Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on  26 May 2015 (circulated separately to Cabinet members).

The Minutes were agreed by the Committee and signed by the Chair.

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillor Marshall.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)            may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct for Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

There were no declarations of interest.

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements and ask questions in accordance with the rules as to Public Participation.

There was no public participation.

There were no referrals to Cabinet.

Mark Gaynor requested that the Town Centre management update including the BID and Outdoor Trading areas be moved to September.

Councillor Harden requested an addition to the Forward Plan for September titled Strategic Partner Commissioning.

Councillor G Sutton requested additional Part 1 & 2 reports on forum internal and external design sign off be added to the Forward Plan for September.

The changes were agreed by Cabinet.

Steve Baker introduced the report advising that the purpose of the report was to advise Members of the need to amend the Council’s standing orders insofar as they relate to taking disciplinary action including dismissal against the Head of Paid Services, Chief Finance Officer and Monitoring Officer (collectively referred to as the statutory officers). He went on to advise that new regulations came into force in May of this year which amend the process for disciplining or dismissing a statutory officer. Under the previous regulations the Council could not take disciplinary action against a statutory officer except in accordance with the recommendation in a report prepared by a designated independent person (commonly referred to as a DIP). Also, under the previous regulations the dismissal of the HOPS had to have the final approval of Council, whereas the dismissal of the CFO or MO could be delegated to a committee or sub-committee. The new regulations firstly remove the requirement to appoint a DIP and replace the DIP process with a new procedure and secondly the decision to dismiss a statutory officer, including the CFO and MO can only be taken by full Council.

Under the new procedure, the Council must appoint at least two independent persons to the committee which is advising the Council on matters relating to the dismissal of one of it’s statutory officers. These must be the independent person or persons appointed by the Council under the Localism Act for the purposes of dealing with standards complaints against members. Where the Council has only appointed one IP under the Localism Act it must appoint an IP from another authority to the committee.

Before Council can take a vote on whether to approve the dismissal of a statutory officer it must first take into account (but not necessarily follow) the advice, views or recommendations of the committee together with the conclusions of any investigation and any representations made by the statutory officer concerned.

The new regulations require Council’s standing orders to be amended so as to incorporate these new provisions as set out in the schedule to the regulations.

He concluded by adding that he would like to add a second recommendation, as the whole of the Constitution has not yet been reviewed in detail to see whether any other changes are necessary as a result of these new regulations. He suggested that  the additional recommendation should read – “That the Monitoring Officer be authorised by the Council to make any consequential amendments to the Constitution as may be necessary to give effect to the regulations referred to in recommendation 1 above”.

Councillor Elliot asked if other Council’s have similar Standing orders

Steve Baker advised that the previous regulations prescribed the DIP process and  all local authorities had to incorporate that DIP process in their Standing Orders, so every local authority has to go through the same process and noted that the County Council were currently receiving a similar report. He went on to advise that the regulations go  ...  view the full minutes text for item CA/7/15

James Deane introduced the report advising that this would be the last report in this format, as following the report that came to Cabinet in October last year and that in the next six weeks or so there will be a facilitated workshop with MAZARS, Cabinet, Leader of the Opposition and Chief Officer Group to repopulate the strategic risk register for the year ahead, following which the monitoring of that will be done by Audit Committee.

Councillor Griffiths enquired that if there were any challenges anywhere and it wasn’t brought to Cabinet by the Chief Finance Officer, how would they know about it.

Sally Marshall advised that Audit Committee would be providing the function of scrutiny of risk management (and that that was all that had changed) and it would then be presented to Cabinet. Risk management is an executive function and therefore is the responsibility of Cabinet.

Councillor Williams enquired as to whether they do that now.

James Deane advised that it was currently being done by the Finance & Resources Overview & Scrutiny.

Councillor Griffiths confirmed that they were looking to get this completed within the next 6 weeks.

James Deane advised that this was correct and that the issue was trying to get everyone together, he further added that they had looked at potentially the next Cabinet meeting or the next Portfolio Holder / COG, but that Councillor Tindall would need to be contacted to check on his availability.

Councillor G Sutton noted that C3 & M1 duplicate each other and enquired if this was something that would be looked at and addressed at the workshop.

Mark Gaynor advised that one was to do with failure to get the required amount of regeneration and the other is ensuring we make full use of the £30 million that we have made available, and that in due course these could be brought together in a single updated risk.

James Deane confirmed that was exactly what the workshop would be for.

Councillor Harden commented that at Scrutiny there doesn’t appear to be many question asked around the risk register, and went on to enquire that apart from the conversation at the workshop that will be had, is this going to try and make this a more user friendly document, that will encourage Scrutiny to ask more questions.

James Deane advised that he hoped the lack of scrutiny will be addressed by moving it to the Audit committee and went on to say that in terms of scrutiny of the operational risks, there is marginally more questioning. He went on to add that there is more Officers can do to stimulate further scrutiny, further adding that there is to be a meeting next week with the Assistant Directors who manage the Operational Risk Registers, and that he intends to go through the template with them and how they should be populating it to best effect.

For example, establishing the thread between Service objectives, the risks on the

register which threaten delivery of those objectives,  ...  view the full minutes text for item CA/8/15

Rebecca Oblein introduced the report advising that the ambassadors programme will continue the reputational work that was started in the last 2 years through the Dacorum Look No Further programme, for which funding finished in March of this year. She went on to advise that the ambassadors scheme is about place making and place shaping, so in essence about raising the reputation and profile of Hemel Hempstead as a place to invest, as a place to bring your business and to come and live and to come and visit. It’s a membership scheme, so the business community will be paying in to the scheme, and so we are looking for a 2 year underwriting by the Council, at the end of which we are hoping that the scheme will fund itself, so the report is requesting 2 years of funding, to pay for a place manager to run the scheme and to provide it with some seed funding to provide some of the up-front marketing materials we need whilst we are building the membership with aim of it being self-funding by year 3. 

Councillor Griffiths enquired as to what Rebecca Oblein thought the chances were of finding someone who will understand that role.

Rebecca Oblein advised that these schemes are currently running in about 10 places around the country and that they have been working closely with the place manager for Coventry & Warwick. We have understood what makes the right kind of place manager and it is someone who is really good at partnership working, who can sell a bit but has a passion for the place and the area. She further added that one of the essential criteria on the Person Specification, is a passion for Hemel Hempstead and a passion for this area. She went on to advise that what has been seen happening in other areas is that once they have started, the ball starts rolling and people actually approach us to join the club, rather than having to sell it , and then the managers role is to work with the place board, use the funding that is coming in to take part in things like MIPIN UK to promote the area or to go and hold an investors conference in London, or whatever the place board think is the best way to invest the money to raise the profile.

Councillor Harden enquired as to whether they would be an employee of the Council.

Rebecca Oblein advised that they are going to be employed by the Council as we have the procedures and processes for employment in place, but that the aim is to set up a company that will run the ambassadors scheme, so it will be its own separate entity. The businesses didn’t want to be paying their money over to Dacorum Borough Council. They want it to be paid into the Hemel Hempstead Ambassadors Scheme. However following discussions at the last meeting regarding the fact that a company hasn’t been set up yet,  ...  view the full minutes text for item CA/9/15

To consider passing a resolution in the following terms:

That, under s.100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972 Schedule 12A Part 1 as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006 the public be excluded during the items in Part 2 of the Agenda for this meeting, because it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted, that, if members of the public were present during those items, there would be disclosure to them of exempt information relating to the financial and business affairs of the Council and third party companies/organisations.

Local Government Act 1972, Schedule 12A, Part 1, paragraph 3.