Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 22 March 2018 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

EXEMPT ITEMS

(Open access to Minutes)

(Members resolved under Section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972 that the public be excluded for the following business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.)

(1)       The Cabinet Member for Corporate and Democratic Services said that recent staff retirements had led to a review of the way in which support for Members was organised, including the potential to develop a career path within Democratic Services.  The General Counsel had developed a proposal to make the service even more Member-friendly, including the use of space in the Members’ Area for offices and committee meetings.

(2)       The General Counsel gave a presentation setting out progress to date.   The accompanying slides are contained within the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.  This presentation covered the areas of the Member Support Hub, the Member Support Officer role, additional member support provision within Democratic Services, Microsoft Teams and the development of a flexible resource to support backbench Members. 

(3)       The Committee discussed the report in the context of what was currently available including the strong wish expressed by Mrs Dean for support to continue for Local Members to deliver participatory budgeting. 

(4)       The General Counsel confirmed that he was familiarising himself in detail on the support currently provided to Members and that, in response to Members’ expressed views, he was also investigating the potential for enabling KCC iPads to hold different email accounts. 

(5)       In response to a question from Mr Farrell, the General Counsel gave a personal commitment that members of staff providing services to individual political groups would be redeployed within the service as a whole if this proved necessary following the elections of 2021.

(6)       RESOLVED that the report be noted.