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 disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Panel;

(b)               all other Members present.

RESOLVED:  To note that there were no declarations of interests made by Members.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 2012 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 2012 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To receive questions (if any) from local residents or organisations under the provisions of Executive Procedure Rule 51 (Part 4D of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions were put, or petitions, or deputations received.

Report of the Divisional Director of Human Resources and Development and Shared Services

The Panel received a report of the Divisional Director Human Resources and Development and Shared Services, which provided an update on the Member Development Programme of events that had taken place since the last meeting of the Panel.  The report also sought Members’ views on the recommendations contained within the Assessors Report relating to the Assessment for the Member Development Charter.

Officers made the following comments:

·                    attendance at some Member Development events was low and no Members had attended the recent Equalities and Diversity training session;

·                    the Members Quarterly Briefing scheduled for 28 February had been postponed because a Council meeting to consider the Council Tax had been rearranged for this date;

·                    identifying available dates in the Council’s calendar to hold development events was challenging due to the number of meetings and religious holidays in the upcoming months;

·                    two training sessions on Council Tax support had been arranged for 19 February 2013 and 27 February 2013.  Information on these sessions would be circulated to Members shortly.  The session on 27 February 2013 was a repeat of the session on 19 February 2013;

·                    it was suggested that the emphasis of the training on 18 March which was being facilitated by the Office for Public Management (OPM) should be re-focused so that it provided Members and senior officers with the opportunity to consider key strategic issues;

·                    the OPM event on 18 March would consider items such as the wider impact of continuing austerity and what this means for Harrow; the impact of localism, welfare reform, community based leadership community budgets and the role of the ward councillors.  It was anticipated that the session would last up to two and a half hours.  The event would help to develop the future programme of Member Development and therefore it was important that attendance by Members was high;  ; 

Members made the following request that the postponed February Quarterly briefing be held at 7.00 pm on 2 May 2013.

A Member stated that consideration should be given to changing the start time of Member Development events as 7.00 pm was too early and was not always convenient for Members who worked.  The majority of Committee meetings commenced at 7.30 pm.  In response, an officer advised that previously development events had started at 7.30 pm but this had been brought forward to 7.00 pm due to the length of the sessions and to assist external trainers who would need to travel home.

A Member suggested that a trial could be held with a session starting at 7.30 pm.  However, other Members felt that this could create confusion and that generally 7.00 pm was an appropriate time to commence development events.

The Panel Members supported a question on preferred times and days for training events being included in the proposed Training Needs Analysis (TNA).  A database would then be developed to help identify the most suitable days and times to hold training sessions.

An officer made the following comments when updating Members about training requests which had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66.

Wednesday 10 April 2013 at 7.30pm

Wednesday 10 April 2013 at 7.30 pm.