Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence received.

The Chair will consider the admission of any of any late items of urgent business. (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with at items  2 & 19 below).

There were no items of urgent business to be considered.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member's judgment of the public interest and if this interest affects their financial position or the financial position of a person or body as described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct and/or if it relates to the determining of any approval, consent, licence, permission or registration in relation to them or any person or body described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct.

 Cllr Jenks declared a personal interest by virtue of his pension membership of Cooperscroft and was a volunteer at the Citizens Advice B , admitted bodies of the  Council’s Pension scheme.   There were further  personal declaration of interest from Councillors Khan, Whyte   as members of the Council’s pension scheme.

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, Paragraph 29  of the Council’s Constitution.

 There were no deputations, petitions or public questions put forward.

To consider and approve the following minutes:

General Purposes Committee 29 March 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 18 April 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 04 May 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 19 May 2011

Audit Committee 19^th April 2011

Pensions Committee 12^th April 2011

Remuneration Committee 14 April 2011

The minutes of the following meetings were agreed as accurate records of the meeting:

General Purposes Committee 29 March 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 18 April 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 04 May 2011

Audit Committee 19^th April 2011

Pensions Committee 12^th April 2011

Remuneration Committee 14 April 2011

 In relation  to minutes of the General Purposes committee held on the 19^th May , they were agreed subject to the replacement of the  word  “cleansing”  with “ground maintenance”  in  resolution v, GPCO 153.

To note the terms of reference for the Corporate Committee, agreed at full Council on the 23 May 2011  and note the Protocols for how the Committee will operate.

This committee received its  terms of reference which were agreed at Full Council on the 23 May 2011. It was noted that there was a minor amendment required to the terms of reference.  This  is  on  page 6  section D the term “deferred member”,   was included in error in the paper which went to Council on the 23 May  ,  This required replacement with  the term  “employee representative” as set out in the enclosed report . This amendment would proceed full Council for amendment in July as part of a recommendation from the Constitution Working Group.

In relation to  section f) of the terms of reference which indicated that amendments to the corporate committee’s protocols required the agreement of the political groups of the council, It was agreed that consultation on any changes must  also  include the corporate committee itself. Further agreed  that this be additional action be reflected in the terms of reference.

To report the following in respect of the quarter to 31st March 2011:

•           Investment asset allocation and strategy

•           Investment performance

•           Responsible investment activity

•           Budget management

•           Late payment of contributions

 In keeping with the committee’s statutory responsibilities, the committee received an update on the performance of the pension fund and review of the investment strategy.  This entailed an update on the: investment asset allocation and strategy, investment performance, responsible investment activity, budget management and, late payment of contributions. The committee were advised that half of the corporate bonds along with UK Gilts had been moved out of the fund and index linked gilts now invested in. This was in line with the requirements of the revised investment strategy previously agreed by the Pensions committee. The next stage in this revised strategy would involve the recruitment of passive fund managers with an advertisement to be placed in the Official Journal of the European Union. The interview process was expected to commence in early September with an appointment decision expected to be put forward to the Corporate Committee at the ordinary meeting on September the 27^th 2011.   The committee noted that investment performance in the quarter was on target with out performance in bonds, property and private equity outweighing underperformance in equities.  The committee further leaned that the budget was overspent by £8.2m due to lower dividend income than anticipated, higher lump sums due to additional early retirements and higher than average transfer values paid. TLC was the only employer making late contributions despite monthly reminders of the statutory timescales.

Comment was made on the value of the financial service comments in the report and whether these provided the committee with meaningful information.  The committee was advised that this information was to be regarded in the context of the change in investment strategy which was still quite recent and had involved a key shift of discontinuing with Active fund managers who were paid to select investments that they believed would perform better than the whole market but where there was found to be excess returns in some areas but underperformance in others.  The decision now was to enlist passive fund managers that will hold investments in an index. They cannot select investments that perform better than average but the pension fund can expect to get same proportion index rate of return in investments as indicated by the FTSE.  It was further clarified to the committee that this was one part of the pension fund structure which had been examined and changes made to the remaining part of the pensions fund structure still needed to be addressed.   The chair recommended re- establishing the pensions working group which had consisted of 3 non voting members of the corporate committee, a Labour and Liberal Democrat member of the pensions group to take this work forward.  

