Agenda and minutes

None.

None.

Mr J H Smith was elected Chairman.

Mrs L Hodgson was elected Vice-Chairman.

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.

RESOLVED that the Minutes be circulated to members of the Panel and signed by the Chairman in light of any comments on their accuracy received within 7 days of circulation.

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.

RESOLVED that the press and public be excluded 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.

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.)

The Panel considered the Interim Chief Executive's report which set out background to the proposals to change the senior management arrangements for public health. 

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 moved responsibility for public health back to local government and thereby conferred new duties to local authorities to improve and protect public health. Public Health responsibilities transferred to the Council from the NHS from 1 April 2013. This included the establishment of a ring-fenced Public Health Grant (PHG), certain mandated duties, and the responsibility to appoint a Director of Public Health (DPH) jointly with the Secretary of State for Health.

Public Health staff transferred (under a Statutory Transfer Order) to the Council with effect from 1 April 2013. A new Public Health team was duly established, and was incorporated into the new Directorate of Adult Services and Health (DASH) under a Director who also held the statutory role of DPH.  

At an Appointments etc. Panel on 10 February 2016 it was agreed that the statutory role of Director of Public Health should be separated from the statutory role of Director of Adult Social Services. Subsequently Council agreed on 12 May 2016 that the Directorate of Public Health should be formed in its own right with effect from 1 July 2016.

An Appointments Panel appointed Frances Howie to the substantive role of DPH with effect from 1 September 2016.  The post was offered on a 35 hour contract on the Council's terms and conditions with a salary based on Head of Service Band 1 (£78,871 to £86,873) plus a responsibility allowance of 18%.  This reward level was approved, given the Director responsibility and with reference to comparative salaries within the Health Service.

In November 2016 the Director for Public Health led a restructure of the Public Health team as part of a longer term workforce agenda to ensure the workforce would have appropriate levels of capacity and capability and would be able to attract and retain high calibre individuals into public health. The restructure also clarified expectations of the role of Public Health Consultant with regard to capacity and capability to ensure appropriate levels of specialist and professional leadership existed within the team. The Panel noted that the use of the word 'consultant' was a designation agreed by Public Health England and that the 'consultants' were employed directly by the Council and were not interim. The review/restructure recognised that consultant capacity was significantly under-resourced and as a result an additional 1.8 FTE was recruited to the team with effect from June 2017. Consultant capacity now stood at 3.4 FTE.

The proposal to reduce the contractual hours of the Director of Public Health

The current Director of Public Health had requested to develop her career in an academic setting in the future and had been successful in being offered a part-time post as senior lecturer  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1071.