Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Buckland, Huntley, Oppler (substituted by Tilbrook) and Seex.

Members and Officers are invited to make any declaration of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the items or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and Officers should make their declaration by stating:

a)             the item they have the interest in

b)             whether it is a pecuniary/personal interest and/or prejudicial interest

c)             the nature of the interest

There were no declarations of interest made.

The Committee will be asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the Corporate Support Committee held on 10 November 2022.

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 November 2022 were approved and signed by the Chair.

There were no urgent items presented at this meeting.

To receive questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes)

(Councillor Warr arrived at the start of this item.)

The Chair confirmed that there was 1 public question that had previously been submitted for Full Council meeting that was held on 18 January 2023, where it was decided that the question be referred to this committee to be responded to by the Chair.

This question was then read out by the Committee Manager on behalf of the public questioner, and it was confirmed that a written answer would be provided.

(A schedule of the full questions asked, and the responses provided can be found on the meeting’s webpage at: Public Question Time | Arun District Council)

The Chair then drew Public Question Time to a close.

The purpose of the report is for this Committee to consider and recommend its revenue budget for inclusion in the 2023/24 revenue budget, which will be submitted to the Policy and Finance Committee on 9 February 2023. The Policy and Finance Committee will consider the overall revenue budget for 2023/24 so that it can make recommendations to a Special Meeting of the Council on 1 March 2023 on the budget to be set and level of Council Tax for the District for 2023/24.

The Interim Group Head of Finance and S151 Officer introduced the report and explained to members that, due to the significant budget gap for 2023/24, only essential growth items had been put forward for their approval. The main growth item for this committee related to the district election for this year. It was confirmed that would fall out in 2024/25. The growth bids for the committee totalling £109k were summarised in appendix B

The Chair then asked members if there were any questions on the report. As there were no questions the Chair then presented the recommendations and upon the vote;

The Committee

          RESOLVED

(a) Agree the 2023/24 Revenue Budget as illustrated in Appendix A of this report;

(b) Agree the list of uncommitted growth items as illustrated in Appendix B of this report; and

RECOMMEND TO POLICY & FINANCE COMMITTEE that;

(c) the Revenue Budget for this Committee be included in the overall General Fund Budget when considering the overall budgets on 9 February 2023.

The Council’s Pay Policy Statement is reviewed and approved annually by Full Council and is published on the Council’s website.  The statement must be approved annually before 31 March each year prior to the financial year to which it relates. 

The Group Head of Organisational Excellence introduced the report and advised members that it was a statutory requirement for Local Authorities to prepare and publish a pay policy statement each year which set out the current pay and reward policies for each authority.   The draft statement covers 2023 – 2024 and included a range of issues relating to the pay of its workforce, including the pay of senior staff and our processes for determining remuneration and several related issues.  The contents of the Statement are matters of fact and simply set out current practice.  

She stated that a point to note was that at the current time there had been no agreement on the 2023/24 cost of living increases which were negotiated nationally between the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Trade unions.  Once agreement was reached the Council’s published pay scales which are linked from the pay policy statement would be updated.  As background local government employees were awarded a fixed sum of £1,925 last year, and an additional day of leave regardless of pay scale.

In summing up she advised there were two appendices, the Senior Management structure and the most up to date schedule of Elections Fees and Charges which is for 2022/2023 and the schedule for 2023-2024 which would be updated on the website when it was available. 

The Chair then invited questions from the Committee where it was asked if it was known when the LGA and Government would come back with their recommendations for the next year. It was confirmed that it wasn’t.

          As there were no other questions asked the Chair presented the minutes and upon the vote;

          The Committee

                     RECOMMEND TO FULL COUNCIL that it;

(a) notes the contents of the Pay Policy Statement 2023/24 as set out in Appendix 1.

(b) the Pay Policy Statement 2023/2024 for publication on the Arun website by 1 April 2023 be approved.

(c) Gives delegated responsibility to the Group Head for Organisational Excellence to make changes to the Pay Policy Statement should the need arise because of new legislation being introduced or changes to the pay structure resulting from national pay negotiations during the forthcoming year.

The purpose of this report is to recommend the adoption of an updated Unreasonable Behaviour Policy as a result of a recommendation made by a Stage 2 complaint investigation.

The Group Head of Law & Governance and Monitoring Officer introduced the report and drew members attention to the minor updates contained within the report that had arisen from one complaint that had been subject to a two-stage complaint process and was then reviewed by the investigating officer and the ombudsman. Members were advised that the changes could be seen as highlighted in yellow throughout the appendix.

          The Chair then invited questions from members of the Committee, with the exception of one question raised regarding the choice of the word ‘retract’ that had been used within paragraph 3.1 bullet point 17, there were no other questions raised.

Therefore, the Chair presented the recommendations and upon the vote;

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED

That it adopts the revised Unreasonable Behaviour Policy as set out in the Appendix to this report.

The report sets out the Quarter 3 performance indicators for those areas covered by the Corporate Support Committee.  It describes the process, indicates performance against targets and compares with previous performance.

A supplement pack containing the appendix A will be published ahead of the meeting and will detail the following KPI’s (CP1, CP2, CP3, CP4, CP5, CP6, CP7, CP8, CP9 and C10).

          The Group Head of Organisational Excellence advised members that due to the tight timeline for deadlines for the quarter 3 data, it was necessary for a supplement pack containing Appendix A to be circulated to members separately to the agenda. She also reminded members that the trend line could be seen in the final column of Appendix A.

          The Chair then invited members to ask questions where the following questions were asked;

·       It was great to see the improvement to the CP1 and CP2 stage 1 and 2 figures was this improvement due to the recruitment of the additional member of staff. The Group Head of Law & Governance and Monitoring Officer confirmed that the recruitment had not yet been completed, however the Information Management Manager had completed a review of internal processes and had implemented some changes due to this review and he believed that this was the reason for the improvement that had been recorded for quarter 3.

·       CP5, Staff turnover is showing as 66 leavers over the year, however it shows over 30 retirements or end of fixed term contracts? Do you know how many were retirement or end of fixed term contracts? Also is states there have been 36 voluntary resignations and this seems very high are there any trends on these resignations? It was confirmed by the Group Head of Organisational Excellence that these figures were not where the council want it to be. There had been some streamlining to the recruitment process completed already. A written answer will be provided to you for the first parts of your question.

·       It was strongly recommended that staff turnover should be targeted and that officers should consider and implement a target for this. The Group Head of Organisational Excellence stated that the figures in front of members for this in Appendix A was a baseline figure as it had not been reported previously.

·       CP4 Sickness absence, how do the figures compare to a pre pandemic level. A written answer was promised.

·       CP5, The Committee requested that the number of agency staff employed across the council/departments should also be reported. It was confirmed that it would be complicated to breakdown for reporting purposes. It was also confirmed that the senior management team were actively looking at this topic along with reviewing key issues how to reduce the number of agency staff where possible. Despite reassurance Members were still keen to understand the number of agency staff versus employed council staff and the costs associated with this.

The Committee then noted the report.

          There were no updates for this meeting.

Members are required to note the work programme.

          The Chair invited officers and members to make comment on the Work Programme of the committee.

          One member gave thanks to the Chair and Officers for the work the committee had completed this last year.

          One member queried when the Boundary Review item would appear on the work programme as it had been agreed at Full Council in November that this work should be reviewed by this committee. It was confirmed by the Head of Law & Governance and Monitoring Officer that it would be included in the programme of work for the next civic year, with a report to be brought to the first meeting of the committee of the 2023/24 year.

The Committee then noted its work programme for 2022/23 had been completed for this civic year.