor practice or behaviours, or improvements that could be made.

The report explained that the Council had established procedures and policies for whistleblowing, staff supervision, one-to-ones, exit interviews, internal audits, dealing with bullying and harassment. However, recent events in relation to both the Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) issue and staff survey results in respect of those employees stating they had either experienced or witnessed bullying and harassment in the previous 12 months, suggested there was a more fundamental cultural issue that needed to be addressed. An action had been included in the TRO action plan to encourage and support staff to speak up when they were aware of errors, poor practice or improvements that could be made. The Chief Executive would report on progress in relation to the whole TRO action plan at Audit and Governance Committee on 21 January 2025. The Corporate Staff Survey action plan was also relevant to this issue (see Minute 17 above).

The report stated that whilst effective communication of the Council’s commitment to encourage people to speak up would be an important aspect this work, it would be insufficient by itself to change the culture in relation to how staff felt about speaking up. Detailed proposals would be considered by the Corporate Management Team in December 2024 but, the actions were expected to include the following:

• Creation of a ‘speaking up’ publication to clearly set out for staff what the Council’s expectations were and how they would be supported if they spoke up;
• Role modelling by senior leaders;
• Provision of additional learning and development opportunities;
• Exploration of how developing a ‘learning organisation’ mindset and practices could ensure staff felt supported to report issues early.

Resolved:       That the work under development to encourage staff to speak up when they were aware of errors, poor practice or behaviours, or improvements that could be made be noted.