Committee for the Appointment of a Chief Executive
Recommendations:
(1) To note that the Council on 27 March 2012-04-17 passed the following resolution:
“That, in order to provide continuity throughout the recruitment process and, subject to the results of the May District Council elections, the Council agrees that the current Chairman, Vice Chairman and members of the Committee be reappointed at the Annual Council meeting.”;
(2) To review the position regarding membership of this Committee in the light of the results of the elections; and
(3) To consider whether to re-appoint a member to replace Councillor Murray.
1. (Assistant to the Chief Executive) The process for recruiting a Chief Executive is now underway and is aimed at the council on 18.6.12 appointing the preferred candidate of the Committee which will be conducting the “longlisting”, “shortlisting” and selection processes. The Panel will appreciate that the programme for this appointment spans the Annual Council meeting period when the Committee is due for re-appointment.
2. It has already been reported that the Council’s recruitment consultants have recommended that there should be continuity of membership throughout the process subject to the election results. Four members of the Panel are due for re-election and the results will be reported at the meeting. This Committee is not based on pro rata and the Council has already decided that if 4 members are re-elected, they should continue to form the Committee with the same Chairman and Vice Chairman.
3. The present members are as follows:
Chairman: Councillor Jon Whitehouse
Vice Chairman: Councillor C. Pond
Members: A. Grigg, J. Philip, M. McEwen, S. Murray, L. Wagland
4. The Employment Procedure Rules require that this Committee should comprise not less than 5 members and must be drawn from all political groups and include at least one member of the Executive. At present there are 4 Conservatives, 1 each from the Liberal Democrats and Loughton Resident Association, plus 1 Independent. The waiving of pro rata was approved by the Council when the committee was first appointed. As required by the legislation, no member voted against the membership, the latter not being in accordance with pro rata.
4 A number of possible scenarios arise from the elections and these are summarised below:
Scenario 1 - all members re-elected/no change in pro rata.
5. Appointments could be made on the same basis as previously with the relevant group nominating. If one of the existing members did not wish/could not continue, then this would be fairly easy to handle by nominations.
Scenario 2 - all members re-elected/change in pro rata.
6. In normal circumstances, it would be necessary to appoint on the basis of the new entitlements but as the pro rata has been set aside, the current membership could continue unless someone votes against the relevant resolution. Abstentions would not affect the validity of the resolution. If no one voted against, groups could nominate within their entitlements as at present.
7. If someone did vote against, this would necessitate a proposition that pro rata be ... view the full agenda text for item 9.