Agenda and minutes

Venue: Thomas De Trafford Conference Room (A), Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road, Stretford, M32 0TH

Contact: Alexander Murray  Democratic and Scrutiny Officer

Items
No. Item

1.

TERMS OF REFERENCE 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 20 KB

To note the Terms of Reference of the Committee as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting 22 May 2019.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Terms of Reference for the 2019/20 Municipal Year be noted.

2.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMITTEE 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 71 KB

To note the Membership of the Committee including the appointment of Chair and Vice Chair as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting 22 May 2019.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Membership of the Committee for the 2019/20 Municipal Year be noted.

3.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 132 KB

To receive and if so determined, to approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 25th March 2019

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Minutes of the meeting held on 25 March 2019 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

4.

QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC

A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public questions submitted in writing to Democratic Services (democratic.services@trafford.gov.uk) by 4pm on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must be within the remit of the Committee or being discussed at the meeting and will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

Minutes:

No questions were received for the meeting.

5.

Revised Corporate Leadership structure proposals pdf icon PDF 287 KB

Minutes:

The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy informed the Committee that the report had been brought to the meeting for them to approve or amend the proposal prior to it being sent to Council on the 17 July 2019. The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy then went through the report that accompanied the proposal. The Committee were informed that following the resignation of the previous Chief Executive the Council put in place interim arrangements which included the splitting the Children Families and Wellbeing Corporate Director into two Corporate Director posts for Children’s and Adult services and the appointment of a Corporate Director of Commissioning. The Council was now at a point that they needed to permanent arrangements in place so they could move forward.

 

The first proposal within the report was to disestablish the Corporate Director for Commissioning instead creating a joint Director of Integrated Health and Social Care Strategy for a three year period and to appoint the current Corporate Director of Commissioning to the post at 0.6 of the pay. The post for corporate director for Adults services would take on the public health, and the commissioning team into their portfolio. It was also proposed that the post of director of Public Health remuneration be set at £95,000 and the post be externally advertised. It was also proposed that the remuneration for the post of Corporate Director of Children’s Services be set at £125,000 to ensure that the post would be competitive in recruitment, with an external recruitment exercise being conducted for the post.

 

Following the overview the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions. One Committee Member stated their concerns regarding the Council’s relationship with Trafford CCCG. At one point the two organisations were almost merging together and now they seemed to be moving away from each other. The Member then asked how the relationship was moving forward and whether the relationship was likely to change again. The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy responded that one of the key elements of the Director of Integrated Health and Social Care Strategy role was to be the integration of Health and Social Care and to further develop the joint working relationship between the Council and the CCG.

 

Another Member asked what impact splitting the Corporate Director of Children, Families and Wellbeing into two roles would have upon staff. The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy answered that these arrangement had been in place within the Council for twelve months and she assured the Committee that the proposed changes would not impact the work of staff.

 

Following the Committee’s questions Members noted and agreed the proposals to be recommended to Council.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the Committee note and agree the proposals within the report.

2)    That the Committee recommend that Council agree the proposals.

 

6.

Agency Spend for Period 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019 pdf icon PDF 395 KB

Minutes:

The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy gave a brief overview of the annual report to the Committee. Members were informed that the Council had a very robust vacancy clearance process in place to ensure that agency was only used when necessary. There had been an increase in agency spend during the year which was the result of agency workers being brought into Children’s and Adults services to meet statutory obligations, especially in light of the recent Ofsted report.

 

Following the overview the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions but none were raised.

 

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

 

 

 

 

7.

Workforce Update May 2019 pdf icon PDF 470 KB

Minutes:

The Head of Workforce and Core Strategy gave a brief overview of the report that had been sent out with the agenda. A large part of the work of the Human Resources (HR) team was going through all of the Council’s HR policies and making sure that they were aligned to the new EPIC values including the Health and Wellbeing strategy (EPIC You). The Council were going to launch an employee survey as a way to help measure staff member’s feelings and the level of moral within the organisation. The Committee were told that there had been many positive developments in recent months including rolling out the Trafford way development programme and that Trafford were joint first with Wigan in the North West in the number of apprenticeships. The Council were looking to further develop their excellent record by utilising the apprenticeship levy to enable staff to gain additional qualifications. The Council were also working with care leavers to give them work experience within a public sector environment to see if it was a path they would like to take.

 

The Chair congratulated the HR team for the excellent performance of the Council in encouraging apprenticeships and stated that she hoped it would continue.