Minutes:
The Committee welcomed the Chief Executive, Heather McManus who was attending the meeting to talk about her proposals for the new Senior Management Restructure for the authority that would ensure that it is fit for purpose, delivers Members priorities and also broaden and deepen the shared services arrangement with Chorley Council.
The Chair of the Committee stated that this meeting was to allow members to ask questions of the Chief Executive that would help them to gain a greater understanding of the thought processes behind the two proposals. An additional meeting the Committee was scheduled to take place on the rise of Cabinet next week to collate a formal response to the consultation.
The Chief Executive explained that as Head of Paid Service, the Council had employed her to put in place a management structure that would deliver the corporate agenda set by the Council. This agenda is detailed in the Councils Corporate Plan and Medium Term Financial Strategy. The organisation wants growth, sustainability and improved governance and it was felt that this could only be achieved by the implementation of a more robust and resilient Senior Management team to drive through change across the Council.
Ahead of the proposals, extensive consultation has been undertaken with staff and a number of key themes identified that included, the restructuring of the Senior Management Team and Core Managers, improved leadership capability, development opportunities, the ability for cross working across the authority, along with improved decision making, communications and staff morale. The proposals aim to address this feedback along with repositioning the regeneration and growth agenda, exploring further shared arrangements with Chorley Council and the delivery of a sustainable leadership model that would strengthen the Statutory Officers contribution.
The proposed structures will also generate significant savings amounting to between £500,000-600,000 that would be realised in little over a year.
In response to concerns of members both on Committee and in the audience, the Chief Executive explained her justification for the proposed sharing arrangements of the statutory roles of the Section 151 and Monitoring Officer’s with Chorley and gave assurances that the authority would have full time dedicated statutory officers on site.
The Committee also had concerns about the security function being absorbed into the Democratic Services team, favouring the existing arrangements of their dedicated senior officer support. It was explained that the new proposed arrangements would provide additional support to the scrutiny function in the form of a Democratic Services Officer lead in addition to involvement by senior managers who could provide the relevant technical guidance when needed.
Members asked how staff would be supported throughout the process, particulary those officers who would be unsuccessful in obtaining a role in the new structure and asked about the authority’s appointment and redundancies policies. Specialist advisors had been brought in to liaise with those staff affected to offer advice and support throughout the job application and interviewing process and successful staff would have the same terms and conditions as at present, with no plans at this stage to amalgamate this aspect of the shared arrangements. A robust recruitment process was needed to ensure that all staff appointed have the necessary skills in place to step up to the challenging agenda.
Once the new Senior Management structure is in place, the transformation programme will trigger restructures across the authority and it was anticipated that this would take around 18 months to complete. The aim is to have the full Senior Management structure in place by 31 March 2018.
Members were asked to consider all the information provided with a view to formulating a full response to the consultation at their next meeting on 6 September.
RESOLVED – That the information be noted.