Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - County Hall. View directions

Contact: Karon Hadfield 

Items
No. Item

1.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Cartie, Castle, Daley, Fairless- Aitken, Parry, Ploszaj, and Richardson.

2.

DISCLOSURES OF MEMBERS' INTERESTS

Unless already entered in the Council’s Register of Members’ interests, members are required where a matter arises at a meeting;

 

a.       Which directly relates to Disclosable Pecuniary Interest (‘DPI’) as set out in Appendix B, Table 1 of the Code of Conduct, to disclose the interest, not participate in any discussion or vote and not to remain in room. Where members have a DPI or if the matter concerns an executive function and is being considered by a Cabinet Member with a DPI they must notify the Monitoring Officer and arrange for somebody else to deal with the matter.

 

b.       Which directly relates to the financial interest or well being of a Other Registrable Interest as set out in Appendix B, Table 2 of the Code of Conduct to disclose the interest and only speak on the matter if members of the public are also allowed to speak at the meeting but otherwise must not take part in any discussion  or vote on the matter and must not remain the room.

 

c.        Which directly relates to their financial interest or well-being  (and is not  DPI) or the financial well being of a relative or close associate, to declare the interest and members may only speak on the matter if members of the public are also allowed to speak. Otherwise, the member must not take part in discussion or vote on the matter and must leave the room.

 

d.       Which affects the financial well-being of the member, a relative or close associate or a body included under the Other Registrable Interests column in Table 2, to disclose the interest and apply the test set out at paragraph 9 of Appendix B before deciding whether they may remain in the meeting.

 

e.       Where Members have or a Cabinet Member has an Other Registerable Interest or Non Registerable Interest in a matter being considered in exercise of their executive function, they must notify the Monitoring Officer and arrange for somebody else to deal with it.

 

NB Any member needing clarification must contact monitoringofficer@northumberland.gov.uk.  Members are referred to the Code of Conduct which contains the matters above in full. Please refer to the guidance on disclosures at the rear of this agenda letter.

 

Minutes:

Councillor Dale sought advice as to whether she could take part as she had instructed Ward Hadaway in 2014 to take action against a senior politician. The Monitoring Officer confirmed that she could.

 

Councillor Grimshaw declared an interest as a director of NIC and NEHL and as a previous Director of Advance. The Monitoring Officer confirmed that Councillor Grimshaw could remain and take part.

3.

REPORT OF THE LEADER AND DEPUTY LEADER (PORTFOLIO HOLDER FOR FINANCE AND GOVERNANCE AND CORPORATE SERVICES) pdf icon PDF 113 KB

Report of Independent Governance Review  

 

To introduce Max Caller CBE to the Council, to present his report on a review of our Corporate Governance arrangements. Group Leaders have been consulted on the arrangements for the meeting and the proposed recommendations set out in the report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report of Independent Governance Review

 

The Leader introduced Max Caller CBE and his team to the Council, to present his report on a review of the Council’s Corporate Governance arrangements. Mr Caller was accompanied by Mr Jim Taylor and Mr Gordon Mitchell and they spoke briefly to members about their background and experience. Members had been provided with a copy of the report at 1.00 pm.

 

Mr Caller stressed that the report was an honest reflection of their views and had not been influenced by any member of the Council. There were issues about trust, confidence and working together and about how reports were handled. The Leader had asked for this review to be done when he had taken office and this should have been facilitated by the Chief Executive at that time. Instead the Leader and Deputy Leader had exercised delegated authority to bring it about and it was a pity that that had had to happen as it had affected member confidence in the process from the start.

 

Mr Caller and his team went through the report sections in some detail. The Business Chair then invited member questions which included:-

 

·       Councillor Dickinson felt there was a need to draw the line under this but members couldn’t pretend none of this had happened. The Council needed to look at the detail and put things right and build on the good work of the Executive Team. He asked what Mr Caller would recommend in terms of moving forward.

·       Councillor Kennedy felt that the current situation stemmed from 2017 and evolved into the control failures, staff turnover and expensive interims which existed now. He asked Mr Caller what he felt the Council’s chances were of getting things right.

