Agenda item

The Committee considered a report that updated on the next stage of the senior management restructure that had been consulted on and approved in September 2023.  The report also detailed a severance package that would require the approval of full Council arising out of the senior management restructure and a further one associated with a restructure relating to CCTV.

The Monitoring Officer updated Members on the progress of the restructure.  The focus of the reorganisation was to create the capacity and respond to the need to drive forward the recovery programme at pace.  Recruitment to the new Director posts was taking place in tranches and external recruitment was underway as all internal processes had been concluded.  Starfish had been appointed as the external recruitment provider to support the process.  The first tranche included posts including the Director of HR & Workforce Development; Director of Strategy, Change and Resident Engagement; Director of Property & Assets; and Director of Law & Governance (Monitoring Officer).  It was confirmed that a number of posts had already been successfully recruited to and others were in progress.

The second part of the report related to two redundancy packages that were above the threshold of £100,000 and therefore required full Council approval.  It was noted that the packages consisted of statutory and contractual redundancy payments, including pension strain, and no part of either package constituted a special severance payment.

A Member asked whether any of the individuals made redundant through the process would be subsequently re-engaged by the Council.  Officers responded that they were not aware of any such plans and highlighted the process for any such arrangement was set out in section 2.12 of the Pay Policy Statement, namely that: “Any employee who is made redundant, including Chief Officers, must have a break of at least four weeks and one day to retain a redundancy payment before they can be re-employed by the Council in a different position.”  Any such decision to re-engage an individual under this provision would be reported to Members as a Significant Decision, although it was reiterated there were no known plans to do so as part of the current reorganisation.

At the conclusion of the discussion the report was noted and it was agreed to recommend the update to full Council.

Resolved –

(a)  That the contents of this report be noted.

(b)  That the report be recommend to Council.

(c)  To note that at its meeting on 25th January 2024, Council would be requested to agree:

That the Head of Paid Service should make and approve the redundancy packages set out in Appendix A for employees 1 & 2, noting that these consists of statutory and contractual redundancy payments and no part of either package constitutes a special severance payment.