Agenda item

To receive a presentation on the Build the Change Programme.

Gary Barnes, Head of Build the Change and Sarah Cary, Executive Director Place introduced the report.

NOTED:

1.    Last March Cabinet approved the Corporate Property Investment programme as part of this approved the Build the Change programme.

2.    The vision of the Build the Change programme was to improve working practices, the environment, modernising the offices and bringing services closer to people who needed it most.

3.    Under the Build the Change programme Cabinet approved; the relocation of Housing/ Homelessness Service from John Wilkes House to Edmonton Green; relocation of Children’s and Family Services from Triangle House, Charles Babbage House and Claverings to Thomas Hardy House; design feasibility work should start to reconfigure Civic Centre and in principle to dispose of John Wilkes House and Charles Babbage House.

4.    In terms of Edmonton Green there has been very close working with the workforce. Now out to tender on this, expecting tender back in March with a Cabinet Member approval in early April, work to commence in May and completion in November 2021.

5.    The key issue for Build the Change is changing the ethos for staff. Work is not a place you go to, it is something you do. Rather than come into the office to write a report officers will come into office to work collaboratively with colleagues. This means the style of work will change, reducing the number of desks with more open collaborative spaces.

6.    In terms of progress of Children and Family Services hub, this is slightly behind, currently at end of concept design stage. Going forward looking at final designs before going to the market. Work is ongoing on relocating Archives Services away from Thomas Hardy House.

7.    In terms of the Civic Centre progress a major exercise on Test and Fit has been completed. The test fits demonstrate that all back-office staff (not depot or Park Avenue Staff) including Clavering staff will fit into the Civic Centre. Claverings will not meet EPC energy Staff in 2023, so major investment or redevelopment would be required if staff were not relocated.

8.    The April Cabinet report will suggest phase 1 focuses on reconfiguring ground Floor and floors 1-5 of the tower block and the ground and first floor of D Block. There will be a further report to Cabinet for phase 2 which will be B Block or the 5 remaining tower blocks. The Cabinet Report will seek approval of reprofiled budgets for Edmonton Green and Thomas Hardy House and seek approval of budget for works for phase 1 at the Civic Centre.

9.    Triangle House has been vacated and lease is being terminated. The IDLS Service will relocate from St Andrews to Enfield Highway Carnegie Building next month.

10. A key part of the Build the Change programme is smarter working policies and new ways of working for staff. The policy has identified 4 working style classifications; workplace specific workers, home based workers, flexible workers and Leadership roles. The majority of the council’s workforce will be flexible workers. This will lead to a change of desk ratios reducing from 10:7 to 10:3.2. Other than staff with disability requirements staff will not have allocated desks. The key cultural change is a move away from management by presence to management by results. As part of this there will be new IT, staff will be offered the right technology, tailoring IT for staff to allow them to work flexibly from home or the office.

Comments, queries and questions:

11.It was observed that as most staff are currently working from home due to the pandemic that this has been a good test for smarter working.

12.What is the timeframe for the Civic Centre progress? Officers confirmed that if the Cabinet report is approved in April, phase 1 would look to get this through to design complete and out to market within one year. There would need to be a phased programme of work with ground, first and second floor and probably D Block being undertaken first to allow staff to be moved around within the newly converted floors. During that year there will be an opportunity to undertake an options appraisal for either B Block or the top 5 floors of the tower.

13.How is the Council working with those who have rented out floors at the Civic Centre? It was confirmed that there are 5 leases with 4 organisations, all of the leases are long term and cannot be broken by the Council. The expectation is that all organisations will also be reviewing how they work and how much space they need. Part of the review process will be to talk with the organisations to see what their intentions are going forward.

14.It was queried whether office space will be greatly reduced, what will the annual savings be? With regards to staff what happens with staff who live in cramped spaces and would find onerous to work at home in these spaces -What flexibility is there for these staff? It was confirmed office space is not being reduced instead the council is looking to use space more effectively. Service Managers will be managing the staff requirements and mental health issues are considered and taken account of as part of this process. Staff can also work in library hubs should this suit them to do so. In relation to cost it is about effectively using office space. There are a large number of staff on the Claverings estate. As a Council we have a responsibility to provide good quality office accommodation to work in. This is not the case with Claverings which would cost approximately circa 20m to bring up to standard, this would not be cost effective. There will be savings from the annual running costs, Claverings is not energy efficient, have already moved out of Triangle House. There will be year on year savings in terms of rental/ energy costs for buildings not being used. However, this is an expensive capital programme so there are the offsets in terms of the capital costs of borrowing to deliver that saving.

15.Does the Council own John Wilkes House and Charles Babbage House? What is happening with Triangle House at St Andrews Court? What will happen with these spaces? It was confirmed that John Wilkes and Charles Babbage are owned by the Council. The documentation is ready to go out to the market for disposal on John Wilkes House. However, it is not clear at present whether the NHS is still considering the use of this building for a vaccination hub. Both the NHS and DWP are looking at the use of this space so it likely one of them will use while a disposal is worked out. Triangle House has been vacated relocated staff to Charles Babbage and are unclear what the leaseholder will do with this building. The lease on St Andrews Court terminates at the end of March.

16.How confident are we that the Housing Hub will be up and running by November 2021, will Covid have an impact? Officers advised that they are confident that they can meet the deadline, this was approved in the midst of Covid. Should there be any issues this will be bought to members attention

17.With regards to Hot desk/ desk ratio- what work is going on with staff and unions on this? There are regular meetings with the trade unions on the Build the Change programme. The programme whilst in Covid will concentrate the communications exercise with directly affected workforces to start with. It will be with Heads of Service to then deliver how the organisations works on the ground. Work is ongoing with Heads of services and unions to ensure that the programme can be delivered.

18.Concern was raised over hot desking and that this can create no sense of ownership, has research been done on this? How will officers know that there is a desk available for them to work at? There will be IT technology to allow staff to work anywhere. Covid has allowed staff to get used to working from home and shown that productivity and effectiveness has not decreased. There will be technology allowing officers to book a desk so that they know that a desk is available with them. There is ongoing work with Heads of Service around communicating how this will work.

19.Around working from home there is a lot of expectation on Service Managers. What support is there for them? What planning is there for managing this e.g. desk space, appropriate chairs, screens etc. What thought has been put into people overworking and achieving work life balance with the team feeling under pressure to get results. What pastoral support is there? It was confirmed that there are a number of workstreams for Build the Change, one of the workstreams is the modal shift in terms how officers work. This is being driven by HR and the Development team. The first rollout will be to Housing, then to Children and Families. There will be a range of presentations and development aids for Service Managers and team individuals about how they should and will work. It is important to get the balance right between balance/ productivity and a very long day. This will be a learning exercise.

20.How many staff will be moving over or are affected? Officers advised that would need to clarify the figures with regards to Children and Families this is 500 staff being bought together. The figures would need to be confirmed for housing. The smarter working policy is going to affect all staff over a 5-year period.

21.The Governance arrangements are detailed in slides. The Build the Change programme Board includes Head of HR, Director of Technology and Digital, representation from Facilities Management, staff representation including disabled representation. This group leads the whole project and sub boards sit underneath this. The issues raised today are regularly discussed and debated at these boards.

22.What has been the biggest learning curve in the last year? Officers advised that this has been that the organisation has continued to function effectively during Covid. The Pandemic has proved to service managers that this can work and has also smoothed the process given staff have had to adapt to working from home.

Officers were thanked for their presentation and members looked forward to receiving further information on this