Item 08 Appendix 1
West Dunbartonshire Council · 21 May 2025
Back to Corporate Services Committee — 21 May 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Page 1
1 Appendix 1 - P&T Delivery Plan Year-end Progress 24/25 4. Our Council Objective 10. Our workforce is resilient and skilled where digital technology supports service delivery for our residents 2023/24 2024/25 Performance Indicator Value Status Value Target Short Trend Long Trend Note Owner Percentage of ICT helpdesk incidents fixed with half day of being logged. 66.82% 78.03% 65% Target exceeded, with continued improvement mainly due to technology improvements, walk up tech bar, improved network performance, removal of legacy application software and enhanced workflows in Freshservice system. Overall, over 13,000 ICT helpdesk incidents were resolved within half day of being reported. The target for 2025/26 will be increased to 70%. James Gallacher % of our workforce who have declared a disability 0.04% 1.4% 2.2% Target missed although Performance has improved by 1.36%. Action Alison McBride
Page 2
2 2023/24 2024/25 Performance Indicator Value Status Value Target Short Trend Long Trend Note Owner continues to encourage employees to provide equalities data. % of our workforce who have stated they are LGBT 1.19% 1.3% 2.5% Target missed. Performance has marginally increased. The data for LGB and Trans are collated separately and therefore have been reported separately. These figures are a % of the total workforce. Alison McBride % of our workforce who are from a Black minority ethnic group 0.58% 0.7% 1.0% Target missed, with marginal improvement. Action continues to encourage employees to provide equalities data. Alison McBride Disability pay gap 1.07% 0.2% 10% Target achieved. Alison McBride The percentage of the highest paid 5% employees who are women 60.1% 62% 50% Target achieved. Alison McBride Gender pay gap -0.4% 0.04% 3% Target achieved. Alison McBride % employee attendance improvement rate (teachers & local govt.) 1.86% -4.3% 1% Target significantly missed. The attendance improvement rate has decreased compared to last year this is due to an increase in sickness absence reasons across a range of reasons but in particular related to the local government employee workforce. Work continues to support employee maintain their health and wellbeing at work through application of the Supporting Employee Wellbeing policy and promotion of a range of employee supports and benefits. Alison McBride Percentage of Council employees who feel valued in the workplace 46% 45% 75% Target significantly missed. Performance has declined over the last 3 years; it was anticipated that the impact of the budget deficit and the implications this meant for service delivery would have an impact on the workforce morale and Alison McBride
Page 3
3 2023/24 2024/25 Performance Indicator Value Status Value Target Short Trend Long Trend Note Owner as a result how valued they feel. To assist with what is an unsettling time for the organisation, to mitigate against any negative impacts, a communication plan was put in place to ensure employees are kept informed of the budget outcomes as well as ensuring employees are aware of the package of wellbeing supports in place. Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner Progress assurance and test plan for Service Plans 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. A number of Emergency Plans have been reviewed, issued for consultation, updated and now live. Civil contingencies facilitated training for both Council and HSCP. Council Incident Officers (CIOs), Support Centre Managers (CSMs) and Loggist training. Further courses facilitated by West of Scotland Regional Resilience Partnership (WoS RRP) were shared with Council and HSCP Leads. Scott McFarlane Progress and manage the Council`s & HSCPs Business Continuity Process 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Workshops completed for all heads of service and across all service areas including HSPC. Care plans validated and further workshops planned to ensure all services are fully aware of their responsibilities and the Business Continuity requirements. Scott McFarlane Develop a framework for the Council’s Power Resilience arrangements 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Essential Services Power Resilience document and Assurance Checklists were updated by the Strategic Resilience Group (SRG). A Power Resilience Workshop was undertaken, the actions are being progressed which will work towards reducing the impact of a National Power Outage or a Significant Cyber Attack. An exercise will be arranged later in 2025. Scott McFarlane Further secure the Council’s Technology Infrastructure 31-Mar-2025 Ongoing review, investigation and testing to inform enhanced security and protection. Enhancements and improvements have been introduced on anti- James Gallacher
Page 4
