Agenda and minutes

Venue: The Auden Room - Ground Floor, West Offices (G047). View directions

Contact: Judith Betts 

Items
No. Item

95.

Declarations of Interest

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare:

 

·        any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests

·        any prejudicial interests or

·        any disclosable pecuniary interests

 

which they may have in respect of business on this agenda.

Minutes:

At this point in the meeting, Members were asked to declare any personal, prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interests that they might have had in the business on the agenda. None were declared.

96.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 37 KB

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting of the Staffing Matters & Urgency Committee held on 28 April 2014.

Minutes:

Resolved:  That the minutes of the last meeting held on 28 April 2014 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record subject to the following amendment;

 

Minute Item 94a) (Changes to Cabinet Appointments and Council Bodies) “Local Government North Yorkshire Strategic Planning and Transport Board” to “Local Government North Yorkshire and York Spatial Planning and Transport Board”

97.

Public Participation

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so.  The deadline for registering is Friday 9 May 2014 at 5.00 pm.

Minutes:

It was reported that there had been one registration to speak under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

 

Gwen Swinburn raised the following points in relation to Agenda Item 4 (Changes to Terms and Conditions for Chief Officers). She felt that the proposed standby allowance for Chief Officers of 52p an hour was unprofessional. She told Members that in previous employment that she had with a Local Authority as a Chief Officer she did not get a standby allowance. She questioned why Chief Officers were getting £12,000 in lieu of giving up leave. In regards to another matter, the recruitment of an Assistant Director in the Education Directorate, she questioned why this had only been advertised on the City of York Council website.

 

In response to the question about advertising in the recruitment process, the Chair felt that it was better to advertise for free on the website, rather than paying for an external contractor to do this.

98.

Changes to Terms and Conditions for Chief Officers pdf icon PDF 69 KB

This report confirms the outcome of consultations with Chief Officers regarding a proposed 4 day reduction to their annual leave entitlement and the introduction of a link between incremental salary progression and the Chief Officer Performance Development Review (PDR) process. It recommends that these contractual changes to Terms and Conditions are now implemented and also recommends that the Chief Officer out of hours on call rota arrangements are made contractual and a requirement of the role.

 

Minutes:

Members received a report which confirmed the outcome of consultations with Chief Officers regarding a proposed 4 day reduction to their annual leave entitlement and the introduction of a link between incremental salary progression and the Chief Officer Performance Development Review (PDR) process. It recommended that these contractual changes to Terms and Conditions be implemented and recommended that the Chief Officer out of hours on call rota arrangements were made contractual and a requirement of the role.

 

Discussion took place between Members. Some Members felt that the proposed standby allowance of 52p per hour was not needed if the member of staff had a salary over £100,000. They also made reference to the public speaker who had commented that members of staff were being paid compensation for giving up leave. Officers confirmed that this was not the case. Two Members also suggested that a vote should be taken on each separate recommendation rather than deciding on the recommendations together as a whole block.

 

The Chair agreed to this request and on being put to the vote this motion fell.

 

Officers received a further question from a Member which related in regards to the total cost of the Chief Officer standby payment and how many times had Chief Officers been called out over the past two years.

 

It was reported that the total cost of the standby payment was £3,390 per year and that each Chief Officer (17 in total) was likely to be on call three times a year. There had been only three call outs over the past two years.

 

Other Members felt that if standby payments had been part of the existing Terms and Conditions for Chief Officers’ and this reflected part of their contracts that the Council should continue to honour them.

 

Resolved:  That the report be noted and the following agreed;

 

(i)           The introduction of a link between incremental salary progression and the Chief Officer PDR process. This change would be implemented from the next round of PDR’s commencing in May 2014.

 

(ii)          A 4 day reduction to Chief Officer annual leave for Chief Officers, meaning their entitlement would be 30 days increasing by five days to 35 days after five years continuous local government service. This change would take effect from the start of their next annual leave year.

 

(iii)        A contractual requirement that Chief Officers are included on the out of hours on call rota and that they are paid a standby allowance and when necessary a call out payment. This change would be implemented with immediate effect.

 

Reason:     In order that Chief Officer terms and conditions meet current organisational requirements.

 

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