Agenda item
COUNCIL POLICY ON MEMBER TRAINING
To consider a report on the Council Policy on Member Training (copy attached) from the Democratic Services Manager, Steve Price.
Minutes:
The Lead
Member for Corporate Strategy, Policy and Equalities introduced the report to
Members. The report was welcomed, and Member training should be seen as a
positive attribute of being a Councillor.
The Democratic
Services Manager guided members through the report (previously circulated).
A
programme of member inductions, training and development commenced immediately
after Council elections in May 2022. The sessions delivered as part of the
initial induction for new and returning members included training in the
Council’s Code of Conduct, members’ ICT provision, familiarisation with
services, equality and diversity, safeguarding and an introduction to Scrutiny.
Mandatory and Discretionary Training
The
Council could decide to designate certain training as being mandatory for all
members, or for members undertaking certain roles. Attending at least one
training session on the Members’ Code of Conduct during each full term of
office was mandatory because the requirement was included in the Council’s Code
of Conduct. The Council has continued to operate mandatory training for members
of the Planning Committee, because of the quasi-judicial role being undertaken.
Mandatory training which was decided by the previous Council was outlined to
members.
In June
2023 the Democratic Services Committee recommended the setting of reasonable
mandatory training requirements for appropriate subjects and roles. The
committee thought the use of ‘once a term’ as a timescale for mandatory
training to be completed as being unsuitable. The committee supported a role
for the political groups and group leaders in encouraging compliance with any
mandatory training requirements and supported the use of appropriate sanctions
for non-compliance.
In July
2023 full Council considered member training issues however, it was unable to
agree a Council Policy on mandatory training and referred member training for
consideration by group leaders who subsequently requested that a survey be
issued to clarify the views of members.
The
results of the survey, which was opened in February 2024 and closed on the 8
March and was open to Councillors, Senior Officers and Lay Members were
outlined to Members (appendix 1, previously circulated).
The Chair
thanked the Democratic Services Manager for the report.
The Chair
suggested that the results of the survey should be used to inform the
Committees decision. It was agreed that each topic of training would be voted
on individually.
The
results of the Committee votes were as follows –
·
Chairing of
Meetings – Mandatory for Certain Members
·
Climate
Change/ Ecological Emergency – Mandatory for all
·
Code of
Conduct -Mandatory for all
·
Corporate
Governance – Mandatory for certain Members
·
Corporate
Parenting – Mandatory for all
·
Data
Protection – Mandatory for all
·
Equality/
Diversity – Mandatory for all
·
Gypsy and
Traveller – Mandatory for all
·
Health and
Safety – Mandatory for all
·
Local Government
Finance and Budget Setting – Mandatory for all
·
Licensing –
Mandatory for Certain Members
·
Mental Health
and Well-being – Mandatory for all
·
Performance
data – Not Mandatory
·
Planning
Committee – Mandatory for Certain Members
·
Questioning
Skills – Not Mandatory
·
Safeguarding –
Mandatory
·
Schools and
Education – Not Mandatory
·
Scrutiny-
Mandatory for all
·
Well-being of
Future Generations Act – Mandatory for all
·
Welsh Language
Standards – Not Mandatory
Members discussed the importance of the
Welsh Language Standards training and the Monitoring Officer explained that
this training related to the incorporation of the Welsh language within
everyday Council workings for example correspondence in Welsh, which the
Council needed to legally adhere to, not the wider Welsh Language and Culture.
The Democratic Service Manager
continued to explain the sanctions element of the report. Members needed to
agree on the sanctions they wished to put forward to Council.
Members discussed the need for
sanctions to be positively enforced and discussed the proposed sanctions within
the report.
Members felt that it would be
inappropriate to publish individual Members training records on the
Denbighshire County Council public website and felt that group leaders
receiving this information to discuss with their Members would be a more
suitable sanction.
Following an in-depth discussion, it
was –
RESOLVED: that the
Democratic Services Committee seeks Council approval to the mandatory
requirements for each topic as outlined in the bullet-points above and to the
provision of member training records to the group leaders for the groups to
encourage and enforce compliance with the Council’s policy on member training.
Supporting documents:
-
Report - Council Policy on Member Training, item 6.
PDF 147 KB
-
Appendix - Survey Analysis, item 6.
PDF 898 KB