Agenda and draft minutes

It was proposed, and seconded, that Councillor Mark Crane be elected as Chair for this meeting.

RESOLVED:

To appoint Councillor Mark Crane as Chair for this meeting.

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor R Musgrave.

A copy of the Register of Interest for each Selby District Councillor is available for inspection at www.selby.gov.uk.

Councillors should declare to the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest in any item of business on this agenda which is not already entered in their Register of Interests.

Councillors should leave the meeting and take no part in the consideration, discussion or vote on any matter in which they have a disclosable pecuniary interest.

Councillors should also declare any other interests.  Having made the declaration, provided the other interest is not a disclosable pecuniary interest, the Councillor may stay in the meeting, speak and vote on that item of business.

If in doubt, Councillors are advised to seek advice from the Monitoring Officer.

There were no disclosures of interest.

The Committee are asked to consider report EC/22/1 which seeks approval to enter into a redundancy settlement agreement with Janet Waggott, the Council’s Head of Paid Service and Chief Executive Officer (“HoPS”), in the context of Selby District Council being abolished as a result of local government reorganisation and the post of HoPS ceasing to exist as at 1 April 2023.

The Committee considered report EC/22/1 which sought approval to enter into a redundancy settlement agreement with Janet Waggott, the Council’s Head of Paid Service and Chief Executive Officer (“HoPS”) in the context of Selby District Council (SDC) being abolished as a result of Local Government Re-organisation (LGR) and the post of HoPS ceasing to exist as of 1 April 2023.  The Committee further considered a recommendation that the Council delegate authority to the Deputy Monitoring Officer to arrange for the Council to enter into a settlement agreement with the HoPS and North Yorkshire County Council on the terms set out in paragraph 6.5 of the report.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer explained that any recommendations made by the Committee were part of a three-stage process and would, in the first instance, be subject to a review by one of the Council’s Independent Persons.  Following that review a further report would then be presented to full Council on the 13 December; finally, Council would be invited to endorse and approve said recommendations.

Members heard that as a result of the North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022 (“SCO”), the existing seven district areas within North Yorkshire were to be abolished as local government areas, therefore from 1 April 2023 North Yorkshire would be administered by one single unitary council, the North Yorkshire Council (NYC).

It was confirmed that the SCO was being implemented in accordance with the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (the “2007 Act”) and the guidance and regulations contained therein applied; to include The Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”)

The Committee noted that, as set out in the ERA, redundancy arose in one of three scenarios, the scenario relevant to this matter was one of diminished requirement of the business for employees to do work of a particular kind.  It was further noted that whether a post was or should be declared redundant, was a matter for SDC as the relevant employer to seek to agree or implement. Therefore, dismissal of the HoPS for redundancy was specifically a matter for full Council to determine.

In relation to the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations (TUPE), which applied to the process of LGR, the intention was that staff who were subject to public sector transfers did so on terms that were no less favourable than those they enjoyed immediately prior to the transfer. Therefore, the HoPS of predecessor councils would in principle be subject to the application of TUPE and entitled to transfer to NYC on their existing terms and condition.

It was brought to Members attention that there had been a significant difference of opinion between North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) and the seven district Councils regarding the application of TUPE, with NYCC being of the opinion that TUPE did not apply to HoPS in this instance.  The seven district Councils and their Monitoring Officers, advised by specialist employment lawyers, disagreed with this assessment.  NYCC had recently altered its position somewhat but continued to maintain that the law was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.