Agenda item

To submit a report by the Chief Executive, as presented to the Executive on 25 January 2021.

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

The 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.

The Chief Executive further said 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 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.

A report was presented to the Appointments Committee 18^th 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 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.

Councillor A M Jones ascertained whether the proposed additional post of Grade 9 was one level below a Head of Service post. The Head of Profession (Human Resources) and Transformation responded that the conditions of employment for Heads of Service are different compared with other Officers of the Council. Salary grades of other Offers of the Council are graded from Grades 1 to 10.  Councillor Jones considered that the Grade 9 post is similar to the creation of the previous post of Head of Policy. The Chief Executive said that the experience of dealing with the pandemic has shown the requirements for resilience and capacity within services and climate change will need to be high on the agenda within the Council.  Place Shaping will also need to be addressed and will be part of the duties of the Grade 9 post. 

Councillor Jones further said that part of the report to the Appointment Committee has not been presented to the Council which reads as follows:-

‘ That experience of the Appointment Committee will be able to attest that there are few applicants for any senior posts at this level whatever the service area, due to a combination of factors such as the location of the Council, the size of the Council, the linguistic requirements of the post etc.’

Councillor Jones said that he had expressed in the Appointment Committee that the above statement within the report does not address the situation faced in the recruitment of senior posts and he noted that he would be voting against the recommendations before the Council. 

The Leader said that the part of the report to the Appointment Committee held on 18 December, 2020 was within a confidential report and it is why it has not been included in the report to the Council.  Councillor A M Jones responded that he had ascertain legal advice by the Monitoring Officer to rise the matter as he considered that it was taken out mistakenly from the report to the Council.  The Monitoring Officer said that she did not consider that the statement was confidential.

Councillor R Ll Jones questioned whether the job description for the post of Head of Regulation and Economic Development will be afforded to the Elected Members.  The Head of Profession (Human Resources) and Transformation responded that all job descriptions for advertised post are within the website of the Council to be viewed by members of the public.

It was RESOLVED to:-

·           Note the recommendations of the Appointments Committee and confirms that :-

·      The post of Director of Place and Community Wellbeing (also known as the Director of Place and Regulation 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.

Councillor A M Jones abstained from voting.