Agenda item

Report by Director of Law & Governance (CC11).

This report seeks Full Council’s agreement to incorporate several changes into changes to the Council's Constitution.  The changes fall under two headings and are sought to bring greater clarity and to reflect decisions already taken by the Council. The Monitoring Officer has delegated authority to make changes to the Constitution to reflect the decisions of the Council, Cabinet and Committees and where changes are needed to bring clarity or to reflect legislation. Other changes require the approval of Full Council. In this case, the proposed changes are being brought to Full Council for approval. The background papers incorporating the governance documents to be included, are available to councillors in the Members’ Resource Centre..

The first change proposed is to the Council's Officer Employment Procedure Rules, effectively to bring greater clarity to the arrangements for appointing the Council's senior managers.  The proposed change brings the Council's terminology for its senior manager positions into line with the wording in the relevant Regulations and to be clear as to the relevant body or person responsible for making the appointment in each case. This will enhance accountability and avoid confusion that has arisen as to the definition of 'Chief Officers' and 'Deputy Chief Officers'.

For example, currently, the terms or reference of the Remuneration Committee are that it has a role in appointing Directors with no distinction made between ‘Strategic Directors’ and any other ‘Directors’. This report proposes a distribution of responsibility that provides greater clarity. The choice of which posts should be appointed by the Remuneration Committee lies with the County Council itself and is not determined by regulations.

This matter is entirely separate from the arrangements agreed by Council for handling any joint management appointments arising from the Oxfordshire-Cherwell Partnership. The scenarios in this report are solely those that the Council is required to have in place for its own appointments where these occur outside of that context.   It is proposed to insert Annex 1 as an appendix to the Council's Officer Employment Procedure Rules.

The second change is an administrative one. This is to insert new provisions into the Council's Constitution to give effect to the decisions already taken by the Council regarding the partnership between this Council and Cherwell District Council. The changes proposed are the insertion of an ‘Ethical Walls arrangement’ and the terms of reference of the two new committees - namely the Joint Shared Service and Personnel Committee and the Joint Appeals Committee. 

The third change is to adopt into the Constitution the ‘Chief Executive Protocol’ endorsed by the Audit and Governance Committee, which sets out how the Joint Chief Executive will work effectively on behalf of both authorities.

Council is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)      agree that the proposed senior officer appointment arrangements set out at Annex 1 be incorporated into the Council’s Constitution;

(b)      agree that the following be incorporated into the Council’s Constitution:

(i)        terms of reference of the Partnership Working Group, Joint Shared Service and Personnel Committee and the Joint Appeals Committee;

(ii)      the protocol on the ‘Roles of Members and Officers in Dealing with Conflicts of Interest’;

(iii)      the Chief Executive Protocol.

(c)      Ask the Monitoring Officer to make the changes accordingly to the Constitution and the Council’s Pay Policy Statement.

Council had before them a report seeks Full Council’s agreement to incorporate several changes into changes to the Council's Constitution.  The changes fall under two headings and were sought to bring greater clarity and to reflect decisions already taken by the Council.

The first change proposed was to the Council's Officer Employment Procedure Rules, effectively to bring greater clarity to the arrangements for appointing the Council's senior managers.  The proposed change brings the Council's terminology for its senior manager positions into line with the wording in the relevant Regulations and to be clear as to the relevant body or person responsible for making the appointment in each case. This would enhance accountability and avoid confusion that has arisen as to the definition of 'Chief Officers' and 'Deputy Chief Officers'.

The second change was to insert new provisions into the Council's Constitution to give effect to the decisions already taken by the Council regarding the partnership between this Council and Cherwell District Council. The changes proposed were the insertion of an ‘Ethical Walls arrangement’ and the terms of reference of the two new committees - namely the Joint Shared Service and Personnel Committee and the Joint Appeals Committee. 

The third change was to adopt into the Constitution the ‘Chief Executive Protocol’ endorsed by the Audit and Governance Committee, which sets out how the Joint Chief Executive will work effectively on behalf of both authorities.

The Chairman moved and the Deputy Chairman seconded the recommendations. In moving the recommendations, the Chairman drew the Council’s attention to an additional report and recommendation set out in the schedule of business and sought Council’s approval to move it, together with the recommendations set out on the face of the Agenda and in the report.

Following debate, the motion was put to the vote and was nem con.

RESOLVED:  (nem con) to:

(a)      agree that the proposed senior officer appointment arrangements set out at Annex 1 be incorporated into the Council’s Constitution;

(b)      agree that the following be incorporated into the Council’s Constitution:

(i)        terms of reference of the Partnership Working Group, Joint Shared Service and Personnel Committee and the Joint Appeals Committee;

(ii)       the protocol on the ‘Roles of Members and Officers in Dealing with Conflicts of Interest’;

(iii)       the Chief Executive Protocol.

(c)       ask the Monitoring Officer to make the changes accordingly to the Constitution and the Council’s Pay Policy Statement;

(d)      approve the changes to the Council’s Financial Procedure Rules set out in paragraphs 6 and 7 and to ask the Monitoring Officer to amend the Constitution accordingly.