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Cabinet (Special) (Wirral Council) 18th September 2012 5pm Senior Management Restructure

The agenda and reports for this meeting are on Wirral Council’s website. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. … Continue reading “Cabinet (Special) (Wirral Council) 18th September 2012 5pm Senior Management Restructure”

The agenda and reports for this meeting are on Wirral Council’s website.

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Present:
Cabinet (8/10)

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Chair, Finance, Leader)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour, Corporate Resources)
Cllr Harry Smith (Labour, Streetscene & Transport)
Cllr Pat Hackett (Labour, Regeneration and Planning Strategy)
Cllr Tony Smith (Labour, Children’s Services & Lifelong Learning)
Cllr Chris Meaden (Labour, Culture, Tourism & Leisure)
Cllr George Davies (Labour, Housing & Community Safety, Deputy Leader)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour, Improvement and Governance, Deputy Leader)

Officers
Shirley Hudspeth (Committee Services)
Surjit Tour (Acting Head, Law, HR and Asset Management)
Graham Burgess (Interim Chief Executive)

In attendance
Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour, Chair, Employment and Appointments Committee)
Cllr Jeff Green (Conservative, Spokesperson, Employment and Appointments Committee)
Cllr Lesley Rennie (Conservative, Employment and Appointments Committee)
Cllr Tom Harney (Liberal Democrat, Leader)

The meeting started with Chris Hyams (Head of HR & Organisational Development), Kevin Adderley and Fiona Johnstone leaving the room as they would be affected by the proposals.

Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Chair) welcomed people to the meeting. He asked councillors if they had any declarations of interest to make? None were given. He moved the meeting onto agenda item 2 (Senior Management Restructure) and indicated to the Interim Chief Executive Graham Burgess to speak about this item.

Graham Burgess referred to the Improvement Board, the Improvement Plan, the support of all three party leaders and proposals to address concerns. He said it was the first stage of a wider management reshaping. Mr. Burgess said the proposals would create three posts, which were key roles.

Cllr Anne McArdle (Labour, Adult Social Care and Health) arrived at 5.06pm.

The Interim Chief Executive continued to talk about “key corporate priorities”, his desire to “break down silos” and “challenge across departments”. He said that 5.4 [of the report] gave more detail and said it was his intention to make a further report. He referred to a Director’s meeting on Thursday and that there would be numbers of posts they would be losing and it was likely to look at and need to ask senior officers to leave.

Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour, Improvement and Governance) spoke. Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Finance and Best Value) said he wanted to address the corporate governance issues. He said he would support the recommendations and referred to the Employment and Appointments Committee later. Cllr Davies (Labour, Finance and Best Value) referred to “radical changes”. He announced there was no “Any Other Business” and the meeting closed at 5.17pm.

Interim Chief Executive (Wirral Council) Graham Burgess (johnbrace.com)

Investigation and Disciplinary Committee | 20th August 2012 | Item 1 – Appointment of Chair | Item 2 – Declarations of Interest | Item 3 – Exempt Information – Exclusion of the Press and Public | Agenda Item 4 – Update in Relation to the Suspension of Council Officers

Investigation and Disciplinary Committee
Date: 20th August 2012
Time: 4.00pm

Committee Room 2

Investigation and Disciplinary Committee minutes (20th August 2012) (approved 21st September 2012)
Investigation and Disciplinary Committee (20/8/2012) Agenda

Present

Councillors (7/7)
Cllr Dave Mitchell Liberal Democrat
Cllr Adrian Jones Labour
Cllr Lesley Rennie Conservative
Cllr Mike Hornby Conservative
Cllr Ann McLachlan Labour
Cllr Brian Kenny Labour
Cllr Anne McArdle Labour

Wirral Council Officers
Shirley Hudspeth (Committee Services Officer)
Chris Hyams, Human Resources (Head)
Tony Williams, Human Resources (Acting Employee Relations Manager)
Surjit Tour, Acting Head of Law, Human Resources and Asset Management
David Armstrong
Unknown female
Unknown male

Also
Items 1-3 Two members of the press/public

The agenda for this meeting can be found here.

Agenda Item 1 – Appointment of Chair

Cllr Brian Kenny and Cllr Adrian Jones proposed Cllr Ann McLachlan as Chair.
There were no other nominations so Cllr McLachlan was made Chair.

Cllr Dave Mitchell proposed Cllr Adrian Jones as Vice-Chair, however it wasn’t seconded. There was a second valid nomination as Vice-Chair so Cllr Brian Kenny was made Vice-Chair.

Agenda Item 2 – Members’ Code of Conduct – Declarations of Interest
Councillors present made no declarations of interest.

Agenda Item 3 – Exempt Information – Exclusion of the Press and Public

The Chair suggested that the public and press were excluded from the rest of the meeting for agenda item 4 (Update in Relation to the Suspension of Council Officers) (reason given – Information relating to any individual and agenda item 5 (Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair) (although there was no AOB).

Agenda Item 4 – Update in Relation to the Suspension of Council Officers

The Investigation and Disciplinary Committee received an update in a 16-page preliminary investigation report about the matters that led to the suspensions of Bill Norman, Ian Coleman and David Taylor-Smith (but also relate in part to the earlier suspension of David Green).