4 Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner phishing, 365 email security, council device security, incident readiness, firewall defence and software and hardware update process. ICT will further investigate Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) in the coming year. This action will be carried over into 2025/26. Deliver fit for purpose Bandwidth capacity to all Council locations 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. In total 53 sites have now migrated to the new SWAN2 network with schools reporting immediate improvements. Next phase of the migration plans underway with site list and orders submitted and is expected to be completed by July 2025. James Gallacher Enable an improved digital workplace experience for council employees 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. We have decommissioned Citrix storefront and migrated to Palo Alto remote access solution for all remote users. Installation plan to install Office 365 to all corporate devices is nearing completion with final users scheduled. Positive feedback received from Council employees with the digital workplace experience improved James Gallacher Review and implement MS SharePoint and One Drive 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. This project will continue to progress in the coming year. MS sharepiont and One Drive have been deployed to test users. Planning in progress with People & Change team to prepare project communication strategy with next phase and wider roll out planned for 2025/26. James Gallacher Coordinate ICT device replacement programme. 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Device replacements have progressed well across corporate and education estate. James Gallacher Enhance/ expand digital skills champion roles 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. DigiChamps receive periodic newsletters and advance notification of all the Digital Themes activities. Rollout of M365 will continue to be developed as pilot evolves. Service design training developed and available to services Alison McBride Develop a plan to further mainstream digital transformation across the Council 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Digital themes have been designed and introduced. Support for pilot project for roll-out of M365 collaboration tools (MS Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive) provided. The communications and approach developed for pilot will be followed for wider roll-out. A M365 hub has been established on the intranet and Microsoft Alison McBride
Page 5
5 Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner training opportunities are advertised as they become available. Workforce Planning: Develop and implement wellbeing, employee engagement, equality and learning and development plans to enable capabilities, improve resilience and promotion of a diverse workforce 31-Mar-2025 Action overdue. Knowledge sharing and development is taking place across the service. Focused resource on Voluntary Severance/ Voluntary Early Retirement (VS/VER) and savings exercise, Staff Working in Transition and Change (SWITCH) and equalities. A number of employee benefit initiatives have been launched and further developments in the workforce planning console to support the management of intermittent absence and stress risk assessment process. Trickle use continues to be promoted for engagement and there has been a realignment of the employee recognition awards with the Council's ACHIEVE values. The ICT customer satisfaction actions are underway. Further work will be undertaken on the Equality workstream. Work has progressed but not as much as the team would have liked due to resources. This action will be carried over into 2025/26. Alison McBride Workforce Planning: Develop and implement employee life cycle plans in line with the People First Strategy to attract and retain the workforce. 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. A review of the succession planning across all team has been undertaken to ensure resilience. Development of career pathway roles and talent pools and considering different Social Media platforms to reach a wider audience and diversify the workforce in ICT. Year 2 of the recruitment work plan (onboarding) has commenced with user research for new employees and recruiting managers. Further work is required in target recruitment and review of social media in recruitment. Resource has been diverted to support VS/VER and restructures. The team have started scoping this work out and making contact, but much is still to be undertaken in this area. This action will be continue in 2025/26 Alison McBride Workforce Planning: Implement service review process including role design, use of new technology and new ways of working to add resilience, address gaps, and establish opportunities for efficiencies 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Review of structures, roles and requirements in line with SOM compliance and phases is complete. Job evaluation revised policy and processes now embedding, strengthening the Council's position on Alison McBride
Page 6
6 Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner equal pay and considerations around role design. Development of the workforce planning console has increased use. Further work is needed to review the Data Management provision and re-prioritisation. Work has commenced and a capital bid is being considered for investment in this area. This action will continue in 2025/26 Workforce Planning: Develop and implement learning and development opportunities to improve capabilities and resilience within the workforce. 