Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 2 - Wallasey Town Hall

Contact: Andrew Mossop  Senior Committee Officer

Items
No. Item

69.

Members' Code of Conduct - Declarations of Interest

Members are asked to consider whether they have personal or prejudicial interests in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state what they are.

Minutes:

Members of the Committee were requested to declare whether they had an interest, either personal or prejudicial, in any item on the agenda and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of such interest.

 

Councillor Rennie declared a personal interest in item 3 (Coordinator Intensive Family Intervention Programme) by virtue of her appointment on the Merseyside Fire and Rescue and Authority and discussions having taken place on the Family Intervention Programme.

70.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 70 KB

To receive the minutes of the meetings held on 30 January and 28 February, 2012.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee was requested to receive the minutes of the meetings held on 30 January and 28 February, 2012.

 

Resolved – That the minutes of the meetings held on 30 January and 28 February, 2012, be approved.

 

The Chair announced that both items 5 (Chief Executive’s Office) and 7 (Department of Regeneration, Housing and Planning: Senior Management Structure) had been deferred.

71.

Coordinator Intensive Family Intervention Programme pdf icon PDF 88 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Acting Director of Children’s Services submitted a report which sought the Committee’s approval for the establishment of a post of Intensive Family Intervention Co-ordinator at a grade of EPO 14 (£50,667 - £53,209), for 3 years duration, to lead the implementation of the Intensive Family Intervention Programme on Wirral. The post was an essential component of the Intensive Family Intervention Programme as the post holder would be the operational link between Wirral Council and the Government’s Troubled Families Unit. Approval to create an Administration post at Band D, to support the role of Co-ordinator, would be sought under the Council’s Delegated Authority approval process.

 

Funding of £100,000 per annum was available for three years to fund this, and the administration worker post, from the Government’s Troubled Families Unit.

 

Resolved – That this Committee approves the creation of the post of Intensive Family Intervention Co-ordinator EPO 14 (three year appointment), within the Children and Young People’s Department, which will be advertised as a secondment opportunity.

72.

Corporate Casework System pdf icon PDF 78 KB

Minutes:

The Director of Law, HR and Asset Management submitted a report which gave details of the development of a corporate casework system for recording and monitoring all employee relations cases.

 

The system would provide more detailed reporting on Employee Relations cases than had previously been possible. This management information would be produced by Human Resources for Departmental Management Teams, the Executive Team and this Committee. In view of this it was proposed to discontinue the current ‘allegations’ report which provided details of the outcome of gross misconduct. This information would still be provided but incorporated into a quarterly ‘Employee Relations Performance Report’.

 

Responding to comments from Members, the Head of HR and Organisational Development reported that the Committee would be able to have an open report on the statistics of employee relations cases and consideration would be given to what information should be in the exempt part of the report.

 

In respect of appeals coming before the Appeals Sub-Committee, a Member suggested the need for more case law information to be brought before the Sub-Committee and it was confirmed that consideration would be given to this. A HR adviser and Solicitor were in attendance to give support to Members in reaching their decisions.

 

Resolved –

 

(1)  That this Committee notes the report and the development of the corporate casework system.

 

(2)  That this Committee agrees that the allegations report is discontinued and is replaced by a report on Employee Relations Performance.

73.

Chief Executive's Office

Report to follow, subject to consideration by Cabinet at its meeting on 15 March, 2012.

Minutes:

Item deferred.

74.

Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment pdf icon PDF 70 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Law, HR and Asset Management, submitted a report providing an update on the management of workforce change and outlined progress on the successful redeployment of employees throughout the Council. There were currently 9 people on the redeployment register. An exempt appendix to the report gave further information on the employees on the register.

 

The Leader of the Council referred to the need for continuing support to be available to employees following their redeployment.

 

The Committee expressed its congratulations to the Director and the Head of HR and Organisational Development and all HR employees for the national recognition of their good work they had received in having made the shortlist for a Local Government Chronicle workforce award.

 

Resolved – That the report be noted.

75.

Department of Regeneration, Housing and Planning: Senior Management Structure pdf icon PDF 66 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Item deferred.

76.

Employment and Appointments Sub-Committee Minutes pdf icon PDF 43 KB

The minutes of the Employment and Appointments Sub-Committee meetings held on 22 February, 5 and 8 March, 2012, are submitted for information.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the Employment and Appointments Sub-Committee meetings held on 22 February, 5 and 8 March, 2012 were submitted for information.

 

Resolved – That the minutes be noted.

77.

