Agenda item

Ben Plant, the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development presented the report to Governance Committee.

The Committee took notice of the fact that the paper had been before the Committee before in January 2020 but the return had been delayed largely to focus upon the Coronavirus Pandemic.  The Committee were now being asked to consider some amendments to the Staff Employment Procedure Rules as set out within the report.

The existing Rules were considered at Appendix A to the report and Appendix B set out the proposed new Rules for full consideration. 

Previously the Governance Committee had asked for greater clarity and so the full implications had been set out in the body of the report.

Recommendation 2 and 3 in the report were stated as follows:

2.    decide which Deputy Chief Officer posts should be appointed to by members and which, if any, should be appointed to by officers (four options are presented at Appendix C)

3.    decide if the decision to take disciplinary action against or dismiss Deputy Chief Officers should be made by members or delegated to officers

And these were considered by the Committee and discussed.

Chief Officer Roles are those roles which are direct reports to the Chief Executive Officer and include all of the Senior Leadership Team.  Deputy Chief Officers are those officers reporting to a Chief Officer.  These are the roles that one would expect to be recruited to post by Members through the Appointments Sub-Committee.  The decision for the Governance Committee was to determine which officers would be appointed by the Members and which by the Head of Paid Service (CEO).  Further the Committee were asked to give consideration as to who they believed the disciplinary function should lie with, Members or the Head of Paid Service.

There followed discussion and the Leader of the Council having regard to Appendix C of the report which set out all the options for the Committee suggested that an Option 1A be considered to allow Members to appoint all Deputy Chief Officers of grade 11 and above.  It was also indicated that disciplinary matters should be dealt with by the Head of Paid Service.

Further discussion followed and the CEO, Andrew Blake-Herbert gave an example of one of his direct reports who was graded below Grade 11 who would fall to be appointed by Members if the Grade 11 element is not agreed.

Councillor Roger Ramsey raised a query in relation to disciplinary matters.  If the CEO as Head of Paid Service had dismissed an officer, would the appeal on that matter lie with Member?  This would need to be very clear in the final version of the Rules so there was no ambiguity in that regard.

The Committee noted that often disciplinary matters would be delegated by the Head of Paid Service to the relevant service Chief Officer and on such an occasion the appeal would lie to the Head of Paid Service.  If the Head of Paid Service had dismissed an officer then the appeal would lie to Members and that would be made clear in the final Staff Employment Procedure Rules for adoption.

The Governance Committee went to a vote to consider recommendation 2 as amended Option 1 now termed Option 1A (in Appendix 3 of the report).

All members voted in FAVOUR of this save Councillor David Durant who ABSTAINED from the vote.

Governance Committee:

Agreed Members would appoint all Deputy Chief Officers of Grade 11 and above.

The Governance Committee further considered recommendation 3. 

All members voted in FAVOUR of this save Councillor David Durant who ABSTAINED from the vote.

Governance Committee:

Agreed the decision to take disciplinary action against or dismiss Deputy Chief Officers should be delegated to officers; and

Noted that the rules would clarify the provisions in relation to disciplinary appeals before recommended to full Council.

Following a vote where all members voted in favour save Councillor David Durant who voted AGAINST and Councillor Ray Morgon who ABSTAINED,

Governance Committee:

Agreed to recommend to Council that the proposed Rules as agreed above be approved and that the Monitoring Officer be authorised to update the Constitution and make all necessary consequential changes.