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. We continue to progress job evaluation/analysis, management development and leadership training Digital themes to support pilot project roll-out of M365 collaboration tools (MS Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive) have been provided. Whist digital skills training has been provided the take up has been limited. This has also been seen with automation, further investment and a mindset shift required in this area to ensure WDC does not fall behind especially given the volume of work nationally. This action will continue into 2025/26 Alison McBride Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner Workforce Management System not fit for purpose There is a risk that the WMS system is not fit-for-purpose thereby requiring manual workarounds restricting the level of automation impacting on efficiencies 31-March-2025 This risk remains current due to the way Frontier deploy improvements and support the system development in line with operational requirement. Officers continue to monitor and manage this risk. No change to risk matrix Arun Menon Challenges in protecting the Health and Safety of Employees and Others Failure to meet the Council’s duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of its employees and other people who might be affected by its business 31-March-2025 Corporate H&S are actively reviewing and optimising key service areas, including Safety Management Standards and training. Figtree is now hosted by Figtree’s own server platform replacing WDC’s ICT servers and there has been a marked Alison McBride
Page 7
7 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner improvement in turnaround times for enhancements to the system. Work is also being carried out to refine and simplify the health surveillance process in collaboration with OH and line managers. The ongoing management of H & S within the Council includes facilitating management workplace inspections as well as conducting noise monitoring, auditing, scaffold inspections and presenting training. Furthermore, fire safety management remains a priority across the authority, with the fire risk assessment programme, fire safety training and support given by Corporate H&S to services to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. A significant amount of work has been undertaken to ensure WDC is compliant to the change in legislation relating to the investigation of fire alarm actuations. Corporate H&S are working with RPO’s across the Council as well as providing training on the subject both in person and via the i-learn platform. No change to Risk matrix Complexities in ensuring an appropriately resourced and resilient workforce Failure to ensure that there is an appropriately resourced and resilient workforce in place to meet future organisational needs, in effectively executing the Council’s 2022-27 Strategic Plan. 31-March-2025 Workforce Planning Strategy in place for 2022-2027. People First Strategy is in place covering 2022-2027 and this is a consolidation of a number of areas: well-being, employee engagement, workforce planning, learning and development and digital. Alison McBride
Page 8
8 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner WDC are recognised as leading in terms of adapting flexible working practices. A robust package of wellbeing resources continues to be available, absence levels are closely monitored, with personal stress and minor, ailments absences prevalent. Trickle user numbers continue to rise, and the tool is used as an additional route to ensure wider spread of workforce communications alongside an opportunity for employees to share thoughts and ideas. In addition, the tool is used regularly to gauge employee engagement levels. Digital Skills approach has been refreshed with a matrix cascade planned across the organisation to support 365 Share point rollout utilising digital leads and champions. To further support this the digital team have completed a programme over the last year focusing on digital skills, improving the use of data and maximising 365 tools. The council wide rollout to SharePoint continues with employees being supported on the opportunities this software can provide. Services are currently working on structures and service delivery whilst considering the difficult financial funding position and the impact of this will be closely supported and monitored. There have been reductions across the people support functions and this has
Page 9
9 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner increased the challenges in supporting services. No change to Risk matrix Threat of Cyber-attack Data, systems and/or infrastructure are impacted as result of security attacks which are increasing in number at a time when this threat is already placing demands on resources to deliver increased levels of security controls. 02-Apr-2025 Cyber strategy, policies and technologies are continually being improved, reviewed and monitored; ICT continues to follow National guidance where applicable. Cyber Security team focus has been on promoting employee awareness to cyber risk from both a professional and personal perspective, this work has resulted in 82% of employees in our recent survey indicating their Cyber awareness has improved. Development of a dedicated security intranet page to provide guidance and advise to employees is being finalised and is live. Progress continues to improve our Microsoft 365 security and email posture in addition to a review and update of our Disaster Recover, Cyber Incident Response and Business Continuity Plans. Incident response readiness, security gap analysis and M365 security review has been completed by our 3rd party security partner. Results are currently being reviewed with the aim to agree an improvement action plan. Our annual Network Penetration testing is underway with the aim to renew our Public Sector Network certificate early in 2025. Enhanced online email security training is in progress with continuous phishing James Gallacher
Page 10
