ARB(06) Report. BWRDD ADFER YNYS MON @ ANGLESEY RECOVERY BOARD ‘Sixth Meeting, April 22" 2010 Social Jt al Ge 1. The direction to the Isle of Anglesey County Council of August 12" 2009 included the establishment of a Recovery Board to advise you on the progress that the Council makes towards addressing the serious corporate weakness identified by the Auditor General for Wales. As part of that, our terms of reference require us to provide you with a report after each meeting. 2. The Anglesey Recovery Board met for the sixth meeting on Thursday 22 April in Anglesey. This is our sixth report to you. 3. During the fourth meeting it was agreed that the Board would move from ‘evidence-gathering and into monitoring and analysis of progress made (or not made) by the Council towards recovery. Therefore the sixth meeting of the Recovery Board continued to focus on how the Council is responding to the recommendations and actions for recovery you presented to them during a ‘special meeting of the full Council on Wednesday 24” February 2010. Interim Managing Director's Report 4. ‘The Board was joined by the Counci's interim Managing Director, Mr David Bowles. Mr Bowles reported on progress made by the Council and whilst substantial progress has been made in a number of areas in a short period of time, this has largely been through Mr Bowles adopting a “directive” leadership style and working almost exclusively through the § Group Leaders. Mr Bowles recognises that whilst this style has achieved pace it is not an appropriate way of building sustainability and therefore acknowledges itis now time to change his approach to become more engaging, in particular, with Members and Officers. The Board agreed both that this directive ‘approach was appropriate in the early stages of recovery, and that a move to broader engagement was now needed. 5. Mr Bowles reported that progress within the Council continues to be positive and the overall mood is increasingly one of acceptance of the need to change but some Members are unfortunately still resentful of the past. 6. Following recent member workshops on scrutiny the Council is working on developing new scrutiny structures. These are incomplete but would involve ‘an opposition member chairing a Principal Scrutiny Committee which would have the sole right to call in executive decisions. Four other pr scrutiny committees would have no such rights. This is consistent with your broader requirements but is unusual: in most other authorities all scrutiny committees can call in decisions. We were pleased that the Council had moved swiftly to address your requirements, but concemed that the proposals should notmarginalise other committees or create a focus for entrenched opposition to the executive in the Principal Scrutiny Committee. This could be addressed by allowing other committees and their members to refer an issue to the principal committee for call-in. | will report any developments in relation to this in my next report to you. 7. A lot of work on the officer side is currently in development. There are some issues in relation to officer capacity and a 360 degree appraisal of all members of the Corporate Management Team has been commissioned. 8. Work on defining expectations of Head of Service and other managers is in development with proposals to launch this for consultation and refinement during June. Mr Bowles noted these activities are very time-consuming but are essential if there is to be a robust officer leadership team capable of driving the Council forward in the event of a lack of political maturity or Members reverting to past practices. 9. The Council's Annual General Meeting (AGM) is due to take place on Tuesday 11" May. This will be an important for the Council in order to take further steps to both consolidate current gains and build a more inclusive and sustainable way of moving forward. Graham Williams and William Home will observe proceedings on behalf of the Board. Update from the Leader of Anglesey County Council 10. The Board was also joined by the Leader of the Council, Clir Clive McGregor, who was invited to attend part of the meeting to discuss how the Council was responding to your set of actions and recommendations for recovery. 11.As you are aware Cllr McGregor wrote to you at the end of March to update you on the Council's progress since your address. As per his letter to you, Cllr McGregor confirmed to the Board that the Council had made positive Progress in responding to your recommendations and actions and that nearly ail would be met by the start of the Municipal year. 12. Three of your requirements appear unlikely to be met in full: Firstly, you required all of the non-party groups within the Council to produce a statement of their aims and values. The Menai Group has already done so, but the other two non-party groups are, we understand, working with the WLGA to complete this as soon as possible. * Secondly, you required the Council to review the protocol on member- officer relations and to have all members and senior officers sign it. This is unlikely to be completed in time due to the need to review the senior management structure. © Thirdly, you required the Council to prohibit members from being involved in non-senior appointments. The Council wishes to create an exception to this for posts which involve frequent and direct contact with members (eg committee clerks): here, specified members should 2—ARB(06) Report be able to have an input into selection without making final appointment decisions. 13.1n our view, these are reasonable and tolerable qualifications to what are relatively minor matters. The Council appears very likely to meet all your other requirements, including on major and contentious Issues such as restructuring scrutiny, securing political balance in external appointments and restoring members to the standards committee. We would commend them for doing so in what was deliberately a very challenging timeframe, and we recommend that you do not need to make any further directions to the Council at this stage. 14.}However, that can only be a start - the new structures and processes now need to become fully owned, and mainstreamed into how the Council does business. This reflects David Bowles's broader point about the need to move from swift to sustainable change. 