Agenda and minutes

Councillor Alcock was elected Chairman for the duration of the meeting.

Where a Councillor has a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest the Councillor must declare the interest to the meeting and leave the room without participating in any discussion or making a statement on the item, except where a councillor is permitted to remain as a result of a grant of dispensation.

There were no declarations of interest.

To set out the recommendations from Stage Two of the review of the future of the Integrated Shared Management Structure and Joint Working Arrangements for South Holland District Council (report of the Head of Paid Service and Strategic Advisor enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Paid Service and Strategic Advisor which set out the recommendations from Stage Two of the review of the future of the Integrated Shared Management Structure and Joint Working Arrangements for South Holland District Council.

Members asked for clarity as to what would happen if either Boston Borough Council or East Lindsey District Council did not vote to pursue a business case to develop the new local strategic alliance for South East Lincolnshire.

• The Strategic Advisor clarified that if the decisions had not been agreed at either council then the recommendation would not be put forward to South Holland District Council members at a special meeting of the council on 1^st July.

Members expressed concern over the structure of the Shared Senior Management team and how this would be shared across the 3 Councils.

• The Strategic Advisor responded as follows:
  • That the shared Senior Management structure would include Tiers 1-3 of the current SHDC Management structure, which would be the posts of Chief Executive, the Executive Directors and the Assistant Directors;
  • The Chief Executive and one Executive Director post are currently vacant;
  • The costings for this Shared management structure are split based on a population ratio of 31% SHDC, 23% BBC and 46% ELDC;
  • There would be a smaller share of a larger number of senior officers across the 3 authorities;
  • There would be a greater cost saving to SHDC across this partnership than there was across the Breckland partnership and as there would be a larger team, there would be more resilience across the Senior Management Team;
  • It had been proposed that there would be a Deputy Chief Executive in post at each of the three authorities;
  • Heads of Service would remain SHDC based.

Members asked what would happen to the current S151 Officer and Monitoring Officer at BBC/ELDC if SHDC officers were to be installed in those statutory roles across all 3 authorities.

• The Strategic Advisor responded that the current officers had been informally consulted about the proposals and were in principle happy to relinquish those statutory roles. He confirmed that those officers would still be employed within the Shared Management Structure.

Members raised concerns over whether the current staff employed in the SHDC Management structure were the best fit for the roles they were in.

• The Strategic Advisor confirmed:
  • That the starting point for the structure were no redundancies for the SHDC senior team. The partnership’s goal was not to fundamentally restructure the management team but a bringing together of the strengths of all three existing senior teams in a new structure that would work for partnership;
  • The strategic alliance has a policy of no compulsory redundancies;
  • No concerns about current staff had been raised directly with the Head of Paid Service.

Members asked whether there could only be one person appointed to each statutory role across the partnership.

• The Strategic Advisor responded:
  • That it had been agreed that only 1 person would be designated  in each  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

There were none.