Minutes:
At its last meeting held on 14 January 2022, the Joint Appointments Committee (JAC) had asked officers to design a performance management process for joint Senior Officers for approval by the JAC and subsequent publication.
The JAC considered a report setting out a proposed performance management process for all joint Senior Officers, including directors and members of the joint management team, which had been taken from the JNC for Local Authority Chief Executives Conditions of Service Handbook.
The report had proposed that the objective setting process should be by agreement and the result should be to identify specific objectives which were relevant and challenging, but achievable.
The process should not become complex and, at all times, it would need to focus clearly on the following:
1) The role of the senior officer
2) What had been successfully achieved
3) What could be improved upon
4) Key issues anticipated over the next year
5) Any developmental needs identified
The responsibility for performance management of the Joint Chief Executive would lie with the Leaders of both councils and the Joint Chief Executive. The responsibility for performance management of other joint senior officers, including statutory officers, would lie with the respective line managers of those officers and with the officers themselves to participate positively in the process.
It was envisaged that formal performance agreement meetings should take place annually, supported by informal continuous review/monitoring meetings on a regular basis with the line manager (in the Joint Chief Executive’s case, with the Leaders of both councils) at which objectives would be reviewed for continuing relevance. The outcomes and actions from all meetings should be recorded in writing, agreed and securely stored by all parties with a copy of the formal performance agreement meeting record placed upon the joint senior officer’s personal file.
Councillors were reminded that, at its last meeting, the JAC had considered the extent to which individual performance objectives for joint senior officers, including the Joint Chief Executive, and the assessment of the postholder against those objectives, should be made available to councillors. The JAC had deferred the matter to enable further HR and legal advice to be sought and reported back to this meeting.
The report had included the further advice sought, together with an analysis of the risks involved. The advice had concluded that objectives and assessment of performance against objectives should remain confidential and not be made available to all councillors.
In debating this matter, the following points were raised:
· There should be a distinction between the objectives, of which councillors should be aware in the interests of effective transparency, and the assessment of performance against those objectives, which should appropriately remain confidential.
· There was a need to decouple the monitoring of performance of senior management, which should be confidential, and the monitoring and scrutiny of the specific objectives of the collaboration, which were already in the public domain.
· The Joint Chief Executive’s objectives were likely to be a combination of the corporate objectives of each council, the objectives of the collaboration arrangements, and personal objectives, for example, relating to training and development.
· The Joint Chief Executive would be held to account by the Leaders of both councils for the delivery of the corporate and collaboration objectives.
· It was accepted that the setting of the objectives in the context of the employer/ employee relationship and monitoring of performance against those objectives should be a private matter.
Having considered the matter, the JAC
RESOLVED: That the performance management process for joint senior officers, as set out in the report submitted to the Joint Appointments Committee, be approved.
Reason:
To ensure that the performance management of joint senior officers is set in the context of both councils’ strategic objectives, priorities, and targets, generally expressed in the community and within corporate plans and strategies.
The meeting finished at 9.33am
Supporting documents: