Agenda and minutes

Councillor J Westbrook was replaced by Councillor Phillimore

Councillor Reid was replaced by Councillor Tilbury

To appoint a Vice-Chair to the Human Resources Committee for the 2020/21 municipal year.

Councillor Capon was appointed Vice-Chair for the municipal year 2020/21.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider any items of business, other than those shown on this agenda and which, by reason of special circumstances to be stated at the meeting, in the opinion of the Chairman, should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent matters.

The Chair will move that the minutes of the meeting be signed as a correct record. The only part of the minutes that can be discussed is their accuracy.

The minutes of the meeting held on 2^nd March 2020 were confirmed by the Committee as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Contact Officer:  Sarah Cragg

The purpose of this report is to outline the process and timetable involved in making a decision to appoint a new Chief Executive and to seek the views of HR Committee on the advertising material for the role.

Appendix 2 to follow

The Chair introduced Steve Guest from Solace who had been appointed the partner search agency for the process.

The Head of Human Resources (HR), Communications and Policy introduced the report and advised that the current Chief Executive, who was also the council’s Head of Paid Service would be leaving Basingstoke and Deane Borough council on 31 August 2020.  Under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, each local authority had a duty to designate one of its officers to be its Head of Paid Service.

The council’s Constitution stated that it was a function of the HR Committee to coordinate the recruitment of the Head of Paid Service and the council’s Constitution also stated that Full Council would approve the appointment of the Head of Paid Service following the recommendation of such an appointment by a Sub-Committee of the HR Committee.  However it was for the Committee to decide whether they wanted to appoint a Sub-Committee or whether the whole Committee would like to take part, which had been the case in recent recruitment for Executive Directors

She confirmed that the report outlined the process and timetable involved in making a decision to appoint a new Chief Executive.  Members were advised that there had been a couple of amendments to the timetable in the report, the application and executive search period would finish one week earlier on the week commencing 24^th August and the long listing process would commence the week of the 31^st August therefore moving the stages forward by a week to enable the assessment and final interviews to be separate.

The recruitment timetable had been designed to enable a recommendation for appointment to the post of Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service to be made to Full Council in October 2020. 

The Chair proposed that, due to the confidential nature of the information to be discussed, the committee passed a resolution that, by virtue of paragraphs 1 and 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting.

On resumption of the open session the Chair to confirm that during the private session the Committee discussed the following:-

• The proposed content for the recruitment campaign for the post of CX Basingstoke and Deane and proposed amendments.
• The current job description and person specification for the post of CX and proposed amendments to this based on the qualities and experience being looked for in the next CX postholder and agreed the revised wording be approved by the Chair of HR Committee and the Leader in consultation with the Head of HR, Communications and Policy.  The revised Job Specification would be emailed to the HR Committee later this week for final review.
• The planned process for the recruitment to this vital role.

Cllr Capon left the meeting during this item.

Resolved that:

·         Agree the proposed recruitment timetable shown at paragraph 2.5 of the report.

·         Confirm the recruitment of the Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service is to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6/20