HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

RESOURCES CABINET PANEL

TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2006 AT 2.00PM

Workforce ProfileReport 2005/2006

Report of the Corporate Director of People and Property

Author: Louise Harrington, Assistant Director, Human Resources Tel: 01992 556653

Executive Member:Robert Gordon (Performance & Resources)

  1. Purpose of Report

1.1To present the Annual Workforce Profile Report for 2005/06. In accordance with the County Council’s statutory obligations under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act this report will be published via HertsDirect.

  1. Summary

2.1The Workforce Profile Report provides breakdowns of the profile of Hertfordshire County Council’s workforce by gender, caring responsibilities, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and age as at 31st March 2006.

2.2The report details the progress made towards achieving equality in employment and a more diverse workforce by the County Council.

2.3As well as providing an analysis of our findings, this report will make comparisons to the 2004/5 workforce profile report, where possible drawing comparisons to Hertfordshire’s and/or the UK’s labour market and state any new issues and how the Council intend to address these over the next 12 months.

2.4This is the fourth year the report has been produced in this format. We have included information that is in line with the requirements of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 as well as other legislation, e.g., Age Discrimination legislation, which was introduced in October this year (2006).

2.5The data in this report relates to all employees working for the County Council, including schools.

  1. Headlines

3.1Key areas of note from this years report are detailed below:

  • A recent data validation exercise has improved the data we hold on employees across all diversity areas.
  • 82% of the workforce are female. This is significantly higher than the percentage of economically active females in Hertfordshire which stands at 46%.
  • Significantly more women are employed in the lower graded positions. For example 92% of those employed on grades H1-H3 (£12,747 - £15,825) are female. This is a potential issue for the Council in terms of Equal Pay.
  • 5.3% of HCC’s workforce come from minority ethnic backgrounds.This is lower than the number of people from minority ethnic backgrounds living in Hertfordshire which is 6.3%.
  • 65.6% of the workforce are over the age of 40. This is creating pressure for succession planning and knowledge management. Only 12% of the workforce are under the age of 30.
  • HCC employs an increasing number of carers (27%). The peak age to become a carer is between the ages of 50-59 so with the aging profile of the workforce we would expect this to continue to increase.
  • Harassment and Bullying cases have increased by 50%.

3.2These issues are being responded to via HCC’s People Strategy which covers the four areas of Resourcing, Developing People, Transforming the Organisation and Making our Mark on Equality. Specific action plans in place include the Equal Pay Audit, the Disability and Race Equality Schemes and the Age Action Plan. In addition the Council is working with partner organisations such as Manpower to attract a more diverse range of candidates and monitor appointments. Where issues do arise we work closely with departments to address these and provide support to managers via a range of Learning and Development activities for employees, managers and members.

4.Conclusion

4.1Members are asked to consider this report prior to its publication and to monitor the Council’s response to equalities legislation.

061205 Resources Cabinet Panel

Item 4 – Workforce Profile and Monitoring of Training

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