Agenda item

Service Manager - Human Resources and Organisational Development to update Members.

(Papers to follow)

Members had been circulated with report HR&OD115 from the Service Manager Human Resources and Organisational Development (HR&OD), Mrs Joyce Slater, which addressed issues raised by Members at the last meeting of the Group. 

-                  Training for Parish Councils on the Code of Conduct 

There was no single code for Parish Councils with each Parish adopting a code to suit their needs (National Association of Local Councils [NALC] SKDC, or variations on these codes) The variety of codes adopted would make any generic training unsuitable.   However, the District Council was willing to support the Parishes where they could, but it was difficult to understand the scale of demand, especially as not all Parishes had informed the Council what Code they had adopted.

-                  A list of those Members who had attended training since election

Appendix 1 to the report circulated showed a list of how many Members attended particular training.  Some training was better supported then others due to other commitments that Members had.  Where a Member had not attended training which was required, such as quasi judicial training one to one training was arranged. 

-                  A list of training available to Members, itemising core elements

Appendix 2 to the report showed the core training elements in line with the Constitution together other suggested training Members would find useful.  A County wide initiative had been put in place for Members to attend training at other locations; however, the geography of these locations could have influenced attendance. 

-                  Notification of Training

It had been hoped that further county wide training would be available but this had not been the case so the Council was taking its own approach to further training identifying where more training was needed.  Mrs Slater referred to a link on the Local Government Association website:

http://www.local.gov.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=0847a1ac-3eb6-43ad-ab1a-858b28e31cc4&groupId=10171

which was a self assessment toolkit that Members could assess.  This would help Members feedback any further training needs they had.

A discussion then followed about Member training with questions being asked about compulsory training for experienced Councillors and the three Councillors who had not attended training: were they experienced Members?    Mrs Slater replied that the three were experienced Members.   The Constitution required new Members to attend core training and from the feedback received, new Members had found it beneficial to hear the contributions made by the experienced Members, the sharing of information and experiences.  Also those Members who had been re-elected had found it a refresher for their knowledge base.    One Member said that rather than put training on and have poor attendance and associated costs, wait until Members ask to have help with topics.  Mrs Slater replied that often the costs involved were officer time as the majority of the core training had been done in house, it was only the specialist training for the quasi judicial committees that external trainers had been used.  As it had been unknown as to the number of new Members the training programme had been put together in order to give a complete overview of the information that the Member would need in order to carry out their duties. Further discussion followed with reference being made to the need to have maps of the offices indicating where people can be found, perhaps having a “buddy” and information for prospective candidates to be more widely available before the election. 

Further training had been asked for by Members of the Development Control Committee and would include biodiversity and noise in relation to wind farms.  It was stressed that training opportunities should be available to every Member particularly those that acted as substitutes on Committees such as Development Control and Licensing.

The Chairman thanked Mrs Slater for attending.