In regards to section 15 of the report which set out the performance of the individual categories of investments compiling the pension fund, request was made to specify the benchmark/index information the performance was related to provide a better understanding of under or over performance. It was agreed to provide this information in future reports.

Understanding was sought why  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The committee to consider an updated draft of the Pension Fund Governance Compliance Statement in compliance with the Local Government Pension Scheme (Administration) Regulations 2008 and to consider the appointment of an independent adviser to the Committee in relation to Pension Fund matters.

The committee were asked to consider an updated draft of the Pension Fund Governance compliance statement  this was in compliance with the Local Government pension scheme (Administration Regulations 2008). The compliance statement was attached at appendix one and provided information to the Committee on how the council were compliant with the statement . The committee were further asked to consider  the appointment of an independent adviser to the committee in relation to Pension fund matters.

Debate ensued  on the appointment of an independent  advisor to the committee with favourable  comments on the previous independent  advisors work for the council .  His  support was felt to be essential in the revision of the strategy   and attendance at pension meetings felt to be  value for money compared to the fees that were now being put forward for  a new appointment. The committee asked whether the resignation  was confirmed and if there was any opportunity to speak to the previous advisor about  remaining in post. The Lead Finance officer adviser that confirmation had been received from the independent advisor of his resignation. He had communicated that the reason for his resignation was due to other work commitments held  and the feeling that his work with the council had come to a natural end.   However the Lead Finance officer offered to  speak with him informally   and advise him of the committee’s high regard for his work and ascertain the possibility of him continuing in this role. Notwithstanding this, it was agreed that a letter  thanks  should be sent to  him. Going forward with the appointment, it was suggested that there was need to explore the cost of an independent advisor against the duties that  he/she would be expected to fur fill given the cost of the previous advisor against the cost of recruiting a  new advisor.

 There was a comment  about the full advice from the Local Government pension scheme (Administration Regulations 2008) not being appended to the report. Although,  the relevant sections of this advice were  included in  Appendix 1of the attached report, it was agreed that the full documentation from which this advice was extracted would be provided to interested committee members.

Following comments from the non voting representatives of  pensioners, employees and admitted bodies  on the essential contributions of the independent advisor in revising the investment strategy  and given that there was more work to be done on the remaining part of the pensions structure. the  chair concluded that  there was a need to continue with the Pensions member and officer working group .  Nominations for membership of this group would be sought from the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip .The Corporate committee would task this group would it would provide reports back to  the committee on its work  as before.

It was agreed that recommendations 4.2 and 4.3  regarding the appointment of the independent advisor and the engagement with Crispin Derby to support this appointment process be subject to discussions with the chair.

RESOLVED

1. That the revised Governance Compliance Statement be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Committee  to consider options for the deficit recovery period for new Academies joining the Pension Fund as separate employers.Report to follow

The report explained to members how the new school academies were allowed to join the fund as separate employers and as the Council currently has a pension fund deficit, the element of the deficit relating to the school staff would transfer to the academy.  The report put forward options with legal advice for the committee to consider on the conditions, length and calculation of the deficit recovery period for new Academies joining the Pension Fund as separate employers.

 In relation to section 9.1 of the report which indicated a deficit of £665,000 would transfer to Alexandra Park Academy, it was understood that this was limited to non teaching staff.

Understanding was sought on what the outcome would be for the pension fund should an Academy be served notice, ceasing to become financially viable and unable to repay their creditors. In this event, would it be prudent to have an agreement in place with academies for a pension liability?  . The committee learned that, in the eventuality that an Academy folded, the pupils with staff would be transferred to other schools in the borough which were part of the pension scheme. Therefore the assumption was that the deficit would transfer with the employee.  To further plan for this unique eventuality, clarification was sought on whether it would be advisable to consider and consult on a deficit recovery period which was related to the academy funding guarantee period of 7 years. The committee were advice that this would have an impact on the previous agreement made with Grieg City academy in which a 20 year deficit recovery period had already been agreed. The committee also noted that out of 15 other boroughs, 12 boroughs were inclined to consult on a 20 year deficit recovery period.

