Agenda and draft minutes

1.            ELECT A CHAIRMAN

C Lawson asked for nominations for electing a chairman of the committee. Councillor G Adshead nominated Councillor Roger Taylor and Councillor P Hearn seconded the proposal. There were no further nominations and therefore Councillor Taylor was elected as Chairman of the Member Development Steering Group.

Councillor Taylor thanked the Committee for electing him and asked the group to introduce themselves and gave a brief overview of member development.

To receive any apologies for absence

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

There were no apologies for absence.

Members are asked to agree the minutes of the meeting held on 4 March 2015 (page 2).

MINUTES

The minutes of the meeting held on 4 March 2015 were agreed by the Members present and then signed by the Chairman

Members to consider the feedback from the first induction event and training session (page 6).

MEMBER INDUCTION AND TRAINING FEEDBACK

Induction: T Coston advised that the first induction event was held on Thursday 21 May and it had gone really well and as planned. The second event will be held on Saturday 6 June which would mirror the first event but with a couple of minor changes. She said the Service Market had gone down really well and they were pleased to see so many members of staff get involved to make it look great and be there to socialise with the councillors.

She said that majority of feedback forms were positive and they were really pleased with the written and verbal comments. There were a couple of negative comments such as the presentation slides were too small so that has been amended for Saturday. Unfortunately half the forms weren’t returned and as they are completed anonymously they can’t be chased. She asked if there were any members present that had attended the first induction event that wanted to share their views.

Councillor Taylor said it was a shame to have cut down the amount of time spent in the service market due to the presentations over running in the morning.

Councillor Hicks said the coach tour took less time than expected and they got ahead of themselves so that time could have been better spent in the service market.

Councillor Adshead said he had mentioned four years ago and again today that a tour of the building would have been useful. C Lawson explained that due to hot-desking and people working from home it wouldn’t have been beneficial to do a tour of the building.

Councillor Douris suggested a floor plan of the building instead might be of better use so that they could have some indication as to where each department is. C Lawson agreed this was something that could be done.

Training: T Coston advised that the first members training session was held on 26 May which was a mandatory course for the Development Control Committee members otherwise they would be unable to sit on the committee. The turnout was high and both new and existing members attended. The feedback from the training was positive and this had been fed back to the trainer. She went on to explain that the mandatory training has obviously been prioritised and that licensing and appeals training were the next scheduled training sessions.

         G Adshead advised that he had attended the Development Control training and that he could confirm that a lot of people had got a lot of value from it.

Members to note and make suggestions for the training programme (page 9)

MEMBER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME 2015/16

T Coston advised that the mandatory training had been scheduled as a priority as members are unable to sit on certain committees without the relevant training. She also advised that although it is not always possible for everyone to attend these scheduled sessions, private one to one tuition sessions or small group sessions can be arranged to ensure that all members are trained. However she stressed the importance of communication with the Member Support team for this to be arranged.

She went on to advise that this was then followed by training on other important issues and key areas of the Council’s business, for example Housing and Mental Health First Aid.

She also went on to say that although the programme is quite full at present, this was due to the importance placed on training for new members as well as for existing. However should anyone else have further thoughts regarding other training requirements to advise us and we will try to arrange.

P Hearn commented that having been on the licensing committee for the last four years, she has only ever received one training session at the start despite there having been changes in legislation and suggested that update briefing sessions before or after a meeting to keep members informed would be of value.

C Lawson took that comment on board and advised she would speak to the Licensing department with regards to ensuring this happens.

P Hearn also commented that any briefing sessions, for development control in particular, should be extended to Town Councillors also.

G Adshead suggested that CIL training would be beneficial as it is being adopted as of 1 July 2015 and a percentage of the income from CIL can be used by Councillors within their ward.

C Lawson advised that someone has expressed an interest in the pre Council briefing session on 15 July, but that she would try and see if this could be used to accommodate the CIL training.

T Douris enquired about the ‘Which Members?’ column on the table and if it was possible for some training sessions, such as Licensing and Development Control could be available to all members, as others may be interested and there may be a change of Personnel over the year.

T Coston advised this could happen.

T Douris expressed some curiosity in the Highways Training to be expedited by Paul Newton and expressed a thought that it may possibly be more focused on Highways development and development issues of highways.

R Taylor suggested that some joined up working between Paul Newton and the County Councillor responsible for Highways (Terry Douris), may be useful.

T Coston said she would speak to Paul Newton regarding this.

T Coston also advised that the reason there was no quarterly budget in her report for this meeting was because nothing had been spent as yet. She went on to say that the budget remained the same at £11,000 and that a lot of the upcoming training  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Members to offer suggestions for items to add to the work programme for 2015/16 (page 11)

MDSG WORK PROGRAMME

There were no changes or additions to the work programme

Thursday 1 October 2015

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting will be held on Thursday 1 October 2015