Introduction. 1. Records Management

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1 Equality, Records & Information Compliance Team Achievements January-December 2014 What people have said......about the Information Access Team: Thanks to you for your diplomacy and active support throughout this protracted process...about the. Herefordshire Language Network: You have been a star throughout the year, thank you for putting up with me and delivering such a superb service. Thank you for your lightening response and assistance, very much appreciated....about Registrars: Thank you for our lovely wedding ceremony. You made us both feel so relaxed and your readings were wonderful. We won't forget what a great day we had for that we can only thank you. Excellent compassionate services and guidance through a very traumatic time. Introduction Following significant change in 2012 and 2013, further internal reorganisation in January 2014 led to Registration Services joining the following service areas under the ERIC banner, with Carol Trachonitis as its manager: Equality Records Management Information Governance Information Access 1. Records Management The Records Management and Modern Records Unit teams have continued to help manage the paper and electronic records of the council and council partners. Some of the achievements in 2014 were: 1,711 new boxes were received at the Modern Records Unit, helping to free up space in offices especially when staff were on the move as part of the Better Ways of Working Programme. If all the papers in these boxes were laid out in a row it would stretch four and a half miles that s from the Cathedral to Moreton-on-Lugg! 8,927 plans and 1,010 boxes of files have been scanned and the scanned images checked and uploaded to the Electronic Document Management System (EDRMS). The teams are based at Plough Lane, the Town Hall and Merchant House, but staff members regularly work from home and from satellite offices such as Ross and Kington. This document is designed to show the breadth of work covered by these service areas in the calendar year of It also looks forward to 2015 to highlight the challenges that we foresee. A project was carried out with Human Resources to provide an electronic personnel file for council staff in the EDRMS. Work is starting on using Sharepoint and the EDRMS to manage records in the Transportation Team. Realigning the service to enable us to deliver records management support following reductions in our staff and budget. The team includes Simon Baker, Mark Errington, Harry Larkin, Karolina Lepak, Ryan Moreland, Heather Stuckle and Kazimierz Szostak.

2 P a ge 2 E quality, Records & I nformation Complia n c e T eam 2. Equality 2014 was the first full year that the team has worked with its reduced capacity of the following core staff: Team manager (whose time is divided across five service areas) 1 FTE Equality Officer (50% + of this post is focused on facilitating the Herefordshire Language Network) The service continues in its key function to ensure the organisation remains compliant with the Equality Act 2010, by: supporting the Equality Impact Assessment process publishing workforce information and equality objectives providing advice and support to managers and staff, particularly around internal disputes, grievances, and reasonable adjustments locally coordinating the Government s counter-terrorism programme PREVENT 2.1 Training The number of training sessions delivered by the Diversity Team has once again dropped due to the rationalisation of the team, to the lowest level ever recorded. The team was given an income target for training in 2014/15 of 3,060. However our training income for the calendar year 2014 amounted to 405, and the table below shows the face-to-face sessions which were carried out. Session Duration Audience Sessions Generic equality and diversity 3 hours Foster carers, student social workers, 2Gether employees 8 Generic equality and diversity 1 hour Hereford College students 4 Generic equality and diversity 45 minutes 200 students of Ludlow College 1 Working with interpreters 1.5 hours Student social workers 1 The team continued to work with Organisational Development to develop and review the internal programme of e-learning modules; the team is responsible for 6 of the 9 mandatory training modules, and there has been a significant drive to ensure the organisation is compliant. Permanent Employees (1,219) Interim Employees (137) All Employees No. passed % No. passed % No. passed Total % Data Protection % % % Information Security % % % Freedom of Information % % % Environmental Information Regulations % % % Basic Fire Safety Awareness % % % Basic Health and Safety Awareness % % % Diversity - Public Sector Equality Duty % % % Effective Working Relationships % % % PREVENT % % % 2.2 Equality Impact Assessments The team continues to support service areas across the authority to produce robust equality impact assessments. In January 2014, the team produced an over-arching impact assessment, looking across the board at the impact of budget cuts on protected groups, and this exercise has been repeated in January 2015.

3 E quality, Records & I nf ormation Compliance T eam P a ge Herefordshire Language Network Work Undertaken 2014 has seen yet another increase in the number of assignments handled by the Network a total of 2,928 jobs in the year. And these jobs covered 32 different languages. Face-to-face interpreting assignments accounted for 90% of jobs, translation was 6.1%, and telephone interpreting was 3.7%. Around 560 of these jobs were for Herefordshire Council services, the vast majority being for children s social care. Total Jobs Handled by Herefordshire Language Network by Year Training In 2014 we ran a Level 3 Community Interpreting course for 11 learners in partnership with the Workers Educational Association (WEA). This increases our pool of local, qualified interpreters. Another course has been organised for 2015, with the induction session being held in November Income and Savings Identified The Language Network was given an income target of 18,360 for the financial year 2014/15. We have already exceeded this target in the 9 months to date. This is achieved by charging an admin fee for every job. In the calendar year 2014, we estimate that the Network has saved local services in excess of 160k (of which 33k is savings for Herefordshire Council). Translation & Interpreting Requests by Source 2014 Clients One of the biggest changes to the Network this year was the recruitment of Polish interpreters at Hereford Hospital. While this certainly impacted on the number of jobs we handled, we did not experience the drop in demand that we expected has seen a number of private organisations and solicitors use the Network s services. Private companies are charged a higher admin fee in order to offset the cost of providing the service to them. 2.4 Compliance with the Equality Duty 2010 The team complied with equality legislation by publishing a diversity analysis of the workforce (January 2014), and an annual review of the corporate equality objectives (April 2014). Up-to-date versions of both of these documents can be found on the diversity pages of the Council website. In order to source more up-to-date information about the diversity profile of the workforce for the 2015 document, the team collaborated with Hoople to circulate a survey to all employees. There has been a response rate of 87.8%.