 RESOLVED

1. It be noted that the deficit recovery period for new academies of 20 years is set out in the Funding strategy.

2. That the calculation of deficits transferring to academies is done by applying the Council’s funding level at the point of transfer.

3. That a consultation be undertaken with a view to amending the Funding strategy statement to reflect the possibility of an academy being served notice and to enable assessments of employer covenant to be reflected in deficit recovery periods.

To report to the Committee the outcomes of the annual grant work by Grant Thornton and to obtain approval for the action plan resulting from the report of the auditors.

The committee received a report from Grant Thornton, the Council’s appointed external auditors, on its Grant certification work .Each year the council is required to obtain certification for a number of its external grant claims. This is part of the process for the council continuing to receive subsidy for its benefit claims from DWP. In order for this certification to be provided it involves investigation, analysis and verification of benefit claims processed, by the councils appointed auditors .The committee were now asked to consider these findings which provided detail of the council’s overall performance in relation to grant claims.

Paul Dossett, of Grant Thornton, explained that Housing and Council Tax benefit claims is far the most complex in local government. The DWP will usually take a robust view about errors identified during the audit process. They further use an extrapolation process for assessing the overall impact of errors that is reflective of their requirements, rather than the overall judgement used by accountants and auditors in considering the accuracy of numbers produced by Councils. There is no concept of materiality in assessing errors under the audit regime which governed Grant Thornton’s work on this claim.   Following on from the certification work completed in 2008/09 and the issues identified, account was given in the 2009/10 certification work to measures taken by the Council to remedy the level of errors in benefit claims. Further work continued in this area and a better performance was expected for the 2010/11.

Concern was expressed at the formula of the report by Grant Thornton as key information was not provided at the start but in the appendices, such as the 50k overspends in budget allocated to external audit work, the ratio of cases that contained errors.  There further needed to be  at the fore front information on the key risks to the council as result of the audit findings i.e. was there a risk to subsidy  and what was the level of risk .  The director of Corporate Resources explained that there were certain thresholds that were met for subsidy payments to councils and the council would still continue to receive a subsidy for claims of over 1.3million.  The Director of Corporate Resources agreed to provide members of the committee with a short written explanation of the thresholds for subsidy   outside of the meeting. In terms of the 2009/10 year and the error rate in claims the council was £3000 below the threshold number and were close to the tipping point. However this data was still subject to DWP extrapolation.

Other key information important to members was the cost of the remedial action being undertaken by officer to limit benefit claim errors and whether this was a higher cost then the benefit to be accrued by the council. The chair of the committee asked that this cost be kept under review and reported back to the committee in the returning report in 3 months time.

 Reference was made to paragraph 1.8 and understanding sought of the scale  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

To consider Grant Thornton’s Audit Progress report for June 2011.

Paul Dossett, of Grant Thornton introduced their audit progress report for June 2011. This updated the committee of the work of the external auditors and the areas which they would be examining. These were the Accounts Audit, value for money work on the arrangements in place for financial resilience, and a review of the Council’s progress with introducing Personal Budgets to Adult Social Care users. These findings would be reported back to committee at the September 27^th meeting. Also to be reported back, as part of the ISA260 report were , the  summaries of the follow up work on :the review of partnership working , workforce management, and review of governance arrangements.  Further details of the work on Grant claim certification were also included for information.

Understanding was sought on how the areas for external examination were chosen and whether there was an opportunity to examine the Children and Young People’s service budget which was the subject of overspending in the previous financial year.  The committee noted that  the Councils risk register and risk assessment would  be considered as part of deciding the audit areas financial resilience encompasses a wide area and ,  would incorporate issues around high spend budgets. The report on financial resilience to committee in September would also  provide the external auditors views on the Council’s progress with the medium term budget which Children and Young People would feature in .  In addition internal audit were completing an audit exercise to verify the quarter one financial positions of directorates to provide assurance or raise concerns on whether the budget positions being reflected were accurate. There was also a separate internal audit exercise examining Council expenditure on procurement , a usually high spend area for Children’ s services, and any further issues or advice on better practices could be picked up in this audit as well.

An Annual audit plan had been agreed by the Audit Committee at the start of the financial year in April and would be circulated to corporate committee members for information.

