Minutes:
The Committee had met on 14 October 2019 and Members had considered a report on the senior staffing structure, which had recommended a two Executive Director Model from the three options provided. However, Members at that meeting resolved to request officers to bring back a further option, that being a Chief Executive model.
As a result, the Acting Director of Governance, the Organisational and Development Team Leader and Jaki Salisbury, who had been working as a consultant on senior resources, had produced the report before Members.
The report detailed the salary options applicable to such a role, having undertaken benchmarking.
The report also detailed the human resources implications of adopting a Chief Executive Model. The Model would see redundancy implications arise and these were detailed within the report. Finally, the proposed recruitment process, job description and person specification were shared with Members for their approval.
Debate ensued and there was lengthy and robust discussion as to why the creation of a Chief Executive Model would result in the Executive Director Posts being deleted, with some Members expressing concern at this implication, particularly given the current significant projects underway under the Directorship of one of the affected posts.
In response, Members were reminded of the views which had been previously expressed by the Executive Director. The political ambition, and resource positon was not intent on generating considerable further new commercial offers. These projects could be managed at a lower level in the organisation. Capacity would be increased at the second Officer tier, with a new assistant director already recruited to cover planning and regeneration and plans to recruit a Housing and Well-being Assistant Director post. The redundancy would long term actually save the Authority money as opposed to keeping an officer in post when work could be covered elsewhere.
Further assurance was offered that the Officer concerned had been spoken with and had no intention of leaving the authority immediately. Projects would be seen through to an appropriate stage, hand overs would be provided to Assistant Directors and there may be scope to work with the officer effected, in another capacity, in the future.
That being the case, some Members questioned why redundancy was payable at all. Some were also of the view the post had been a fixed term contract. It was confirmed the post was not a fixed term contract, but did have a review date within the contract, in light of the previous decisions made regarding the role and the longevity of the commercial agenda. It was noted however regardless, redundancy was also payable on fixed term contracts. Members were advised in detail of the rules regarding redundancy payments, these were national regulations and contractual requirements and would be applicable if the Authority moved to a Chief Executive Model. It was noted the pension strain was not paid to the employee and was not an immediately payable cost.
It was confirmed the Peer Review would still be going ahead and some commented it would offer good insight during a time of change. The Peer Review was also much wider than Senior Managers.
All Members confirmed their agreement to the proposed salary range, job description and person specification. It was noted the draft job description did not currently include the proposed salary range, but this would be amended.
Officers confirmed the delegation referenced in recommendation 5 of the report allowed Officers to negotiate an appropriate departure. Officers shared with Members the considerations which would be taken into account, again offering assuring around major work streams.
The majority of members confirmed they were agreeable with the proposed recruitment process and timeline detailed in Section six of the report. Clarification was sought as to when any decision made would be effective from. This would be on ratification by Full Council. The reasons why ratification from Full Council was being sought were also shared.
In response to Members’ comments the implications if an internal candidate was not successful were confirmed.
RESOLVED that: -
(a) the Chief Executive Model, as detailed in the report, be approved;
(b) having taken into account the benchmarking information contained with the report, the range of salary for the Chief Executive Role be agreed at between £112,000 and £125,000;
(c) the approach to the recruitment process, as detailed in Section 6 of the report be approved;
(d) the Job Description and Person Specification as detailed at Appendices 3 and 4 respectively be approved; and
(e) the three posts of Executive Directors be deleted from the structure and the redundancy package, in line with the details in paragraph 5.1 of the report, be approved. The final details of such package to be agreed by the Acting Director of Governance in consultation with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Chief Officer Employment Committee.