Agenda and minutes

The Committee noted that Councillor Mrs Green was substituting for Councillor Wade.

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meetings of the Committee held on 22 June 2022.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 22 June 2022 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Arising on minute 8, Councillor Heydon asked to be recorded as having an affected interest in relation to the Joint Venture which had been mentioned whilst discussing the Annual Governance Statement.

There were no urgent items of business.

To set out the provisions and effect of recently published Statutory guidance on the making and disclosure of Special Severance Payments by local authorities in England

The Committee considered a report setting out the provisions and effect of recently published statutory guidance on the making and disclosure of special severance payments by local authorities in England.  It was noted that the guidance upon which the recommendations were based set out the Government’s view that special severance payments did not usually represent value for money and should only be considered in exceptional circumstances.  It reflected the statutory best value regime under the Local Government Act 1999 which required the Authority to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions were exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The Committee was reminded that special severance payments were additional, discretionary sums paid on top of statutory and contractual redundancy or severance terms, including payments reached under a settlement agreement to discontinue legal proceedings without admission of fault and pension strain payments arising from employer discretions to enhance standard pension benefits and PILON payments.  There may be exceptional circumstances where the existing statutory or contractual entitlements were insufficient to facilitate an exit, including when settling disputes but again only after receiving appropriate professional advice enabling a conclusion that a special severance payment was a good use of public money and also where there was appropriate evidence that alternative routes of settling disputes had been considered and/or exhausted.  In view of this, the Council needed to ensure that, in the exceptional circumstances where it was decided that a special severance payment should be paid, the payment arrangements should be fair, lawful and provide value for money for the taxpayer in accordance with the statutory guidance.

The guidance provided an expected approval process for special severance payments where any payment of £100,000 or more must be approved by full council, payments of £20,000 and above but below £100,000 to be personally approved and signed off by the Head of Paid Service with a clear record of the Leader’s approval and payments below £20,000 to be approved according to the authority’s scheme of delegation.

In response to questions, the Committee was advised that:

·       There were a handful of special severance payments every year.

·       The guidance, although similar to previous CIPFA guidance, was new from the Government.

·       The name of a person the subject of such an agreement would not normally be disclosed.

·       If a freedom of information request about an agreement were to be received, the Council would normally rely upon the confidentiality clause, although the confidentiality could lapse over time as there was no absolute confidentiality.

·       If a person who had entered into a non-disclosure agreement, then disclosed the details outside their immediate family, the Council could bring a claim for breach of contract, but it would be difficult to reclaim any money paid to that person.

·       The proposed approval bandings reflected those set out in the guidance

·       The expectation was that these payments should be the exception rather than the rule, to be applied when the normal statutory payments were insufficient to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.