Meeting: County Council (County Hall, Durham - Council Chamber - 05/11/2008 10:00:00 AM)
Item: A5 LGR Update
Purpose of Report
1. The purpose of this report is to provide Members with an update on the LGR programme.
Senior Management Appointments
2. The recruitment process for the new Corporate Directors and Assistant Chief Executive has now been successfully completed.
3. As you will already be aware two of the existing County Council Corporate Directors Rachael Shimmin and David Williams have been ‘slotted in’ to the roles of Director of Adult, Wellbeing and Health and Director of Children and Young People. The remaining posts were filled through an external recruitment process.
4. Following this recruitment the following have been appointed:
· Stuart Crowe, the current County Council Treasurer has been appointed as the Corporate Director for Resources
· Terry Collins, currently Director of Neighbourhood Services with City of York Council has been appointed Corporate Director, Neighbourhood Services.
· Ian Thompson, currently Group Director, Regeneration and Development, with Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council has been appointed as Corporate Director, Regeneration and Economic Development.
· Lorraine O’Donnell, currently Assistant Chief Executive with Darlington Borough Council, has been appointed as the new Assistant Chief Executive. 5. Proposals for how the Heads of Service posts beneath these Directors will be filled will be the subject of a report to a Special Council Meeting on 12 November.
Members Seminars 6. The series of seminars to allow Members an opportunity to contribute to the development of the LGR programme and critical policy decisions are continuing. 7. On the 9th October a seminar was held for Members on the development of a county wide policy for Licensing and Gambling. This was followed on 27th October with a seminar on Taxi Licensing.
8. On more general LGR matters the Programme Office provided a briefing for Members on 28th October. This also covered progress on some of the key HR issues and an update on the next round of consultation for the Area Action Partnerships (see paragraph 11 below).
9. Finally on the 3rd November Members were briefed on proposed changes to council tax, including proposed policy changes which affect the recovery timetables and enforcement methods for council tax and business rates, council tax on second homes and benefit fraud.
10. Members will be notified shortly of the dates of the next seminars.
Area Action Partnerships - Next Stage Consultation 11. Following the decision on the focal points for the 14 Area Action Partnerships a number of key areas remain outstanding including: · Finalising geography (boundaries)
· Formally clarifying AAP function (role and responsibilities)
· Agreeing governance arrangements (membership / decision making)
· Agreeing transition arrangements from LSPs to AAPs
· Agreeing protocol / parameters around both AAP and members’ budgets 12. The workstream have been developing the proposals for how this work will be taken forward and have put forward two separate consultation exercises which will resolve the final geography of the AAPs and develop the actual functionality and operation of the AAPs from next April. 13. The first of these follow up consultation exercises will be targeted at a number of areas where it emerged through the first consultation that there are options on the final geography of the AAPs. This started in October and will be completed by the end of November.
14. At the same time work will commence on developing the functionality and will involve Elected Members, the public, District LSPs, key stakeholders, the County Durham Partnership and the thematic partnerships. It is anticipated that this will be completed by the end of December. 15. Formal approval of the outcomes of this work is targeted at the Full Council on 22nd January 2009.
LGR Programme Priorities
16. Alongside the continuing work on the ‘must haves’ the LGR programme workstreams have been working to support the new Directorate structures by producing a transition document for each. This document identifies the detailed functionality that will sit under each Head of Service and provides a summary of the critical things that support the future successful operation of the Directorate. These documents consolidate all of the work undertaken by the workstreams to give the Directors a strong reference point for the considerable work required over the coming months.
17. Work on the following priorities is now well advanced and will be coming forward for Members to consider during the next few months: · Licensing policies
· Models for area based service delivery
· Proposals for Member Planning Committees
· Local Development Scheme
· Complaints and compliments procedures
· Sub regional allocations policy
· Waste policy and procedures
· Clarification on service harmonisation for vesting day
Recommendations 18. Full Council is asked to note the contents of this report.
Attachments
LGR Update.pdf