Agenda item

Joint Report of the City Surveyor, the Director of Human Resources and the Director of Information Technology.

The Committee received a joint Report of the Chamberlain, the Town Clerk and the City Surveyor concerning a Roadmap to a return to Guildhall.

The Chair clarified that, whilst marked as a non-public item, this Report should be considered in public and displayed as such on the online agenda.

Officers provided a brief introduction. They made the following points:

·         the work being undertaken to return stakeholders to the Guildhall (and the other Corporation sites) focusses on three principles:

Ø  Staff, Member and visitor safety (fire, security, H&S)

Ø  The buildings are Covid-Secure

Ø  The benefits of the new ways of working are captured and embedded for the longer term

·         A balance is struck between implementing the measures that are required across the Corporation’s estate and avoiding unnecessary “gold plating”.

·         The Department for Work & Pensions were fined by the Health and Safety Executive for safety breaches at their Leeds site.

·         The Corporation’s Health and Wellbeing Board met yesterday, the Board made a point acknowledge and thank staff for the work that had been put in to ensure the Guildhall (and other sites) were now Covid secure and risk assessed.

·         From an IT perspective, a lot of work was going into planning for the longer term, officers were examining what tools and strategies would be needed in the post-covid era, with the 9-5, five-day-a-week routine unlikely to be revived for a great number of staff.

·         The Committee Services team was working closely with colleagues in City Surveyors and Chamberlains (IT) to get hybrid meetings up and running effectively.

Several queries were raised by Members:

A Member asked why there had been a reduction in the number of printers available across Guildhall. The Director of IT responded that the decision had been made in order to ensure people did not congregate around the printers (pre-covid, two printers would usually be stationed next to each other). Members responded that this made little sense, as demand would surely then increase at the fewer remaining printers; they proposed retaining the pre- covid number of printers but separate them to be stationed at more distant locations across the site. In addition, Members were concerned that a reduction in printers amounted to a way of ultimately cutting down on the use of paper; whilst we did need to be aware of the amount of paper printed, it was still important to give Members the option of having hard or soft copies of the agenda packs.

A Member expressed his disappointment of the lateness of the paper, and the lack of substance about how we, as the Corporation, were going to deal with the biggest challenge to employment since the financial crisis. Officers needed to grasp the urgency of this, residents and businesses expected us to take the lead in returning people, in a safe and appropriate manner, back to the office. The Chair reiterated that the vast majority within the workforce have, throughout the crisis, been working entirely properly from their place of work or from home. They wanted to avoid any measure that, in effect, forced staff to get back onto public transport if they can work just as effectively from home; in short, presenteeism was to be avoided. Furthermore, it was clear that even after the crisis abates,  radical change as to how and from where work takes place is inevitable, so it was now incumbent upon senior officers and Members to begin to sketch out a strategy about the longer term.

The Deputy Chair encouraged officers and Members to take a more strategic focus, a useful way forward would be to co-ordinate our own approach with others in the City. She suggested that the Director of Human Resources should liaise with other HR heads across the City to come up with a roadmap plan which could then inform and provide leadership to the local business and resident community.

A Member welcomed this approach and queried whether the Corporation had, hitherto, shown enough broad leadership in this area – the biggest responsibility for the Corporation over the coming 18 months was to ensure a safe return for the bulk of the working population of the City.

In response to a query, the City Surveyor confirmed that the demand for space/desks etc was being met (the approximate occupancy was around 20% of pre-covid levels) and capacity would continue to be there for those that want to come back to Guildhall. In addition, he noted that the exit from Guildhall could, from a logistical standpoint, be smoother, and potentially utilise COTAG. He informed Members that the process for getting people into the building would be moving from a manual to a digital approach (utilising both Condeco and COTAG) in the coming weeks.

A Member informed the Committee of the discussion on this item which had taken place the previous day at the meeting of the Efficiency & Performance Sub-Committee. Reiterating earlier comments, the concern was that the Report lacked pace and the efforts, so far, did not show leadership to the rest of the City. Whilst recognising that the safety of public transport was key, it should, in the interests of displaying leadership, become a matter of habit for most people to come back into the office for a set number of days per week.

The Chief Commoner asked about the status of the Committee Rooms; in response officers confirmed that, after some delays, the rooms were currently being refurbished, with the new technology to enable hybrid meetings being installed; it was anticipated that this would be completed by the end of November. It was important to keep in mind that the meetings needed to be delivered in a Covid safe manner and this would limit capacity, with for instance, a maximum of 10 members able to sit in the biggest room (3 and 4 combined). Ultimately, the prevalence of Covid will determine the numbers able to come into physically attend the meetings.

Going forward, once hybrids are available in the committee rooms, we will continue to operate an access procedure (to ensure the building is both covid secure and fire regulations are adhered to), it is likely that the system will be on the basis of “first come, first served”. It was added that the Committee Services team are returning to Guildhall with a rota in operation to ensure a minimal number of staff are present daily to assist Members.

A Member informed the Committee that officers were currently looking at the larger spaces across the Guildhall complex (i.e. those rooms and areas bigger than the Committee rooms in the West Wing) to potentially hold meetings in, but, that tech would need to be installed if Members decided to proceed with any of them.

The Member stressed that he was disappointed with the pace of action - some of the measures contained in the Report “should have been done and dusted six weeks ago”. It was now important to begin to map out expectations around the “next normal” – particularly the implications for office space. He added that Managers should be the ones to decide when it was appropriate to bring people back to Guildhall, and Members should avoid pressuring them to do so whilst the risk factor was still high.

Finally, a Member raised concerns about the costs to officers of coming into Guildhall – if, as expected we moved to a more flexible working pattern on a permanent basis, rail season ticket prices would need to reflect these changing patterns. He encouraged officers and fellow Members to reach out other bodies in both the public and private sectors in London to begin to make a broad-based case for greater flexibility.

RESOLVED – that Members noted the Report.