·       Councillor Reid thanked the team for the report. Members now had to accept the advice which was being provided and tackle the issues. 

·       Councillor Morphet welcomed the review and looked forward to dealing with the matters in hand.

 

Mr Caller responded that 2017 had seemed the appropriate point to start from. The Council had chosen to appoint a Chief Executive on a part time basis. In the team’s experience and judgement, running a unitary authority of this size and complexity was a hard job. The Council should have thought harder at the time about the specification for the Chief Executive and what was to be done, and what effort was required to achieve that before making a permanent appointment. He acknowledged points from the Leader regarding current interims, but running the Council on these appointments was not the way to make progress. Permanent committed appointments was how local government worked. He urged members to see the report as an agenda to move forward and the LGA could support them on this.

 

·       Councillor Bridget asked Mr Caller if he believed it was the role of a backbench member to challenge the Administration and officers to ensure the interest of residents and the County were represented adequately.

·       Councillor J. Watson asked if the team were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

REPORT OF THE LEADER AND DEPUTY LEADER (PORTFOLIO HOLDER FOR FINANCE AND GOVERNANCE AND CORPORATE SERVICES) pdf icon PDF 107 KB

Statutory Report under Sections 114 and 114a

 

The Chief Finance Officer of the Council, appointed under S.151 of the Local Government Act 1972, issued a formal report to members of the Council on 23 May 2022. Legislation requires the County Council formally to consider the report within 21 days of it being sent to members. For a Council to receive such a report is very unusual and plainly a matter of great significance.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Statutory Report under Sections 114 and 114a

 

The Chief Finance Officer of the Council, appointed under S.151 of the Local Government Act 1972, issued a formal report to members of the Council on 23 May 2022. Legislation required the County Council formally to consider the report within 21 days of it being sent to members. For a Council to receive such a report was very unusual and plainly a matter of great significance.

 

The purpose of the report was to formally place the Chief Finance Officer’s report before the Council and to invite the Council to accept its contents and recommendations. The statutory report was attached at Appendix 1. A number of additional appendices had been circulated to members as follows:-

 

·       Report to Cabinet meeting of 7 June 2022 (App D)

·       Draft resolutions of Cabinet dated 7 June 2022 (App E)

·       Letter from Chief Executive to all members dated 6 June 2022 (App F)

·       Email from S151 Officer to External Auditors dated 8 November 2021 (App F)

·       Letter from Chief Executive to S151 Officer dated 13 May 2022 (App F)

·       Supplemental advice from Nick Giffin QC dated 7 June 2022 (App G)

 

Councillor Wearmouth made a brief statement about the matter. The serious failures in governance had to be addressed and any appropriate remedial action taken. He welcomed the report and thanked Mrs Willis and her team for their hard work and meeting the challenges the situation had presented. He was determined that the issues were addressed and steps taken to ensure it was never repeated. He also reported back on the outcome of Cabinet’s deliberations the previous day on the matter.

 

The S151 Officer detailed the key points of the report for members. She advised members that a further letter had been recently circulated to all members from the Chief Executive where she made a number of additional points. Nothing in this changed her view regarding the legal position. The limit of her responsibility was to inform members that in her opinion the Council had incurred unlawful expenditure. Members had been provided with a copy of the Chief Executive’s letter and supplementary advice from Nigel Giffin QC. In his view, there was nothing in the Chief Executive’s letter of 6 June which altered his view .

 

The S151 Officer responded to questions which had been raised with her regarding the Nick Grubeck advice and why she had changed her view on the legal position opinion. She was very clear to members that she had not in fact done this as he not provided a formal written opinion. He had been asked during a conference call if there were any other powers the Council could rely on to undertake this activity. He had outlined a potential argument which she had shared with the external auditor, who did not feel that it would pass muster. Therefore a full legal opinion had been commissioned from Nigel Giffin.

 

Regarding questions about how much money the international company had made, this was very difficult  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.