Council and councillors

To receive Report No.85/2020 from the Monitoring Officer.

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Mr Mark Andrews left the virtual meeting and this was confirmed by the Chief Executive

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Report No. 85/2020 was received from the Monitoring Officer, Mr P Horsfield. The report sought Council approval of the appointment of Mr M Andrews as the Interim Chief Executive Officer (Head of Paid Service) and also approval to put in place delegations to enable an effective handover and make ancillary appointments to various proper officer roles.  A report from the recruitment consultants, which provided an overview of the approach that had been taken for the appointment of Chief Executive and a recommendation on how the appointment could be successfully concluded in the current circumstances, was appended to the report.

During discussion, the following points were noted:

·       Councillor Waller, leader of the Liberal Democrats, objected to paragraph 6.30 of the report which stated that the Leader had separately worked with the other Group leaders in considering the course of action proposed. Group Leaders had been told about the course of action but not consulted and their opinion had not been sought. However, Councillor Waller was broadly supportive of the paper and its recommendations.

·       Councillor Powell understood the need for continuity but felt that paragraph 3.4, which recommended that a further report be bought to Council in 12 months’ time to consider making the position permanent or continuing with a further recruitment exercise, left the Council exposed. Recruitment could take a further six months and the role could be substantially different post-covid. In response Mr Horsfield confirmed that the role was on interim basis and that reviews would be built in every three months allowing for further reports to be bought before Council at any point thereafter.

·       In response to a question from Councillor A Brown, Mr Horsfield confirmed that as a public body, the Council was not duty bound to advertise the interim post but was required to recruit on merit.

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As it was close to 8pm a vote was taken to extend the meeting by 15 minutes. This was proposed by Councillor MacCartney and seconded by Councillor Razzell and unanimously agreed.

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·       Councillor Waller suggested that there be an interim review in March.

·       Councillors Walters and Razzell felt that it was unreasonable to formally hold the appointee to account in six months’ time as the individual would feel uncertain about the support they had from councillors.

·       An interim review would allow the Council to plan and confirm the role and give them enough time to assess the person specification. Councillors Waller and Powell confirmed that they were happy to support Mr Andrews as a candidate but that this was about the role and not the person.

·       Councillor Woodley argued that the job this evening was to confirm the role as identified and the candidate proposed, and not to speculate on any future role.

Councillor Waller proposed a motion that an interim review be held and this was seconded by Councillor Powell. The results were as follows:

As there were 17 against and 10 in favour, the motion fell.

The Chairman then moved on to the five original recommendations in the report which were proposed by Councillor Stephenson and seconded by Councillor Razzell. The recommendations were unanimously approved.

RESOLVED:

That Council:

 1.   Approves the appointment of Mr Mark Andrews as Interim Chief Executive Officer (Head of Paid Service)

 2.   Approves the appointments to the Proper Officer appointments detailed in Appendix A

 3.   Delegates the agreement of the date of commencement of the roles to the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council

 4.   Notes the contractual end date of the current Head of Paid Service

 5.   Notes that a suitable handover period will be agreed as a part of recommendation 3 above.