Draft Minutes Personnel Committee 2022 November 25

Dec 1, 2022 | Minutes

The draft minutes can be read below or downloaded here: MN_2022 November Personnel DRAFT Minutes

DRAFT Minutes of the Meeting of the Personnel Committee in Dittisham Village Hall on
Friday 25 November 2022 at 10:00 a.m.

Present: Councillors Neale (Chair), Bond, and Nightingale were present, as was A Thom (Clerk). There were no members of the public.

  1. Apologies
    All Members present.

  2. Declaration of Interests
    None declared.

  3. The role of the Personnel Committee, its operation, and the initial actions which will be carried out by it

DPC has set Terms of Reference for the Personnel Committee and Subcommittee. Councillors agreed that they will work to support and manage the Clerk, and to support Councillors to understand and follow the Code of Conduct, and to understand roles and boundaries and interactions.

  1. Personnel Subcommittee

A Personnel Subcommittee was created composed of the same councillors as the Personnel Committee. Councillor Neale will Chair the Personnel Committee and Personnel Subcommittee. The Subcommittee will call meetings ad-hoc as required. The informal meeting of the Personnel Committee on 30 September nominated Cllr Nightingale to be the day to day contact for the Clerk and also the contact for monthly check-ins, and noted that he can involve the DPC Chair as appropriate.

  1. Training for the Personnel Committee

Councillors agreed to read the NALC/SLCC ‘Being a Good Employer’ booklet by Friday 6 January and to review the training options. The Clerk will forward Cllr Neale information about obtaining a DALC website login.

  1. DPC’s actions and processes to prevent and manage bullying by Councillors and by members of the public, including the Civility & Respect Pledge

The Committee will take bullying issues seriously and respond as rapidly as possible. In principle it supports the Civility and Respect Pledge. It is considering the new Dignity at Work Policy, Model Councillor Officer Protocol, and the new DALC Civility and Respect training. A meeting of the Subcommittee was scheduled provisionally for Friday 20 January at 10:00 am.

Councillors suggested an annual training budget of £75 per councillor, excluding the Being a Good Councillor training.

The Committee suggested recommending that completion by new councillors of basic, required training as described in the Policy is required within the specified time-frame in order for councillors to remain in working groups or be nominated to represent the Council in external forums.

Councillors suggested an amendment to section 4 of the draft Training and Development Policy to say that ‘Requests for training will be considered by the Clerk in consultation with the Personnel Committee.’, replacing by the Personnel Committee alone. To enable training to be booked promptly the Committee agreed to suggest a change to the delegation of authority to the Clerk to empower the Clerk to authorise training, in consultation with the Personnel Subcommittee. Councillors will consider the training recommended for new councillors (section 3.1 of the Policy).

  1. 2022-23 National Salary Award
    It was resolved to agree the Award for the Clerk’s conditions should be implemented.

  2. Alteration to the Clerk’s Contract
    It was resolved to support the Clerk’s request to update the sick leave and annual leave provisions in their contract to be consistent with the current NJC Green Book.

  3. Draft Training and Development Policy
    The draft Policy was discussed above and further under this Agenda item.
    Section 8 was altered to change the title to ‘Study Leave, Study Time, and Costs’ and to read: ‘Where individuals require study time to undertake study which is not mandatory but part of the individual’s formal continuous professional development the council will contribute up to 100% of study leave time and prescribed fees and other relevant expenses arising, subject to negotiation and based on the official course hours allocation and resource guidance.’ and the threshold for financial support subject to agreement increased to £500. Councillors will review the draft Policy further and consider it in the planned meeting of the Subcommittee.

  4. Payment by DPC for the Clerk’s time to complete the CiLCA
    The payment to the Clerk for all of their time taken to complete the CiLCA, as recommended in a Performance Appraisal, was supported by the Committee. The payment was suggested in the informal meeting of Personnel Committee Councillors on 30 September. The Clerk has kept a time-sheet for the two Units completed subsequently and used the time-sheet to estimate the total time taken as requested. The time taken to date is approximately four weeks of full-time work. This proposal needs to be presented to DPC.

  5. Clerk’s Core Hours Allocation
    It was agreed that the ongoing core hours allocation requirement cannot currently be reliably estimated and that there are core management tasks which need to be completed, including the review of DPC’s information management system, archive and deletion, playground management review, and tree inspection policy. It was agreed to recommend a temporary increase in core hours from 16 to 18 hours per week until 31 March 2023 and to examine current tasks and the allocation of time to them, and then to examine again the core hours requirement.

  6. To consider a resolution to close the meeting to members of the public and the press as permitted by the Public Bodies(Admissions to Meetings) Act 1960 because of the confidential nature of the business
    This resolution was not required.

  7. To conduct a Performance Appraisal & approve a CPD plan.
    This item was deferred.

The meeting closed at 12:45.