Appeals Sub-Committee Minutes pdf icon PDF 43 KB

The minutes of the Appeals Sub-Committee meeting held on 5 March, 2012, are submitted for information.

Minutes:

The minutes of the Appeals Sub-Committee meeting held on 5 March, 2012 were submitted for information.

 

Resolved – That the minutes be noted.

78.

Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 1) pdf icon PDF 78 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Further to minutes 33 and 36 (29 September 2011), the Acting Chief Executive reported upon proposed changes to the Council’s senior management arrangements in relation to the roles of Chief Executive, Head of Paid Service and Monitoring Officer that were considered necessary and prudent in view of the absence of the Chief Executive due to ill health.

 

Under the Council’s current senior management arrangements, where the Chief Executive was absent or otherwise unavailable for work, the Council’s Acting Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Finance/Section 151 Officer assumed the role of ‘Acting Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service’. However, recent absences at a senior level had highlighted the need for the Council to increase its senior management capacity in relation to the roles of Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service and Monitoring Officer. It was therefore proposed that, subject to the approval of the Council, the Acting Director of Children’s Services be appointed the Acting Deputy Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service to act in the absence or unavailability of the Acting Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service or where the Acting Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service was unable to act due to a conflict of interest.

 

It was also proposed that the Head of Legal and Member Services be appointed Deputy Monitoring Officer in the absence or unavailability of the Monitoring Officer. However, the Head of Legal and Member Services was currently the Council’s Scrutiny Officer, which was a statutory role and a Council Officer could not be both Deputy Monitoring Officer and Scrutiny Officer simultaneously. Accordingly the Head of Legal and Member Services would formally relinquish the role of Scrutiny Officer and it was therefore proposed, subject also to the approval of the Council, that the Democratic Services Manager be appointed to the role of Scrutiny Officer.

 

Resolved – That Committee recommends to the Council –

 

(1)  That the Acting Director of Children’s Services be appointed the Acting Deputy Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service to act in the absence or unavailability of the Acting Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service or where the Acting Chief Executive/Head of Paid Service is unable to act due to a conflict of interest.

 

(2)  That the proposed appointment of the Deputy Monitoring Officer be noted.

 

(3)  That the Democratic Services Manager be appointed as the Council’s Scrutiny Officer.

79.

Early Voluntary Retirement / Voluntary Severance Requests: SCP 49 and Over pdf icon PDF 86 KB

Minutes:

The Acting Director of Children’s Services submitted a report which sought the Committee’s approval for the release of a member of his staff who was over spinal column point (SCP) 49, under the Early Voluntary Retirement (EVR) / Voluntary Severance (VS) scheme on 31 March 2012 and for the deletion of the post as a result. The release of this post would not materially affect service delivery.

 

Resolved –

 

(1)  That this Committee approves the release of this employee as set out in Appendix One to the report.

 

(2)  That this Committee approves the deletion of the post as set out in Appendix One to the report.

80.

Exempt Information - Exclusion of Members of the Public

The public may be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information.

 

RECOMMENDED –

 

That in accordance with section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the relevant paragraphs of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to that Act. The public interest test has been applied and favours exclusion.

Minutes:

Resolved - That, under section 100 (A) (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule 12A (as amended) to that Act. The public interest test has been applied and favours exclusion.

81.

Exempt Appendix - Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment

Appendix 2 to agenda item 6, exempt by virtue of paragraph 1.

Minutes:

Further to minute 74 ante, the Committee noted the exempt appendix to the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management’s report.

 

82.

Exempt Appendix - Department of Regeneration, Housing and Planning: Senior Management Structure

Appendix 1 to agenda item 7, exempt by virtue of paragraph 1.

Minutes:

Item deferred.

83.

Allegations Against Employees

Exempt by virtue of paragraph 1.

Minutes:

The Director of Law, HR and Asset Management provided details of an allegation of serious misconduct made against an employee and advised of the action taken.

 

A Member referred to a case which had gone to tribunal in January and suggested that it would be useful to have a summary of tribunal cases to this Committee.

 

The Director commented that these were reported to the Standards Committee periodically and that they could also be reported to this Committee.

 

Resolved – That the report be noted.

84.

Exempt Appendix - EVR Report

85.

Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 2)

Minutes:

A Member referred to minute 64 (Senior Management Changes) (30/1/12) and that there was no report on compromise agreements on the agenda.

 

The Head of HR and Organisational Development stated that a report would be brought to a future meeting of the Committee. When asked by Members, the Director commented that no Chief Officer would be seeking to agree any compromise contracts before a report had been considered by the Cabinet without any further discussion.