Employment and Appointments Committee agrees reduction in management posts
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In a short meeting, the Management Restructure Proposals were agreed without any questions by councillors. The agreed proposals will result in a loss of eight posts resulting in a saving of £435,714. A number of other posts have been renamed (such as the Chief Internal Auditor will now be called the Senior Manager (Internal Audit)).
Further restructures (not needing to be approved by the Employment and Appointments Committee) will occur at Principal Officer level and above in order to reach the £5 million savings target.
A page detailing the money paid out to former Wirral employees in compromise contracts between November 2012 and March 2013
As at least one reader has according to Wirral Council, an obsessive interest in compromise contracts, so this is for you and the small numbers of people actually interested in the subject.
Item 11 was originally an exempt appendix, but councillors decided not to consider it in exempt session (although it’s still not published on Wirral Council’s website).
Page 56 was blank (so I didn’t scan it in), but here’s page 55 (click for a larger version).
It details the £¼ million paid out by Wirral Council to nine employees in compromise contracts since mid-November. So why did the officers want to keep this page a secret? The covering report contains the line “Compromise Contracts for EVR exercises should remain within the bounds of existing delegated authority and policies.” Reading between the lines does that mean HR could make a whistleblower redundant under the guise of redundancy which would avoid any democratic scrutiny of the compromise contract? Answers in the comments please.
Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) meeting of the 27th March 2013 Compromise Agreements
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Present:
Cllr Paul Doughty (Chair)
Cllr Phil Davies
Cllr George Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones
Cllr Chris Jones (deputy for Cllr Ann McLachlan)
Cllr Peter Kearney
Cllr Lesley Rennie
Cllr Jeff Green
The Chair Cllr Paul Doughty welcomed people to the Employment and Appointments Committee meeting, he asked for any declarations of interest. No declarations of interest were made. He said he had received apologies from the Lib Dem spokesperson Cllr Mark Johnston and it would be possible that Cllr Harney would arrive in his place.
He gave those on the committee extra time to read the minutes of the meetings held on the 7th February and 14th February (copies of which had been handed out) as these hadn’t been included in the reports pack. Cllr Jeff Green asked if these had been published on the intranet, an officer answered that they had. Cllr Jeff Green then asked when they had been published. The officer said they hadn’t had a meeting since the 14th February, there was due to be one [on the 11th March] but it had been cancelled. The Chair asked if there were any matters arising, nobody raised any so the minutes were agreed.
Cllr Green asked if the dates of the meeting were correct, the Chair said they were right in his diary. Tony Williams (Human Resources Manager) pointed out a correction to be made to the minutes. The Chair asked if they were happy for him to sign the minutes?
Cllr Green said they were simply appendices and he couldn’t spot anything specific.
Chris Hyams said that referring to item ten, she was recommending it stays exempt. Cllr Jeff Green said that it didn’t identify people, but Chris Hyams disagreed and said individuals could be identified. Cllr Green asked how anyone would do that as he could see no reason at all for it to exempt as individuals would be really difficult to identify. Chris Hyams said that the report had been consistently exempt and individuals could be identified. The Chair said for consistency they would continue with item 10 being exempt. Cllr Green asked how you could see who the individuals are?
Cllr Chris Jones said that people know who’s on the redeployment register so they would be able to identify them. Surjit Tour said that the test was if through reasonable inquiry they could work out who the individuals were or could enable their identity to be revealed.
Chris Hyams said that when the numbers were lower it was easier to identify individuals.
Employment and Appointments Committee (Wirral Council) 15th November 2012: Compromise Contracts and Grievance Policy changes
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Last Thursday’s Employment and Appointments Committee had the usual regular report on attendance. However it was the new Employee Relations Performance Report that received some press coverage in the Wirral News about the large percentage of employees that have had dealings with Human Resources in the Department of Adult Social Services (which according to the quote in the article from the Director mainly involve “absence management”). An extension to the current Occupational Health contract with Capita Health and Well being was also agreed.
Changes to the Grievance Policy were also agreed with the aims of the changes to speed up the process and give more of a role to line managers.
Employment and Appointments Subcommittee 13th November 2012 Appointment of a Strategic Director (Families and Wellbeing)
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Present
Cllr Tom Harney (Lib Dem)
Cllr Simon Mountney (Conservative)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative)
Cllr Phil Davies, Chair (Labour)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)
Cllr George Davies (Labour)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour)
Officers
Graham Burgess (Chief Executive)
Chris Hyams (Head of HR and OD)
Andrew Mossop (Committee Services Officer)
Unknown female officer
Press/public
Johnathan Swain of Penna PLC
John and Leonora Brace
Well the Employment and Appointments Subcommittee, part of the final process to select a strategic director (Families and Wellbeing) following the officer interviews today, was predictably short (well the public bit anyway). Jonathan Swain of recruitment consultants Penna PLC once again stayed for the exempt part of the meeting, even though as far as I know being a private sector employee working in the private sector would be classed as part of the “public” (unless they’ve temporarily made him an officer).
