Agenda item

(Assistant to the Chief Executive) To consider the attached report (AGC-005-2013/14).

The Assistant to the Chief Executive presented a report, which arose from a request by the Council at its meeting on 23 April 2013, for this Committee to conduct a process review concerning the approval of Officer delegation.

The Assistant to the Chief Executive stated that the current process involved an annual review of Officer delegations. Directorates were invited to submit proposals for revisions to existing delegations to an Officer Working Group, chaired by the Assistant to the Chief Executive. Generally, the number of such proposals was small each year. These proposals were then submitted to the Constitution & Member Services (CMS) Scrutiny Panel for consideration. Some proposals were declined, but the majority went forward for final approval by either the Council or the Leader, after which the Constitution was updated accordingly. Delegation of non-executive functions was submitted for approval at the Annual Council meeting, whilst the delegation of executive functions was approved by the Leader and reported to the Council for information purposes. In a small number of cases, authority could be directly delegated to Officers by either the Council, Cabinet or individual Portfolio Holders on certain matters, usually as part of a wider decision.

The Assistant to the Chief Executive stated that the current system relied on exception reporting arrangements, and there was a perceived lack of Member involvement. One option was to review all delegations on an annual basis, not just via exception reports, by the CMS Scrutiny Panel. Another option was to set up a new Constitution Panel to review Officer delegations and report directly to the Council or Leader (the current system had the CMS Scrutiny Panel reporting to the main Overview & Scrutiny Committee first). The Committee was invited to report back to the Council with its views on the matter.

The Chairman commented that the CMS Scrutiny Panel only saw a list of the proposed changes; the full list of delegations was usually passed by the Council without debate. There were several hundred delegations in operation at the current time, and the Chairman accepted that they could not all be reviewed at the same time, but proposed that a three-year rolling programme to review all Officer delegations by Members, including the delegation of executive functions as well, be recommended to the Council.

In response to questions from the Committee, the Assistant to the Chief Executive clarified that some of the Officer delegations were periodically agreed by the Cabinet and there was no issue with these as the majority were related to a particular portfolio. Generally, it was felt that Members liked the current system of exception reporting. The Chief Executive added that all Officer delegations had been approved by Members at some point, and that Officers were probably best placed to recommend the required delegations before final approval by Members.

The Committee felt that there was a danger of creating extra work to review all the existing Officer delegations, as most of these would have been concerned with routine business functions to enable the Council to operate efficiently. It was also felt that the current system was favoured by Members and the Executive Officers were the most appropriate people to review the suggested changes to Officer delegations each year. It was suggested that consideration should be given to the Chief Executive chairing the Officer Review body, and that Cabinet Members should review the current delegations in operation for their Portfolios, but that the status quo should be retained with the current process recommended to the Council for continuation.

Resolved:

(1)        That the retention of the current process for reviewing the delegation of authority to Officers be recommended to the Council.