Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2022.

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2022 were confirmed and signed as a correct record.

To answer any written public questions about matters which are within the

powers and duties of the Committee. The closing date/time for the receipt

of questions is 10.00am on Tuesday 3 May 2022.

Depending on the nature of the questions asked it may not be possible to

provide a comprehensive answer at the meeting, in which case a written

answer will be supplied as soon as reasonably possible after the meeting.

None received.

To answer any written members’ questions. The closing date/time for the receipt of questions is 10.00am on Tuesday 3 May 2022.

None received.

5.1       The Chair invited Mandy Quayle, Director of People and Digital Services, to present the report. It was taken as read and members noted the following key points:

·         Back in September 2020, this Committee considered and agreed to combine public health and adult social care into a single directorship under the leadership of an Executive Director, to which Sarah Scott was appointed.

·         During the past 18 months, the combining of the services into a single directorate had worked well and had drawn the benefits hoped for.

·         Since then the Executive Director had had the opportunity to review the leadership required to run the Directorate longer term.  This review had been informed by the publication of the adult social care white paper and an assessment of service performance. A lot of time and resource will be required to ensure that we are ready for the changes required. In addition, pressure on public health had clearly significantly changed due to the Pandemic, both of which had resulted in the proposition before the Committee today.

·         Members were asked to consider the removal of the Deputy Director Public Health post and to re-establish the Director of Public Health as a separate post reporting into the Executive Director.

·         In addition, it was proposed that the single candidate for the re-established role was the existing GCC employee who currently held the Deputy Director of Public Health post.

5.2       Concern was raised about the Council moving towards a process of single person appointments, and therefore not following the normal procedure of having competitive appointment processes, with external advertisement etc. It was highlighted that this would be the third senior appointment in a row where a single person appointment had been proposed.

5.3       It was advised that a number of Director positions had been advertised competitively over recent months including the Chief Fire Officer and Directors in both Children’s Safeguarding and in Highways. The other two positions in Adults were also being advertised externally. 

5.4       It was explained that the decision in September 2020 to combine the posts had not resulted in an interim appointment (similar to that which had happened for the Interim Chief Fire Officer for example) because it had been part of a wider restructure. The current change was reshaping the deputy position to a Director role, therefore was a potential redundancy and within the council’s procedures to consider a single candidates as an alternative to redundancy.

5.5       The current Deputy Director joined the authority just prior to the beginning of the pandemic and very quickly showed significant skill. In these circumstances, there were benefits of retaining good staff already in place and offering growth and reward for their hard work. It was added that these positions had also been notoriously difficult to recruit to.

5.6       If the Appointments-Sub Committee proposed for 25 May 2022 would have the opportunity to assess the candidate and if they were of the view that the candidate was not suitable, the process would be opened up to external advertising  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.