The dispute among NHS and Charities commission on the consolidation of NHS charities into group accounts of an NHS body was highlighted and understanding sought on  how this action of consolidation set out in the Audit Accounts memorandum could be taken forward. The committee were advised by Paul Dossett that CIPFA had yet to resolve its final position on this matter and in turn provide guidance on how relevant charities are to be consolidated into local authority accounts .Therefore it was advisable to await this information, expected in September, before any action was taken.

RESOLVED

That the Audit Progress report be noted.

To inform the Corporate Committee of the requirements of the statutory Annual Governance Statement (AGS) and provide a draft statement relating to 2010/11 for review and approval.

The committee considered  the draft Annual Governance statement which it was responsible for approving  as part of its terms of reference. The council was required to produce an Annual Governance statement for publication with the Council’s annual  accounts. This document comments on the Council’s governance framework as a whole .   It was noted that Corporate Governance brings together an underlying set of legislative requirements , governance principles and management processes. The comments of the committee were required   on  the draft  and would be incorporated into the final report to the committee in September along with the accounts.

The Audit committee  previous discussion on the use of consultants and the  compliance with contract standing orders was referred to and clarification sought on why this was not further expanded on in the statement. In response it was noted that there was reference to  the 50 system reviews undertaken by the council and of which  had received limited assurance . A further  follow up report on the use of consultants with information on a further audit in this area would be the subject of a report to this committee in July .  The committee noted that the determination of a  significant issue to be highlighted in the AGS  would be  based on the  materiality of spend  and impact on the council however given the weighting that Grant Thornton had provided to the issues around the process to recruiting and retaining consultants it was accepted that this was also  a matter of judgement  on what issues could be viewed as significant.

 It was recommended that the  final draft highlight  the changes, deletions and  additions to the statement since the previous year.  It was agreed that the comments pertaining to limited assurance reports in section 4.9 be expanded and further information be included on the issues arising  from the Council’s use of consultants.

RESOLVED

1. That subject to  the above additions the draft Annual Governance Statement be approved.

2. That the timescale and processes for approval of the draft Annual Governance Statement be noted

The report will inform members of the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the system of internal control and risk management operating throughout  2010/11 and present a summary of the audit work undertaken to formulate the opinion, including reliance placed on work by other bodies. The report also fulfils the requirements of the Committee’s terms of reference.

As part of the committee’s terms of reference, they were responsible for considering the annual internal report. This report informed the members of the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the system of internal control and risk management operating throughout 2010/11 and presented a summary of the audit work undertaken to formulate the opinion, including reliance placed on work by other bodies. The committee were further asked to note that the 2006 CIPFA Code of Practice requires the head of Audit and Risk management to report on in order to satisfy the requirements of the CIPFA Code of Practice which were set out in paragraph 15.2 of the report. Appendix A contained the annual report which provided a summary of the internal audit work completed by the council for the last financial year.  The committee were advised that the Head of Audit and Risk management had unrestricted access to all systems, files, and processes to carry out internal audit duties.

The Chair asked the committee to put forward their comments:

Clarification was sought on the methods used for independent assurance on internal controls.  This was done in a combination of ways; the key risks of the council were reported on a quarterly basis to the corporate committee. In terms of the internal reports the individual directors provided a self assessment on their own internal governance control arrangements.   There are further assurances provided by internal audit, external audit and the perspective of other boroughs were also sought when required.

The purpose of the internal audit team was not to specifically audit departments as a whole but investigate and audit systems and processes.  A list could be provided of the areas audited to interested councillors, to enable them to cross reference the areas of concerns.

 In relation to paragraph 3.3 which outlined the work of the housing benefit team on recovering the of fraudulent over payments in housing benefit, understanding was sought on the approach taken to benefit recovery. As assumed by the committee the team would look at the cases where there was good opportunity for the recovery of funds. The team were also able to get   court judgements on holding the assets of fraudulent applicants.

RESOLVED

That the content of the annual audit report and assurance statement for 2010/11 be noted.

The committee will receive information in accordance with the CIPFA Treasury Management Code of Practice and the Prudential Code on the following matters:

·        details of capital financing, borrowing, debt rescheduling and investment transactions in 2010/11;

·        an assessment of the risk implications of treasury decisions and transactions;

·        details of the outturn position on treasury management transactions in 2010/11;

·        Compliance with treasury limits and Prudential Indicators.

