Licensing, Health and Safety and General Purposes Committee (Wirral Council) 25th September 2012
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Present
Councillors on Employment and Appointments Committee
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Peter Kearney (Conservative)
Cllr Andrew Hodson (Conservative) deputy for Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative), spokesperson
Cllr Mark Johnston (Liberal Democrat), spokesperson
Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour), Chair
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Officers
David Armstrong, Acting Deputy Chief Executive
Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager
Chris Hyams, Head of HR and Organisational Development
Surjit Tour, Legal adviser
Andrew Mossop, Committee Services Officer
In attendance:
Cllr Adrian Jones (Cabinet Member for Corporate Services)
Two members of public
00:08 to 00:15 The meeting started with the Chair, Labour councillor Paul Doughty welcoming people to tonight’s meeting.
1. Members’ Code of Conduct – Declarations of Interest00:15
He asked if the councillors had any interests to declare? No declarations of interest were made.
The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty asked Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager to introduce the report. Tony Williams said it was a regular report to update the Committee on attendance and referred to figures in the report.
Cllr Harry Smith (Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport) and Cllr Chris Meaden (Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Leisure) arrive.
Tony Williams said the report showed that health issues were the highest cause of absence, which they were doing work to address, with an example being given of stress awareness. He also referred to the absence rate at the Department for Adult Social Services. He asked if there were any questions?
Cllr Paul Doughty said the report was for noting, so it was noted.
4. Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment 03:20
The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty asked Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager to introduce this report.
Tony Williams said there were now fourteen employees on the register, he said at the last meeting there had been six, but five of these had been resolved. He said three on the register had complex circumstances, with two of these being due to disability, he referred to exempt appendix 12.
The Chair, Labour Cllr Paul Doughty referred to exempt appendix 12. He asked if anyone had any questions?
Cllr Mark Johnston, Liberal Democrat spokesperson asked about the reason behind the increase in employees on the register from the Department of Law, HR and Asset Management?
Tony Williams answered Cllr Johnston’s question by saying it related to a graduate trainees program. Cllr Mark Johnston asked a further question to Tony Williams. Tony Williams replied.
Cllr Lesley Rennie, Conservative asked about a point she had raised at the briefing. She wondered if the senior management restructure would lead to people’s jobs being subject to risk. She asked if in future members of the Committee, Leaders and Deputy Leaders could receive updates more regularly, such as fortnightly?
Chris Hyams answered.
The Chair Cllr Paul Doughty asked the Committee if they were happy to note the contents of the report? The report was noted.
6. Restructure of Human Resources and Organisational Development 10:00 7. Monitoring Use of Compromise Contracts 29:25 8. Appeals SubCommittee 30:24 9. Employment and Appointments SubCommittee Minutes 14/6/12, 28/6/12, 4/7/12, 5/7/12 31:33 10. Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 1) 31:46 11. Exclusion of press and public 31:52
12. Exempt Appendix – Update on Managing Workforce Change and Redeployment
13. Exempt Appendix – Monitoring Use of Compromise Contracts
14. Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair (Part 2)
Wallasey Town Hall, Wirral, England where the Schools Forum will be held. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In a report going to Tuesday’s School Forum (Agenda Item 13) Wirral Council admit they breached an expenditure limit by £741,000 in 2012/2013 (which relates to the Children and Young People’s Department, which has democratic accountability through the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Lifelong Learning, Labour Cllr Tony Smith (Upton)).
In addition to this £741,000 needed, a further £333,000 is needed for the “Private Finance Initiative Affordability Gap”, £32,000 needed for “Other” (which is probably a knock on effect of these other changes) and £71,000 extra needed for the Carbon Reduction Budget which brings the grand total required to £1.177 million.
This’ll (assuming the Schools Forum agrees to the change) be made by reducing the Schools Contingency Budget, the Early Years Contingency Budget and the Academy LACSEG central budget.
Basically when a school converts to become an Academy (as some have this year), the new Academy receives what it would before from the Local Authority (in this case Wirral), plus the local authority share of the grant Wirral Council receives from government (this covers the Academy’s costs of things they now have to pay for like assessing eligibility for free school meals, special educational need support services, certain staff costs etc).
However the transfer to the new Academies follows a long process that Wirral Council’s Children and Young People’s Department should have known about at the time of setting the 2012/2013 Schools Budget (earlier this year), which begs the question, why weren’t assumptions that certain schools would become academies factored into the Budget when it was set earlier this year (or is this too much crystal-ball gazing to expect of Wirral Council)?
This means the Indicative Schools Budget will be reduced by 18% to factor in Wirral Council’s overspending and faulty Budget assumptions. Certainly while one expects minor in-year budget adjustments to reflect unforeseen circumstances (usually using reserves set aside for this), these Academy changes have been “on the cards” for some time! If some of Wirral Council’s departments continue to overspend in this fashion (as they have for many years), eventually the cuts in 2013/2014 will have to be more severe, to make up for any 2012/2013 overspend. As we’re already halfway through the 2012/2013 Financial Year, some of that 2012/2013 Budget has already been spent.
