Meeting documents

To sign as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 29 May 2014.

The minutes of the meeting of the Joint Committee held on 29 May 2014 were agreed by the Committee and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

To resolve that under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part 1 of the Schedule 12A of the Act.

The Committee considered the draft Shared Legal Service consultation document and noted the proposed timetable for the staff consultation.    The report set out in the format of appendices the complete consultation document that was intended to be shared with the Legal Team on 19 August 2014.  The draft timetable was set out in detail in Appendix D, as follows:

• Start consultation on 19 August 2014
• End consultation on 22 September 2014
• Conduct the selection process during the weeks of the 17 and 24 November 2014
• Implement joint services 1 January 2015

The content of the report as presented to members was:

• Appendix 1 - Joint Legal Team Consultation Document
• Appendix A - Proposed Legal Team Structure
• Appendix B - Proposed Job Descriptions
• Appendix C - Current structure Legal Teams
• Appendix D - Draft Timetable
• Appendix E - Example of Expression of Interest form

Members were advised that following the end of staff consultation on 22 September 2014, the structure was to be implemented taking into account any staff comments and provided it remained within the business case.

The Resources Director clarified that the staffing costs of the proposed structure based on the harmonised grades had been reviewed subsequent to the report being produced and were confirmed as being in line with the business case.  There had been a discrepancy in the treatment of the pension oncost in the published version of the report.  It was confirmed that the pensions oncost is determined by the employing authority and therefore is not affected by staff being in shared teams.  .

Members discussed the draft documents and during which the following key points were made:

In response to a member’s question, the Head of Legal and Democratic Services clarified that specific large projects eg. HS2 challenge and Heathrow expansion were not proposed to be allocated to a specific team but the work to be absorbed through a flexible legal resource which was mainly self-funded through budget provision and fees agreed for these projects.  Some unforeseen projects may need to be met from Reserves as opposed to the base budget, and therefore this was a consideration for members during the annual budget setting process at each authority.

The proposed structure was based on two legal teams with two single points of contact for the teams but the teams would vary in respect of skills and expertise.  Additional savings were likely to be generated through effective use of in house skills and exchanging resources within the teams where necessary to increase capacity and knowledge.  The proposed approach was intended to enable growth and development of expertise within the legal service for the Council and where appropriate to generate income through providing legal services to other public authorities.  The day to day management of the teams required further consideration during and following staff consultation.

The previous structure for legal services was based on 7.7 full time equivalents and the proposed structure increases the FTE’s to 8.2 acknowledging the need to provide sufficient staff resource at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

The Committee considered the draft Community Team Shared Service consultation document and noted the proposed timetable for the staff consultation.    The report set out in the format of appendices the complete consultation document that was intended to be shared with the Community Team on 11 August 2014.  The draft timetable was set out in detail in Appendix D, as follows:

• Start consultation on 11 August 2014
• End consultation on 12 September 2014
• Conduct the selection process during the weeks of the 27 October 2014
• Implement joint services 1 December 2014

The content of the report as presented to members was:

• Appendix 1 - Joint Community Team Consultation Document
• Appendix A - Proposed Community Team Structure
• Appendix B - Proposed Job Descriptions
• Appendix C - Current structure Community Teams
• Appendix D - Draft Timetable
• Appendix E - Example of Expression of Interest form

Members were advised that following the end of staff consultation on 22 September 2014, the structure was to be implemented taking into account any staff comments and provided it remained within the business case.

RESOLVED:

i)     That the Community Team Shared Services consultation document and appendices were approved prior to issuing to staff;

ii)    That the Chief Executive, be given delegated authority, in consultation with the Joint Chairmen and the Cabinet Portfolio Holders from both Councils, to agree changes in response to consultation provided the changes are within the terms of the business case; and

iii)   That the structure be implemented in accordance with the proposed timetable, subject to taking into account any staff comments and being within the business case