The report will further  update members on treasury management activity during the first quarter of 2011/12.

In line with the committee’s terms of reference they received a report on the treasury management activity and performance in 2010/11. They further  received an update on the Treasury management activity for the first financial quarter of the 2011/12 year.  The  council were continuing with the emphasis  of internal borrowing as opposed to external borrowing. The  investment balances were considerably invested in Money Markey accounts and the committee learned that  the council had received £11m back from previously invested Icelandic deposits. In  April 2011 the  Icelandic District court ruled that Local Authority deposits  in Landsbanki and Gltnir had priority  status but  other creditors had challenged this decision. Therefore a Icelandic supreme court hearing was expected in 2011 which would determine the expected rate of recovery for these remaining deposits.

Further key information noted by the committee were that Clydesdale  bank had been suspended from the Council’s lending list following  Moody’s review of its long term rating. There had been one breach of the lending   limits agreed by the council in February 2011. This was a single day following which procedures had been reviewed to ensure this did not happen again.

Comments  on the report were put forward by the committee:

What the safeguards in place to ensure that the breach did not happen again? The committee were given assurance  that a number of measures were in place to detect when money markets  were at low levels  meaning action was required.  There was an alert system in place which managers had access to advising the amounts for investment  in and the level of management that was required to agree these.   The committee were aware that there were,  apart from the ratings available from credit rating agencies, other checks in place to ascertain the credit worthiness of  banks and financial organisations, and asked how these checks had been put to recent  use. It was noted that withdrawal of Clydesdale bank and Santander UK  from the councils lending list had arisen  from  determining creditworthiness as a whole and not relying solely on the credit rating agencies advice.

 In response to questions on the  cost of borrowing from the PWB , it was noted that this was at a  good rate of  35per £1000k borrowed . The cost of borrowing from another local authority was   less than £100, which was paid for a broker fees.

In response to the suggestion that cash flow forecasts could be included in the quarterly financial report considered by cabinet, the lead finance officer advised that  this information could be mentioned in the report to cabinet but it was important to note that a lot of issues impacted on these forecasts.

Information was sought on the likely timescales for  returning back to the council the total funds invested with Icelandic  banks.  In response it was noted that the exact time lines  could not  be predicted  but it was likely to be a matter of years.  In was important to note that the Heritable position would not be affected by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

The Committee will be asked  to agree to the proposed restructuring of the Planning Regeneration and Economy Service (PRE) following formal consultation with staff and their Trade Unions. Report to follow

The Assistant Director of Planning, Regeneration, and Economy introduced the report which set out the restructuring of his service. A previous report   with the principle of the restructure had been agreed by the General Purposes committee in October 2010.  Following consultation and further additional consideration been given to  the  Rethinking Haringey report ,restructure of urban environment , and work on shared economy service with Waltham forest(the subject of a separate report)   there would be a reduction of 38 posts. This would be through a deletion of 17 vacant posts, 12 posts through voluntary redundancy, leaving a final reduction of 9 posts. The PRE structure would consist of the following services:

• Building control
• Carbon Management and Sustainability service
• Development Management and Planning Enforcement
• Shared Economic service with Waltham Forest
• Business development and business support.

The service would take on planning enforcement and there would not be a reduction to posts in this related area.  It was envisaged that there would be a proactive approach to planning enforcement   taken by the planning part of the service with this seeing Development management and planning enforcement reintegrated. There would be 9 planning officers allocated to dealing with planning applications and 3 with enforcements. However, as part of the  new generic way of working for the service all the planning  officers would be expected to deal with applications, enforcement and the tasks that would accompany these such as appeals, letters, public consultation, guidance to applicants and presentations to committees. The planning officers would  work across  the geographical areas of the council to  help build up a wide know ledge of areas  but they would  also in future  be given responsibility for certain areas of the borough  as part of the emerging proposals for Area Committees and Area Forums.

