Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: County Hall, Worcester

Items
No. Item

1040.

Named Substitutes (Agenda item 1)

Minutes:

None.

1041.

Apologies and Declarations of Interest (Agenda item 2)

Minutes:

None.

1042.

Election of Chairman (Agenda item 3)

Minutes:

Mr S E Geraghty was elected Chairman.

1043.

Election of Vice-Chairman (Agenda item 4)

Minutes:

Mr A C Roberts was elected Vice-Chairman.

1044.

Confirmation of Minutes (Agenda item 5)

To authorise the procedure for confirming and signing the Minutes of this meeting.  It is recommended that the Minutes be circulated to Members of the Panel and be signed by the Chairman in light of any comments on their accuracy received within 7 days of their circulation.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: that the minutes of this meeting be circulated to Members of the Panel and be signed by the Chairman in the light of any comments on their accuracy received within 7 days of their circulation.

 

1045.

Exclusion of Press and Public (Agenda item 6)

The Panel will be asked to exclude the press and public from the meeting for the following item as it is likely that exempt information relating to any individual will be disclosed and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that if they were present during such consideration it would be likely that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in Section 100(I) and Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 relating to any individual and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosure.

1046.

Changes to Commercial and Change Senior Management (Agenda item 7)

Report to follow.

Minutes:

Summary of the proceedings during which the Press and Public were excluded.  (This is a fair summary of the proceedings and there are no exempt minutes.)

 

Background Information

 

On 21 June 2016, Peter Bishop was appointed Interim Director of COaCH, anticipated to be until Sander Kristel (the then substantive Director of COaCH) returned from the Interim Director of Adult Services post. However, at the Appointments etc Panel on 3 November 2016 Sander was appointed Director of Adult Services and therefore would not return to his previous substantive post.

 

An Appointments etc Panel was held on 16 December  2016 to consider an extension of the arrangements for the Interim Director of CoaCh post with the current incumbent, Peter Bishop, continuing in that post. Recommendations were also approved to approve the temporary re-assignment of the senior management responsibilities related to Property Asset Management and the Facilities services to Joanna Charles (Head of Commercial) and the Strategic Change (Programme Management) Team to Sean Pearce, Chief Financial Officer. All other services within COaCH remained reporting directly to Peter Bishop.

 

These temporary arrangements were anticipated to continue until at least June 2017 when the new Council could decide upon a permanent arrangement for the COaCh Directorate. However, on 13 March Peter Bishop resigned from employment with the Council and is currently serving notice until his agreed cessation date of 2 June, with his last working day being Thursday 25 May 2017.

 

Interim Arrangements for the Director of Commercial and Change

 

Options for the permanent leadership of the COaCH services are currently being developed and are envisaged to be presented to either full Council or an Appointments etc Panel (depending on the recommended approach) in summer 2017. Dependent upon the option agreed, it could take up to six months from this date for a permanent structure to be agreed and implemented (if incorporating notice periods) and therefore further interim arrangements are necessary in any event, without prejudice to whatever final decision is taken.

 

After considerable thought regarding options for this interim period, the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, proposed that a redistribution model is implemented rather than a like for like external or internal interim.

 

This model would see the redistribution of Heads of Service  and their functions reporting to certain members of the Strategic Leadership Team in the interim. This approach provided more benefits than those which could be realised using a 'like for like' replacement model.

 

The redistribution model is shown below, which indicates temporary supervisory arrangements rather than a structural move into new Directorates. This has been developed to give consideration to natural alignments between Directorate portfolios and the supporting functions (for example Economy and Infrastructure and responsibility for Commercial and Property), those functions that naturally interface more directly with the Chief Executive role (for example HR and Communications).

 

Redistribution Model