It related in part to:-

1) This public interest report published by the Audit Commission on 8th June 2012 entitled Highways and engineering services contract award and management.

2) The Council’s policies on senior officers declaring interests and whether these had been followed.

3) Various other matters relating to the above four suspended individuals.

The following resolution was then agreed,

“(1) the progress being made in respect of the preliminary investigation be noted; and

(2) the way forward in relation to the three Statutory Officers, as outlined in paragraph 5.6 of the report, be agreed.”

Agenda Item 5 Any Other Business
It has been confirmed by Wirral Council that there were no items of Any Other Business agreed by the Chair tabled at the meeting.

Left (L to R): Unknown officer (male), Shirley Hudspeth (officer)

Right (Left to Right)
Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lab)
Cllr Adrian Jones (Lab)
Cllr Brian Kenny (Lab)
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Lab)
Cllr Mike Hornby (Con)

Left: Shirley Hudspeth

Right Foreground
L to R Cllr Mike Hornby (Con), Cllr Lesley Rennie (Con)

Right Background
Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lib Dem), Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour)

Background: Shirley Hudspeth

Foreground: Left to Right
Tony Williams (Officer), HR
Unknown Officer? (female)
Chris Hyams (Officer), HR
Unknown Officer? (male)

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 24/11/2011 Part 7 Budget Projections 2012-2015, Insurance Fund Budget (2012-2013), Annual Children’s Services Assessment 2011

Motion on Item 3 Projected Budget

Proposed Cllr Steve Foulkes
Seconded Cllr Phil Davies

Cabinet recognises that, although the projected budget gap is diminishing, considerable work is still required to set a balanced budget in March.

In order to avoid any undue delays as proposals are explored, Cabinet authorises the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council, to undertake any appropriate consultation, in addition to the broader consultation already carried out, as required in order to allow the Council to meet the budgetary challenges it is facing.

The motion was agreed by all councillors on the Cabinet.

Cllr Foulkes then moved the meeting to agenda item 4 (Insurance Fund Budget 2012/2013).

Ian Coleman said for 2012/2013 there was a small impact on costs and savings. The report was agreed.

Cllr Foulkes then moved to agenda item 5 (Annual Children’s Services Assessment 2011) which he described as welcome news. A two-page letter was handed out in relation to this agenda item.

An officer said that David Armstrong sends his apologies as he was with headteachers in Anglesey. The officer said Wirral’s children’s services had performed excellently and were graded four out of a possible four. The report detailed how the assessment had been made as well as their strengths in educational standards and safeguarding. The officer referred to “Howard [Cooper]’s strong steer” and David’s role as acting director and the activity that was underway referred to in the report.

Cllr Ann McLachlan said it was excellent news, “fantastic” and referred to the letter s sent to all staff in the Children and Young People’s Department.

Corporate Governance Committee (Wirral Council) 26th October 2011 5.00pm (Committee Room 1) Part 8

Cllr Foulkes said the report raised two issues. The first would help feed into the corporate governance work program, the other issue was to do with the work stream which would have to bid into the Budget.

Cllr Anne McArdle raised the issue of external customers, schools, what schools needs and school employment.

Bill Norman said his department provides human resources and a significant level of employment related advice to schools as well as legal and committee services. More work on the latter would limit their capacity to give advice to schools and deal with admission appeals.

Cllr Ann McLachlan said that 4.9 was a useful starting point. Bill Norman replied that David Smith had made a helpful point, Cabinet has bulky three-week agendas and it was a matter of deciding the best way of using time.

Cllr Foulkes raised the issue of Anna’s seminar to all councillors. He asked that they do their level best. Cllr Phil Davies said Bill had made a good start on the challenges, but asked what the options were of addressing the challenges? He asked if other councils had looked at the same challenges and how Wirral Council would go about addressing them?

Cllr Green said the wanted to highlight the requirement of making it clear how the review of services would be laid out and answering the question “What sort of Council do we want?”. He had a strong opinion but he wanted to avoid producing unnecessary reports which would be avoided by a clear and agreed set of requirements.

Corporate Governance Committee (Wirral Council) 26th October 2011 5.00pm (Committee Room 1) Part 7

Cllr Ann McLachlan said they should not be diverted from their primary purpose or stretching too thin. She said they needed focus. Cllr Foulkes said to tell him what they wanted but it would have a direct effect on resource implications (which he said was not unique to Wirral Counci). Cllr Phil Davies said Jim Wilkie would bring a report back to the next meeting about the turnaround team. Cllr Foulkes said there was an issue of resources and backfilling people if they were diverted from their job. Jim Wilkie said they would use whatever resources were necessary.

Anna Klonowski said they had to make sure they had the right people with the right experience. Cllr McArdle said [to Anna] that she “may be surprised at the talent”.

David Smith introduced the Internal Audit report and said it was important to mention Internal Audit and there were a couple of things in paragraph 4.2 that might justify diverting attention and it would be worthwhile to seek external views. Ian Coleman would be reporting back at the beginning of December which was a challenging timescale. Cllr Foulkes asked if people were happy, so the report was agreed.

Bill Norman talked about the review of Legal and Committee services. He said they had started the process of reviewing one of the key support areas and that Anna’s corporate governance report was a spear in terms of going forward. It did create additional areas of pressure, but the approach in 4.14 should help councillors take decisions and for them to be implemented.

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