Many of our services have high levels of public satisfaction, the IDeA
highlighted consultation and public involvement as a strength for the council. The City Council operates a Citizens panel as one route to gain regular feedback conducting surveys and focus groups. The Council has consulted the Citizens Panel on many issues including the setting up of service
standards, and the format of the ‗Your Lincoln‘ resident‘s newspaper.
The council has committed to improving equality and diversity practice in the council. All human resource policies have been equality impact assessed and action plans are to be drawn up to address the findings.
The City Council has the highest percentage of disabled employees (around 8%) in Lincolnshire, compared to a national average of 4%, and holds the ‗positive for disabled‘ badge. The City Council guarantees to interview to any applicants who can met the minimum criteria in recruitment, and has a Staff Disability Forum to support staff and help address any issues.
The council will use information collated through National Indicator 14 and other sources from 2008 onwards on avoidable contact to assess and redesign services to be more accessible.
Focus for improvement: Corporate action
- Provide corporate equalities training, customer services training - Co-ordinate and support collection avoidable contact data
- Undertake large scale customer consultation and engagement activity throughout the year, in particular three citizen panel surveys
- Support service specific consultations I provision of guidance and advise
Service responsibilities
- Ensure all front facing service delivery to customers is efficient, user- friendly and minimises avoidable contact
- Lead in collation of customer interaction data and satisfaction for service re- design and improving value for money
- Completion of Equality Impact Assessment and implement appropriate remedial actions
37
SECTION 4: Corporate Training Programme
Introduction
The Corporate Training Programme has been designed to meet the needs of the council as a whole, considering corporate needs as well as specific Directorate requirements. The programme is managed and administered by the HR Department.
All the courses offered as part of the Corporate Training Programme demonstrate a direct link to an improvement objective.
The corporate training programme provides staff with the development
opportunities matched to the requirements identified on their appraisals. It will also reflect the key corporate development requirements identified to enable the council to move forward.
The primary process for identifying training needs is through the Performance and Development Appraisal completed by everyone between April and
October.
Participants will be able to make a link between the training they will receive, the impact on their area of work and how this will enable them to contribute to their service plan.
In this way, there will be a demonstrable link showing how training will help people to do their jobs more effectively and improve performance and,
ultimately by contributing to the wider Corporate Plan, deliver on the council‘s Aims and Objectives.
All development completed as part of the corporate programme will be evaluated up to level 3 using the Kirkpatrick level of evaluation:
Level 1 An evaluation of the event.
Level 2 An evaluation of what was learnt on the course.
Level 3 An evaluation of how skills learnt are being transferred back to the workplace.
Development Request Form
Part One (To be completed by Staff requiring Development)
Name Job Title
Service Directorate
Line Manager
Development Required Date
Was this Development highlighted as part of your PANDA? Yes No If yes, please identify which objective this will help to achieve.
If no, please explain why you have been nominated.
Part Two (To be completed by Staff and Line Manager)
In order to ensure we can evaluate the effectiveness of the course, it is important that together you identify the objectives you want to achieve from the development and how they are linked to the Council‘s aims.
Objective 1
Objective 2
Objective 3
Part Three (To be completed by Line Manager)
I confirm the nomination of the above person to attend the development and that we have discussed the objectives.
Signature ... Name (Print)...
Please return this form to the HR department at least four weeks prior to the development.
39 Bid process for job specific training and dates
As well as the corporate training pot, each service will have money available for job specific training. This will be training related to the specific area in which they work and would possible not be relevant to any other service. It is important however that all the training is recorded and evaluated to ensure that it has achieved what it set out to do. All staff will be asked to complete a learning log either on lone or paper based. This will help all staff to identify the development that has taken place throughout the year, both formal and informal.
A Learning Log is basically a log or record or journal of your own learning. A Learning Log helps you to record, structure, think about and critically reflect upon, plan, develop and evidence your own learning. It is not necessarily a formal ‗academic‘ piece of work in the same way that an essay is. It is a personal record of your own learning. As such it is a document that is unique to you and cannot be ‗right‘ or ‗wrong‘.
A Learning Log is a journal that evidences your own learning and skills development. It is not just a diary or record of ―What you have done‖ but a record of what you have learnt, tried and critically reflected upon.
For example in your Learning Log you may include details of what you did learnt during a taught session or how you did something and how you have critically reflected upon this by asking yourself questions such as:
Did it go well? Why? What did I learn? Did it go badly? Why? What did I learn?
How can you improve for next time (eg what skills do I need to improve in order to be a better/more effective manager?).
A Learning Log contains your record of your experiences, thoughts, feelings and reflections. One of the most important things it contains is your
conclusions about how what you have learnt is relevant to you and your role as an employee of the City of Lincoln Council and how you will use the new information/knowledge/skill/technique in your work for the local authority. Evaluation forms for both level 1 and level 3 will be made available to all staff through the intranet and are shown below.