Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Member:-

To receive declarations of personal or prejudicial interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Committee, Sub Committee, Panel or Forum;

(b)               all other Members present in any part of the room or chamber.

RESOLVED:  To note the following interest:

To consider whether any of the items listed on the agenda should be considered with the press and public excluded on the grounds that it is thought likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted, that there would be disclosure of confidential information in breach of an obligation of confidence or of exempt information as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

RESOLVED:  That (1) Any Other Business be added to the agenda after item 8;

(2)  that all items be considered with the press and public present. 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 15 November 2007 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 15 November 2007 be taken as read and signed as correct record.

To receive questions (if any) from local residents or organisations under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 19 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions were put at the meeting under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 19.

To receive petitions (if any) submitted by members of the public/Councillors under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 16 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no petitions were received at the meeting under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 16.

To receive deputations (if any) under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no deputations were received at the meeting under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 17.

Report of the Director of People, Policy and Performance.

The Panel received the report of the Interim Divisional Director Human Resources and Development, which reviewed the progress of the 2007 Member Development Programme and set out the proposals for the 2008 Member Development Programme for elected Members.  It was reported that attendance at the recent Quarterly Briefing had been low due to clashes with other meetings.  Despite this it was noted that the briefing had been useful for both Members and officers.  The officer reported that a review would take place at the end of the municipal year to evaluate how successful the process had been.

After a general discussion it was noted that:

·                     ad-hoc Executive training would be mainstreamed under Member Development;

·                     Disability Discrimination Act training should be mandatory for all Members, in view of the need to respond to changes in Cabinet membership, new legislation and the reviews of acts.  It was further suggested that DDA training should be amalgamated into the general Member Development Programme;

·                     the Communications Team should be advised to consult the calendar produced by Democratic Services to avoid future clashes with mandatory training sessions;

·                     although the Action Learning Event on 14 December 2007 had run smoothly, the scheduled speaker for the next event had withdrawn at the last moment.  It was suggested that a system should be put in place to deal with future such occurrences.  The Chairman commented that inspirational speakers must be sought to help the Council achieve high levels of performance.  A further event was planned and would hopefully be held before the end of April;

·                     75 users had registered for E-Learning, although only 4 Members were active.  E Learning would prove useful for newly elected Members and new cohorts.  Access to the wider Learning Pool had been set up enabling Members to view large amounts of business information.  It was suggested that a certificate for the completion of the course would be an incentive for Members to use the system;

·                     15 Members had been nominated for the Member Coaching Programme that had been launched on 4 December 2007.  The briefing sessions had seen fairly good attendance from seven out of the fifteen.  The format of the programme would be ‘360 degree appraisal’, consisting of self analysis followed by assessment feedback from nominated peers/managers, officers and community groups.  Difficulties had been experienced with not obtaining responses from the nominees.  It was suggested that the context from Symmetry was not particularly clear, with Members unsure why they were nominating.  The Chairman commented that this was the reason a pilot scheme was chosen, and in light of such difficulties the programme must not lose focus;

·                     two mandatory Finance training sessions for Members had been scheduled for March.

After a general discussion it was noted that:

·                     the Chairman commented that the induction for newly elected Members must be prepared for the by?election on 13 March 2008.  It was suggested that the most recently elected Member could offer valuable feedback on what parts of the induction were successful;

·                     the Chairman commented that a code-of-conduct for Blogging should not be drawn up until Members had received adequate training.  It was further suggested that Standards Committee refer this matter through Communications and that a connection should be made between themselves and the Director of Legal and Governance.  It was noted that Members must be fully equipped to deal with the individual and corporate dangers associated with online content;

·                     the Chairman presented the Members and officers with the manifesto booklet from the LGIU.  This would be investigated by officers and added to the agenda for the next Member Development meeting;

·                     the Chairman reported that prior to the association with The Roffey Park Institute, The Leadership Centre for Local Government created a programme to establish better working practices between Cabinet and the Corporate Management Team.  An additional workshop for Members, and also a separate workshop for officers, had been developed to instruct on how to better organise the management decision process.  It was decided that the Executive and Corporate Managers be consulted about how to move forward with these programmes after the conclusion of the partnership with Roffey Park.  The output of the joint workshops would be ‘retro-fed’ into the results from the Roffey Park programme, and then further aligned with the wider work of the Member Development.  The Chairman added that the Chief Executive had confirmed he would take action regarding the above.

RESOLVED:  That the report and the comments above be noted.