Agenda item

To submit a report by the Chief Executive.

The report of the Chief Executive with regard to restructuring the Senior Leadership Team was presented for the Executive’s consideration.

Councillor Dafydd Rhys Thomas, Portfolio Member for Corporate Business introduced the report as dealing with a proposed restructure of the Senior Leadership Team and the consequential constitutional changes.

The Chief Executive referred to the changes to the Council’s Constitution approved by Council in March 2020 to reflect the internal restructuring of the senior management team by the former Chief Executive in 2019. Following the departure of the Chief Executive, the Deputy Chief Executive was appointed Chief Executive and the Director of Place and Community Well-being was appointed Deputy Chief Executive. Since November, 2019 the role of Director of Place and Community Well-being has been vacant despite the post being subject to two external advertising campaigns. Following the first unsuccessful advertising campaign the duties of the Director post has been carried out by internal applicants appointed as Interim Head Of Service – Regulation and Economic Development and an officer appointed as a lead on place shaping. These appointments were initially made until April, 2020 but because of the pandemic and the need to ensure business continuity they were extended to December, 2020.

The Chief Executive advised that the pandemic emergency has shown that the Council must have suitably qualified officers within specific areas for the future; the coronavirus response has also clearly demonstrated the importance of appropriate competencies for this level of posts. In addition, the pandemic period has also proved the essential importance of working with partners and communities to build community resilience to deal with different challenges for which work officers need sufficient and reasonable time. Sufficient and equitable/ balanced capacity is needed across all services to ensure the Council’s future resilience within the higher tier of management and leadership. Although interim arrangements have worked well they are not effective in the long term. There is a requirement to make a decision in relation to the role of Director and the resultant interim posts created as a result of the failure to recruit to that role.

With this in mind a report was presented to the Appointments Committee in December, 2020 seeking its recommendation for the best way forwards in terms of filling the void in the Council’s senior management team. In that report the Chief Executive expressed her professional view that the best option would be to delete the Director’s post and appoint one Head of Service for Regulation and Economic Development thereby eliminating the workload associated with the senior Team; the Deputy Chief Executive would in practice lead on this aspect of the post in the Senior Team. As such consideration would therefore need to be given to supporting some of the Deputy’s duties and  – under his supervision –  linking them to the Place Shaping aspect from the Director’s role. The simplest option would be to create an additional post on Grade 9/10 to provide capacity and resilience for the structure and support the Deputy Chief Executive and the newly created Head of Regulation and Economic Development The Appointments Committee endorsed this approach and its formal resolutions to that effect are noted in the report.

Sections 5 and 6 of the report set out the implications from a constitutional perspective and the changes to be made to reflect the proposed amended SLT/Heads of Service structure (attached as Enclosure 2 of the report, but subject to the inclusion of the Head of Adults’ Services post which has been inadvertently omitted from the structure as shown).

The Executive considered the report and affirmed its support for the approach taken in the recommendations of the Appointments Committee.

It was resolved to recommend to the Full Council that it –

•           Notes the recommendations of the Appointments Committee and confirms that –

•    The post of Director of Place and Community Wellbeing (also known as the Director of Regulation and Economic Development for the purpose of the recent recruitment attempts) be removed from the Council’s Constitution.

•    A permanent role of Head of Regulation and Economic Development be created and for this role to be advertised externally.

•    A new post of Corporate Strategy Officer be established and advertised externally.

•           Confirms its approval to the insertion of Enclosure 2 which reflects the above amendments to the Council’s structure, in the Council’s Constitution.

•           Confirms its approval for the Chief Executive (following consultation), in accordance with the existing authority included in 3.5.2.11 of the Constitution, and as a result of the above structural alteration, to distribute the relevant areas of responsibility among the Senior Leadership Team and the Heads of Service, as required.

•           Confirms its approval for the Monitoring Officer, in accordance with the existing authority included in 3.5.3.6.6 of the Constitution, to amend the Constitution (including the scheme of delegation to Officers) to reflect the decisions made by Council in relation to the above structural alteration and the distribution of responsibilities among the Senior Leadership Team and the Heads of Service made by the Chief Executive under the sixth bullet point above.

•           Confirms its approval for such other consequential amendments to be made to the Constitution by the Monitoring Officer to reflect the above recommendations.