P.S. And as if the above wasn’t bad enough Wirral Council lost out on ~£1.6 million of education funding (agenda item 4) because they gave the Department for Education the wrong numbers for Early Years learners, from the report this happened because “this was not identified at the time due to a breakdown in validation checks in Wirral” .
Investigation and Disciplinary Committee
Date: 21st September 2012 Time: 9.30pm
Committee Room 3
Investigation and Disciplinary Committee (6/7 present)
Cllr Ann McLachlan, (Chair), Labour
Cllr Adrian Jones, Labour
Cllr Ann McArdle, Labour
Cllr Lesley Rennie, Conservative
Cllr Mike Hornby, Conservative
Cllr Dave Mitchell, Liberal Democrat
Wirral Council Officers
Surjit Tour, Acting Head of Law, HR and Asset Management
Shirley Hudspeth, Committee Services Officer
Chris Hyams, Head of HR & Organisational Development
Tony Williams, Acting Employee Relations Manager
David Armstrong, Deputy Chief Executive?
Unknown officer (male)
In attendance
Cllr Paul Doughty, Labour, Chair of Employment and Appointments Committee
Two members of the public (John Brace, Leonora Brace) (items 1 to 3)
The Chair, Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour) apologised for starting the meeting late.
1. Declarations of Interest
The Chair, Cllr Ann McLachlan Labour asked for any declarations of interest. None of the six councillors (including the Chair, Cllr McLachlan Labour) made any declarations of interest.
2. Minutes of the meeting held on the 20th August 2012
The Chair, Cllr Ann McLachlan asked if the minutes were agreed?
Cllr Lesley Rennie disputed the minutes and stated they were missing that she had said at the last meeting that she wanted it minuted that she wanted Richard Penn to be invited to the meeting.
She pointed out that this was missing from the minutes.
The Chair, Cllr Ann McLachlan said it was fine as Mr. Penn was “in the building” [see above photo of Richard Penn waiting in lobby, Ground Floor, during agenda item 4 (not the room the meeting was being held in)]. She thanked Cllr Lesley Rennie for pointing this out. There were no more comments on the minutes of the meeting held on the 20th August 2012, so the Chair moved the meeting onto agenda item 3.
3. Exclusion of the Press and Public
The Chair expressed her opinion that the press and public should be excluded from the meeting for agenda item 4. She expected the two members of the public to leave, however a member of the public waited for the Committee to agree with this opinion. The reason she gave was that it related to “staff”.
The two members of the public left.
4. Statutory Officers Preliminary Investigation – Preliminary Report/Report from the Independent Investigator
The Committee received the reports from Chris Hyams (Proper Officer), Tony Williams (Acting Employee Relations Manager) and Richard Penn (Independent Investigator).
Only Chris Hyams and Tony Williams were present at the start of this item.
David Green (Director of Technical Services): Unknown outcome David Taylor-Smith (Deputy Director of Finance): Unknown outcome
Ian Coleman (Acting Chief Executive): Outcome: request made to Employment and Appointments Committee (3/10/2012) for Early Voluntary Retirement (£82,528.50) effective from 5th October 2012.
Bill Norman (Director of Law, HR and Asset Management): “no case to answer” Outcome: “no case to answer” “no further advice appropriate”
Compromise Contract (£155,416) (agreed by Employment and Appointments Subcommittee (Compromise Contracts) of 20th September 2012. Made redundant as of 30th September 2012.
Employment and Appointments Sub-Committee (Compromise Contracts)
Date: 20/9/2012 Time: 5.15pm
Committee Room 4
Employment and Appointments Subcommittee (Compromise Contracts)
Cllr Chris Meaden, Labour
Cllr Andrew Hodson, Conservative
Cllr Mark Johnston, Liberal Democrat
Officers
Andrew Mossop, Committee Services Officer
Surjit Tour, Acting Director of Law, HR and Asset Management
Chris Hyams Head of HR and Organisational Development
Tony Williams, Employee Relations
In attendance
Cllr Jeff Green, Conservative
Cllr Adrian Jones, Labour, Cabinet Member (Corporate Services)
Two members of public
1 Appointment of Chair
Cllr Andrew Hodson proposed Cllr Chris Meaden as Chair.
Cllr Mark Johnston seconded Cllr Chris Meaden as Chair.
There were no other nominations for Chair.
Cllr Chris Meaden was appointed as Chair.
Cllr Chris Meaden took the Chair.
2 Declarations of Interest
The Chair, Cllr Chris Meaden, asked if anybody had any declarations of interest to make. None were made by Cllrs Meaden, Hodson or Johnson.
3. Exclusion of press/public
The Chair asked if the Sub-Committee agreed to exclude members of the press and public for agenda item 4 by a resolution moved using s.100(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 c. 70 (information relating to any individual). The other members of the Subcommittee, Cllr Mark Johnston and Cllr Andrew Hodson agreed with her.
The two members of the public left the meeting.
4. Compromise Contract
A four page report of Chris Hyams, Head of HR and Organisational Development (in conjunction with Legal) was considered by the Sub-Committee of Cllrs Meaden, Johnston and Hodson regarding a recommendation about a proposed compromise contract of over £30,000 to terminate the employment of a Wirral Council employee’s contract (who wasn’t a member of school staff).
