Questions on notice were received from Councillor Peter Williamson to the Leader of the Council for the meeting held on 28 February 2018. These were deferred until this meeting.
Minutes:
Questions on notice which had been deferred from the meeting held on 28 February 2018, were dealt with next. The question from Councillor Peter Williamson to Councillor Blamire, was as follows:
“You may recall that at Full Council on 31 January 2018 I raised the appointment of an Assistant Chief Executive costing over £200,000 over a two-year period.
May I draw your attention to two emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act which have been passed to me and which I attach to this question.
The emails are from the then Head of Legal and Governance and the then Head of Human Resources to the Chief Executive.
The advice from both Officers to the Chief Executive was that the matter of the recruitment of a Chief Officer should go before the Personnel Committee.
Was the appointment of the Assistant Chief Executive advertised internally and externally concurrently in accordance with Lancaster City Council’s recruitment policy?”
Councillor Blamire responded:
“The Council appoints interim managers through recruitment agencies, for senior positions as well as other roles, primarily because appointing an interim manager is something which can be done very quickly, to fill a role temporarily until a longer term appointment is considered and made.
Interim managers are skilled specialists who are able to commence work quickly, are highly skilled in their specialist area, and bring with them a wealth of experience which the Council can benefit from in the short term.”
Councillor Williamson put a supplementary question about the openness and transparency of the appointment process to the post of Assistant Chief Executive:
“Does the leader realise that by abandoning our fair and open recruitment policies, she is entering the murky waters where secrecy, discrimination and favouritism may well occur?”
Councillor Blamire replied that she honestly did not believe that was true. She thought that the way things had been done was for very good reasons and according to the legal process. The Assistant Chief Executive’s post was opened up to the current Chief Officers for consideration, before it was advertised externally via Hays, a recruitment agency used widely in the public sector. She said that the emails Councillor Peter Williamson had referred to in his question related to the discussions about extending the fixed term appointment to over one year, which was after the current Assistant Chief Executive was appointed. The position would be advertised once Personnel Committee had considered the matter. The Personnel Committee had talked about this at its meeting on 10 April.
Cllr Williamson wished to put a further question, which was which was to ask what the Personnel Committee had decided. Having already asked his question and supplementary, in accordance with Council Procedure Rules, Councillor Blamire did not take this further question. However the CE agreed to supply a written response to all Councillors.
Councillor Blamire provided some further information on process followed for the initial one year appointment to the Assistant Chief Executive post:
“Personnel Committee delegated responsibility to the Chief Executive for the decision to select the Assistant Chief Executive from the candidates who applied, having followed a thorough recruitment process.”