10 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner campaigns to raise employee awareness. There is a continual review of the process to apply security updates, patches, and software deployments. Recent improvements have redesigned the update process to devices. Geo-blocking to GB and Ireland remains in place. No change to Risk Matrix. Objective 11. Our Council is adaptable and focused on delivering best value for our residents Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner Undertake annual Payroll Audit 12-Jan-2025 Completed as planned. Arun Menon Implement statutory Payroll changes 31-May-2024 Completed as planned. All statutory changes such as Tax and NI have been implemented for 2024/25. Arun Menon Implement revised team structure and service provision 30-Sep-2024 Completed as planned. This was achieved through removal of tasks which has been actioned and communicated. Arun Menon Review and update FfF approach 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Following review, the approach this year will concentrating on digital champions, skills and improvements alongside supporting SharePoint rollout which will ensure services are efficient and that we make the best use of our resources. Alison McBride Continue to embed sound H&S practice 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Corporate Health & Safety continue to ensure safety management standards reflect current regulation across the Council & HSPC. The team undertook two audits of services, Alison McBride
Page 11
11 Action Status Progress Due Date Note Owner residential care at Crosslet House and residential care at Queens Quay care home. Audits were conducted against the councils Safety Management Standards to check compliance and workplace, and fire risk assessments have been undertaken as required. Implement improvements in recruitment life cycle processes 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Review of project plan has taken place, and progress has been made in reviewing succession planning guidance for future talent resources. Further work will be done on career pathways and developing additional recruitment links to enhance the talent pool and channels available. This action will continue into 2025/26. Alison McBride Maintain and monitor employee wellbeing, engagement and workforce planning 31-Mar-2025 Action overdue. Employee awards have now been refreshed in line with the Achieve values framework with the first ceremony planned for May 2025. Improvements to the employee console have been introduced. Support materials for stress improvement work as being designed and the review of job profiles is underway. As a result of resource pressures and completing priorities this action will be carried over into 2025/26 Alison McBride Review and enhance employee skills and learning programme 31-Mar-2025 Completed as planned. Mandatory training information for their teams has now been made available to Managers on the console. Access to the national M365 skills hub has been granted and joining instructions are being developed. The Pilot M365 is underway and additional training resources and opportunities are in development. This action will continue into 2025/26 Alison McBride
Page 12
12 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner Keeping abreast of developments in the innovative use of Information Technologies Failure to keep pace with changing technology environment 02-Apr-2025 The Council continues to invest in technology and embrace innovation with the implementation of several improvement projects. This investment is focussed on delivering fit for future infrastructure, enabling a secure, consistent and robust hybrid working experience, reducing the threat of Cyber-attack and exploring exciting opportunities with modern technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Automation. There continues to be investment in cloud services with MS SharePoint and One Drive with additional services areas migrating to the solution from April 25. Further services areas and partners will be migrated throughout 25/26. ICT are also currently planning the deployment of an Azure cloud environment to allow the Council to begin testing servers in the cloud and provide added resilience for system access. The Council has procured additional 365 licences to allow the latest version of Office 365 to be deployed to all Council devices. The ICT team are also researching latest Artificial Intelligence solution MS Co-Pilot with the aim to trial licences across pilot groups. Installation of new Firewall technology has taken place, and this project will not only improve internal and external security but will also increase data capacity throughput at our data centre to allow improved data performance across the Council network. James Gallacher;
Page 13
13 Risk Description Current Assessment Target Assessment Date Reviewed Note Owner The project to improve bandwidth capacity at all Council sites has progressed well with 55 sites now migrated to the new network, the remaining sites including the Aurora Data Centre will be upgraded by July 25. In addition, we are also upgrading the Council internet line and all of these changes will ensure our Infrastructure is fit for future and to allow the Council to invest further in cloud services. The Councils legacy telephony system will be replaced during 25/26 with a new cloud platform solution that will also deliver a new Council Contact Centre solution for Customer Services to enhance Citizen communication. Action Status Overdue Not on track In Progress and on track Completed PI Status Target significantly missed Target narrowly missed Target met or exceeded Long Term Trends Improving No change Declining Short Term Trends Improving No change Declining
Page 14
14 Risk Status Alert Warning OK