4 P a ge 4 E quality, Records & I nformation Complia n c e T eam 3. Information Governance The Information Governance Team has built on the work carried out in compliance with the data protection audits of the council and has focused this year in particular on meeting the IG requirements of the new Care Act in Adults Wellbeing and on information sharing. Some of the achievements in 2014 were: Implementing mandatory online training in information governance for all staff and producing refresher training. Carrying out information security audits of the teams in Adults Wellbeing. Commencing work on the IG Toolkit, an electronic audit required to enable access to confidential systems by Adult Social Care and Public Health. Enlisting the support of Information Governance Leads in each Directorate of the Council. Launch of an Information Sharing Protocol for organisations in Herefordshire. Over 70 Subject Access Requests were processed. A new process and procedure was developed for the police to view information held by the council for the prevention and detection of crime. Over 70 requests from the police to view information were processed. A new process for other organisations to request and view information was also launched. Over 50 requests were handled for requests from organisations as diverse as the Clinical Commissioning Group to the Disclosure and Barring Service to Devon County Council. 68 security incidents and data breaches were investigated by the team, of which 2 were reported to the Information Commissioner s Office. The team includes Jan Harris, Bill Moir, Sam Smith, Sally Storey and Helen Worth. 4. Registration and Coroner s Services Three members of staff left the Registration Service in But, despite being severely short staffed, the service to the public was maintained. In fact Registration Services consistently exceeded their performance targets for registering events both regionally and nationally. Following a customer satisfaction survey, 97.52% found the services delivered by the team to be excellent or acceptable. A full review of the service took place in 2014 resulting in changes to the opening hours of the offices in Kington and Bromyard. Three new members of staff were appointed within the new structure marked the 10th anniversary of citizenship ceremonies, and 67 people became British Citizens in Herefordshire. The year also saw the implementation of the Marriages (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 including conversions of Civil Partnerships. Tasks handled by Registration and Coroner s Services 2014

5 E quality, Records & I nf ormation Compliance T eam P a ge 5 5. Information Access Team The Information Access Team deals with: Subject Access Requests Freedom of Information (FOI) Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests Formal complaints Referrals to Local Government Ombudsman Referrals to Information Commissioners Office Total contacts handled by Information Access Team 2014 In November 2014 we also took on responsibility for logging Standards and Ethics complaints relating to Councillors. When a complaint is made, the team assess whether it relates to service delivery, council policy/practice, or the conduct of an officer. The complaint will then be administered through the appropriate complaints procedure. Community Trigger In October 2014 the IAT also took on the recording of Community Trigger alerts. The Community Trigger gives individuals and communities the right to request a review of their case of anti-social behaviour or hate crime, if they are not happy with the response from the relevant authorities. People can apply for the Community Trigger if: They have reported 3 or more incidents of anti-social behaviour in the past 6 months to their local authority, the police or their housing association They and 4 or more other individuals have complained separately about similar incidents of anti-social behaviour in the past 6 months to the local authority, the police or their housing association The team includes Christine Dallow, Claire Jacobs, Bethan Jaques and Carol Saunders. The graph above indicates the number of queries dealt with by the team in the calendar year Local Government Ombudsman Enquiries In 2014 the IAT received 57 LGO enquiries in total. Of these, 6 cases were upheld. Out of these 6, 4 cases were awarded compensation, and we were therefore instructed by the LGO to pay a total of 9, Which service areas the contacts relate to (2014)

6 P a ge 6 E quality, Records & I nformation Complia n c e T eam 6. Looking forward to Performance Over the last 12 months, the team has been raising awareness across the organisation to improve performance, so that we fulfil the statutory response rates for complaints, FOI, Subject Access Requests and EIRs. Performance 2014: Showing numbers of breaches, late responses, and incidents referred to external organisations There has been a marked improvement and understanding of the work that we do, and our aim in 2015 will be to ensure the number of late responses is reduced. 6.2 The Role of the Team In 2014 the team has evolved and adapted to ever-changing demands. It has increased in size and taken on an even broader remit of services. The team maintains its corporate advice and support role while empowering managers and employees to be selfservicing and less reliant on a corporate culture. Individuals within the team have expanded their knowledge and areas of expertise, and there are now no areas where we are reliant on a single individual the team is more resilient. We will continue to expand and develop individuals to become experts in all areas of our work, and we will continue to raise the profile of the team and our work within the organisation. Herefordshire Council Equality, Records & Information Compliance Team diversity@herefordshire.gov.uk