Staff Question and Answer Session
with Lorna Meahan, Depute Chief Executive, - Thursday 23 April at 10.00am
Our Council are giving staff, citizens, businesses, children, young people and parents the opportunity to engage directly with Senior Council staff, and our partners where appropriate, about topics that are important, or where there is a high level of interest during COVID-19 over the coming weeks. Through a series of webinars anyone will be able to submit an anonymous question which will be answered by an appropriate senior member of staff in the Council, and you will be able to watch the responses to questions online.
Our first online event for our staff is Thursday 23 April at 10am. Lorna Meahan, Depute Chief Executive who is leading the day-to-day operation of the Council during COVID-19, will be answering questions live.
You can submit a question in advance here, and if you wish you can do so anonymously or you can ask questions on Thursday when we go live online. Any questions that we don’t get the time to cover on Thursday will get a written reply by email within 3 working days.
To participate in the webinar and see all of the questions answered live, you need to register here. Once you have registered, you will receive a link to take part in the webinar. For any staff member unable to participate live, a recording of the webinar will be made available online afterwards.
This is your chance to ask questions directly to Lorna about our response to COVID-19 and about how she is leading our Council during one of the most challenging times for our staff and communities.
Any staff member who wishes to participate should be given the opportunity to do so during work time by their line manager wherever possible in line with service requirements, however please seek agreement from your line manager. If you attend a live webinar you will also have a further opportunity to submit any additional questions during the event.
Workforce
Staff from across the Council are continuing to assist with our response to the pandemic and making sure that we can provide vital services.
The Council’s workforce cell has overseen the deployment of over 1,100 staff from their substantive role to other roles that help to deliver critical frontline services during COVID-19. This includes volunteers from all services as well as partner organisations. Examples of areas of work that have received high levels of staff deployment include:
- delivery of registrations services
- taking calls related to shielding
- assisting with enquiries from the public at the Contact Centre
- preparation and delivery of school meals
- staff working within Education hubs
- domestic duties including within the NHS
To all staff, whether you are continuing to perform your substantive role or whether you have been deployed into a new one, thank you for your continued effort and hard work at this time.
 Shielding
One of the big challenges in responding to COVID-19 is making sure that any vulnerable individual who doesn’t have any support available isn’t left alone or in need at this time.
Very quickly, our council established a Shielding Team, based at various locations across the region, to speak to individuals and provide them with reassurance and help if required. Some individuals already have people who they could ask and rely on who can bring them things and call to make sure they are okay. However, others do not have anybody, so the team are making sure that these individuals are receiving food and other essentials and helping with collecting medication if that is also needed.
Many members of the Shielding team have been deployed to help with this important role.
To date, the team have taken 4,000 calls in the last 4 weeks from people right across the region – an outstanding effort from the team.
Access to Staff Briefings
Line Managers/Supervisors – we need your help!!!
We know that many of our staff do not have access to Council email or the corporate network and therefore do not receive staff briefings. We have made staff briefings available for these staff to view on their own device at https://www.dumgal.gov.uk/staff-briefings and would ask that you continue to promote this link to your staff.
We also wish to offer these staff the opportunity to have staff briefings sent to a personal email address. Can you please speak to each staff member you are responsible for who does not have access to Council email and ask if they would like staff briefings to be sent to their personal email address, if they have one. If they answer yes, please ask for their email address and enter their details here. Please clarify that this personal information, the email address, will be stored and used in accordance with GDPR for the duration of COVID-19. These staff can also participate in webinars using their own device so please promote the opportunity to take part also.
Frequently Asked Questions – COVID-19
As the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak continues to spread, the Council is doing everything possible to keep employees and service users safe, follow UK and Scottish Government advice in relation to limiting the spread of COVID-19 and delivering essential services to the people of Dumfries and Galloway. The attached Frequently Asked Question’s (which replace the FAQ’s dated 2 April 2020) are designed to help Local Government employees understand the national COVID-19 advice and how this may impact on employment.
The advice and information will be updated frequently over an extended period and it is important that you keep yourself up to date. Attached to this briefing are updated FAQ’s to help managers and staff to make decisions in relation to their work.
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