15.Cllr McGregor also described a proposal that he and his fellow elected membera should be required to preduoe an annual self appratal based on , attendance at Council meetings and expenses to support . The Board understands from Cllr McGregor that he has Peaperereried chgtteet lett rendering Heston ede at are supportive. We believe this to be a positive and innovative approach and would encourage the Council to adopt it, especially if it could also be linked to the member training programme. 16. You will appreciate that the Council has made a number of positive developments recently by meeting most of the requirements you set out in your speech to them at the end of February. As | reported in my last report, | must reiterate that the progress to date has come as a result of the Leader, the four group leaders and the Counci's interim Managing Director working together to achieve the broad support of a majority of members within the Council. Conduct Issues: 17.Recently, a member of the ruling group has resigned from the Executive as It ‘was established that he had privately supported the stance taken by a recently-expelled member of the ruling group. The Board maintains the view that this sort of member behaviour detracts from the process of recovery. Succession Planning — appointing a permanent Managing Director 18. During the meeting Cllr McGregor and Mr Bowles shared with the Board their thoughts on the future appointment of a new permanent managing director for the Council. David's appointment runs until October 2010, but with an option to extend it for up to another year. The Board will keep you informed of developments.ARB(06) Report WLGA Update 19, The Board was also joined by Danie! Hurford of the WLGA who is an observer of the Recovery Board and Tim Buckle also of the WLGA. During the meeting they provided an update on their development support programme for the Council. They also discussed the support they are providing the Council in developing and supporting the Councils scrutiny function. 20.Key developments in the programme so far include: + The first meeting of the Member development working group took place on ‘Thursday 22 April. The group's first key development is to develop and adopt clear descriptions for members; © The first training ‘sessions on the ‘Role of the Modern Member’ took place on 23" and 24” March. 36 members, including the group leaders, attended the sessions. The feedback received for the sessions was largely positive and above expectation; * Sessions on the ‘Role and function for Scrutiny Members’ took place on 13" April. 30 members attended, including a number of executive members and group leaders. Mr David Bowies, interim Managing Director, also attended one of the sessions. A broad consensus on fit structures and how they should look was acknowledged / achieved in both sessions; * Two workshop sessions on scrutiny have taken place so far and member refresher sessions on the code of conduct have also taken place. The purpose of these sessions are to look at, in finer detail, the Council's call in procedure and the conduct of Council's meeting. 21.The Recovery Board has attended a number of these training sessions and will continue to attend future sessions. 22. The member development programme continues to develop and Mr Hurford hes commended the Council's approach to it. In particular, the commitment from the Council's leadership has been fundamental to taking the programme forward. Anglesey County Council's Archives 23. You should be aware that the National Archives (TNA) are moving to prohibit ‘Anglesey County Council from maintaining an archive of public records, to Close the archive that exists and move the records elsewhere (probably Gwynedd Council or Bangor University). 24. This relates to what are seemingly chronic problems with the management of the service and in particular with the condition of the building which is currently used. 25. This is of course is primarily a matter for your colleague the Heritage Minister and his officials in CyMAL, who are aware of the situation. But ifthe situation 4‘ARB(06) Report is unresolved, | and the Board are concemed about the reputational damage it would cause the Council at what's already a difficult time. We recommend that Council should continue to work with CyMAL to find a solution, and that it and/or the WLGA should reopen the possibility of creating a single service of North Wales. Interviews with members and officers 26.1 am pleased to report that the Recovery Board has concluded the personal interviews with Anglesey County Council's elected members. | and the Board believe the interviews have been extremely useful and valuable in terms of engaging with members and having a visible presence within the Council. We were very grateful for the participation of members and feel the members welcomed the opportunity to give their personal perspectives. 27. Recovery Board member, Mel Usher has also concluded one to one interviews with the Council's Corporate Management team. 28. Both sets of interviews tended to support the emerging sense that while some good progress has been made at leadership levels within the Council, and in terms of process change, much remains to be done to embed recovery in the attitudes and practices of members and officers generally. We will provide you with a detailed and considered view of both sets of interviews in ‘separate reports to you shortly. Next steps 29. Our overall conclusion from this meeting is that the Council is capable of delivering many of the formal changes needed as a precondition for recovery. Its rapid response to the requirements you set out in your speech demonstrates that. However, it is far less clear that that progress is as yet ‘sustainable; and a key question for the Board to consider in relation to this is. ‘what is a successful recovery?’. Therefore, we propose to convene a Board meeting devoted solely to this in early June. The purpose of the meeting will focus entirely on evaluating the Council's current recovery, the nature of a Sustainable recovery and the transition arrangements to full recovery and full status. | will of course report to you again after that meeting. Yr Athro / Prof Elan Closs Stephens CBE Cadeirydd / Chair