Some members of the committee which had not been on the membership of the General Purposes Committee, when an earlier report on this restructure had been considered, sought an understanding of how the proposals for the restructure of the service had been developed and further pointed to the number of responses in the consultation to the restructure which did not correlate to any real change to the restructure. In answer to these questions, the assistant director for planning, regeneration and economy explained that  following the initial report to Committee in October the service had further been required to seek further savings as part of the Urban Environment restructure, they had looked at having a more efficient base for the service and including Local Development Framework .It had also been necessary to  examine the staff that were currently in disparate teams before proposals could be finalised and consulted on. Previous to this there had been discussion with all the teams on the planned restructure of the service dating back 2 years.  This had helped ensure that the final restructure proposals were acceptable to staff.  Most of the queries received from the consultation were noted to be questions about the restructure and not disagreement with it. These were answered  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

The report will seek approval to establish the new shared Economic Development Service for Haringey and Waltham Forest following the formal consultation with staff and their Trades Unions.

Following an earlier report to the General Purposes committee on  the principles of a shared economic service with Waltham Forest Council a further final report was put forward to the Corporate Committee to consider. The Assistant Director for Planning Regeneration and economy service advised the committee of an addition to recommendation 4.1  . This was that the proposals for the ring fenced recruitment of staff be agreed  apart from the Head of Economic Development  which was an imminent matter for resolution between the two boroughs.

In reference to the Memorandum of Understanding which was being worked on by the  two boroughs and would set out the approach to shared services between them , information was sought by the committee on how this was envisaged to work in practice.   These were similar  issues raised at the  meeting of the General Purposes Committee  in March and clarification was further  sought on:

How issues of location would be resolved

How the savings allocations would be shared

How will the agreement ensure that an equal service is provided to both boroughs – following each boroughs equal economic need for the service.

Apart from the staffing costs, how would the additional asset costs be shared.

 Employment processes, for example who will be employed  by which borough and what will the reporting lines be?

In response to the latter point, following the  council initiatives on smart working there was little asset cost associated with staff allocation. In response to the remaining points these could be  answered in the Chief Executives report to the committee on shared services. This report should also include further details of the costs of the service and provide an overall  understanding of  how  shared services were envisaged to operate.  The committee were advised that the would be a joint officer board  that would be made up of the Assistant Director of Planning, Regeneration and Economy and his equivalent  in Waltham Forest  that would meet and to discuss and take forward on the Shared economic projects and policy . They would report to a joint HSP  Enterprise board.   

In response to question  on why this services taken forward as a shared service, it was noted that this was a policy decision  taken by the Cabinet in February and the Corporate committee were now being asked as the appropriate non Executive committee to make the staffing decision on this policy decision.

RESOLVED

That a further report which responds to the above mentioned points be considered at the Special Corporate Committee planned for the 3^rd week in May.

The  following items  were subject of a motion to exclude the press and public from the meeting as they contained exempt information as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government 1972; namely information likely to reveal the identity of an individual, and information relating to any individual.

None received

To consider the Exempt  minutes of the following  meetings

Special Committee   29 March 2011

Special Committee   04 April 2011

Special Committee  19 April 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 19^th May 2011

Pensions Committee 12 April 2011

Council and Employee Joint Consultative Committee 01 Feb 2011 &31 March 2011.

Remuneration 14 April 2011

Minutes of Staff Disciplinary Appeals and Grievance Hearings

7 April 2011

03 May 2011

09 May 2011

The committee received the  Exempt  minutes of the following  meetings

Special Committee   29 March 2011

Special Committee   04 April 2011

Special Committee  19 April 2011

Special General Purposes Committee 19^th May 2011

Pensions Committee 12 April 2011

Council and Employee Joint Consultative Committee 01 Feb 2011 &31 March 2011.

Remuneration 14 April 2011

Minutes of Staff Disciplinary Appeals and Grievance Hearings

7 April 2011

03 May 2011

09 May 2011

The committee agreed that  unless  there is a specific issues which requires the committee’s attention the minutes of the Special committees, CEJCC  and disciplinary hearings do not require to be received by the Corporate committee.  This was because the decisions  relating to senior staffing recruitment or dismissal of staff have already been made and the committee does  not have the power to overturn them . It was noted that the minutes of the public part of the meetings are published on the website following approval by the chair . The minutes of the Audit , General Purposes committee , Remuneration  and Pensions committee will no longer require approval as these committees have been concluded.

The Committee to consider any new items of exempt urgent business.