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 of the following duly constituted Reserve Members:

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 10 September 2015 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 10 September 2014 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To receive any public questions received in accordance with Executive Procedure Rule 50 (Part 4D of the Constitution).

Questions will be asked in the order notice of them was received and there be a time limit of 15 minutes.

[The deadline for receipt of public questions is 3.00 pm on Thursday 29 January 2015.  Questions should be sent to publicquestions@harrow.gov.uk  

No person may submit more than one question].

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions, petitions or deputations were received at this meeting.

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

The Panel received a report of the Divisional Director Human Resources and Development and Shared Services, which updated the Panel regarding the Member training programme of events which had taken place since the previous meeting of the Panel on 10 September 2014.

The Divisional Director stated the following with regard to the follow up actions from the previous meeting:

·                     Members had fed back that the voting buttons in Outlook did not work on iPads;

·                     the guidelines for Buddying would be circulated to Panel Members and Whips after the meeting;

·                     training on the Use of Social Media would be provided through the Communications team;

·                     the evaluation form regarding the overall Member Induction programme May-December 2014 would be sent out shortly to Members.

Following questions and comments from Members of the Panel, the Divisional Director stated that:

·                     most training sessions had been reasonably well attended and feedback provided on the evaluation forms for these sessions had been largely positive, and Members had requested further training on most of the topics covered;

·                     any unfavourable feedback would be taken into account when planning future training and would be communicated to the relevant directorate/trainer;

·                     currently, tea, coffee and biscuits were provided at all training sessions.  However, if, the Panel were of the view that these refreshments should be replaced by sandwiches, at a slightly higher cost, as this may lead to improved attendance at training, could be implemented;

·                     currently, those Members who did not attend the Mandatory training required to sit on Committees e.g. Licensing, Planning and Personnel Appeals would not be eligible to sit on relevant Committees or Panels.  However there were no sanctions that could be imposed on those Members who did not attend other training sessions designated as Mandatory e.g. Safeguarding and Equalities.  Any potential sanctions could only be imposed by the Groups and their Whips.  In view of the above, Members of the Panel considered that only, Licensing, Planning and Personnel Appeals training should be designated as Mandatory.  Safeguarding Children, Safeguarding Adults, Equalities & Diversity, The Role of a Member During a Major Incident and Equalities Impact Assessment Training for Cabinet should be flagged as ‘Recommended’;

Following questions and comments from Members of the Panel, the Divisional Director stated that:

·                     he would request Capita to look into logging-in issues with the MyLearning Portal, as reported by Members;

·                     the Member Training Evaluation form would be amended following comments and feedback from Panel Members, to ensure that the Evaluation form captured more commentary and qualitative feedback from Members and include a scoring system.  The revised copy would be circulated to the Panel;

·                     the Council did not currently publish data relating to Member attendance at training on its website;

·                     comments regarding what specific areas the forthcoming training session on the Care Act should cover would be fed back to the relevant officer and a course outline would be circulated to all Members;

·                     the date of the Repeat Mandatory Code of Conduct training session would be swapped with the date of the How to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

16 April 2015.