North Hertfordshire District Council s1

APPENDIX C NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE DISTRICT COUNCIL

CABINET

Meeting held at Council Offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth Garden City on Tuesday, 20 March 2012 at 7.30pm

EXTRACT FROM MINUTES

PRESENT: Councillors Mrs L.A. Needham (Chairman), T.W. Hone (Vice- Chairman), Tom Brindley, P.C.W. Burt, Bernard Lovewell and Mrs C.P.A. Strong.

IN ATTENDANCE: Interim Chief Executive, Strategic Director of Finance, Policy & Governance, Head of Finance, Performance & Asset Management, Head of Policy & Community Services, Head of Leisure & Environmental Services, Local Development Framework Manager, Communications Manager, Corporate Human Resources Manager, Corporate Legal Manager, Democratic Services Manager and Committee & Member Services Officer.

ALSO PRESENT: Councillors David Levett (Chairman of the Finance, Audit & Risk Committee), R.L. Shakespeare-Smith (Chairman of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee), M.R.M. Muir (Vice-Chairman of the Baldock & District Committee), S.K. Jarvis (Chairman of the Scrutiny Task & Finish Group on Communication and Consultation with Members), David Billing, Marilyn Kirkland, Michael Paterson, Michael Weeks and 13 members of the public.

115. TASK AND FINISH GROUP REPORT ON COMMUNICATION AND CONSULTATION WITH MEMBERS

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Task and Finish Group on Communication and Consultation with Members (Councillor S.K. Jarvis) presented the final report on the work of that Group. The following appendices were submitted with the report:

Appendix A – Report of the Task and Finish Group on Communication and Consultation with Members; Appendix B - Report’s recommendations, SMT’s comments and Committee’s Response.

The Chairman of the Task and Finish Group presented the Group’s recommendations, as follows:

“2.1 The Council’s communication strategy should be redrafted to ensure staff are made aware of the importance of keeping elected Members informed about developments and of dealing with Members’ queries in a timely and effective way;

2.2 Local Members should always be informed about local events beforehand, and a single communication with all Members may be the easiest way of doing this. If only local Members are to be informed, this may mean including all the Members in a town or Members representing adjacent wards;

2.3 The Council’s communications culture should be re-examined so that: a) ideas and criticisms from all quarters can be evaluated objectively; and b) Members can receive a full, frank and timely response to their inquiries.

2.4 The Member/officer protocol should be redrafted to provide a clear statement of what members and officers should expect from each other, taking into account the recommendations of this task and finish group.

O&S (19.03.12) 1 APPENDIX C 2.5 The Council should put in place a system for monitoring response times to inquiries by e-mail and by letter across the Council (to both councillors and members of the public) so managers can make sure that its service standards are being met, and take corrective action when they are not.

2.6 The problems with the upgraded telephone system which has caused answerphone messages to be deleted should be corrected urgently.

2.7 There should be a central contact point for Members to help them identify and contact the correct person for their inquiry: and that should be the Council’s Democratic Services Department.

2.8 There should be a single reference point on the intranet which officers can use to obtain Members’ contact details and their preferred method of contact.

2.9 The Council should explore whether access to NHDC e-mails accounts could be improved when Members were using other e-mail accounts; and if they could reply with an NHDC address from their personal accounts.

2.10 The Council should explore whether it would be sufficient to operate its Members’ dispatch service once a week rather than twice.”

Cabinet was supportive of a number of the above recommendations, particularly 2.1, 2.3(a), 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 and 2.10, commented on some of the others, including:

 Recommendation 2.2 – it was felt that it was not always possible to inform all Members of every issue and Officers should make their best endeavours to assess who should be informed;  Recommendation 2.3(b) – Cabinet considered that, although Members should receive frank and timely responses, there were accepted constraints for instance confidentiality;  Recommendation 2.4 – They agreed that the Member Officer Protocol should be reviewed and suggested that the protocol be included in the induction for new Members;  Recommendation 2.5 – Cabinet were concerned at the disproportionate amount of officer time required for monitoring;  Recommendation 2.6 – Cabinet noted that this issue had been resolved..

RESOLVED:

(1) That Recommendations 2.1, 2.3(a), 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 and 2.10 of the Task and Finish Group be supported;

(2) That Recommendation 2.2 of the Task and Finish Group be supported with the context of the Member / Officer Protocol and that officers should use their best endeavours to assess who should be informed;

(3) That Recommendation 2.3(b) of the Task and Finish Group be supported within the accepted constraints;

(4) That, in respect of Recommendation 2.4 of the Task and Finish Group, the Member Officer Protocol be reviewed and the protocol included in the induction for new Members;

(5) That Recommendation 2.5 of the Task and Finish Group would involve a disproportionate amount of officer time and therefore not be supported rather existing proportionate mechanisms should be used;

(6) That, in respect of Recommendation 2.6 of the Task and Finish Group, it be noted that this had now been resolved.

REASON FOR DECISION: To respond to the recommendations of the Communication and Consultation with Members Task and Finish Group.

O&S (19.03.12) 2