Anglesey Recover Board 7th Meeting

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BWRDD ADFER YNYS MN ANGLESEY RECOVERY BOARD

Seventh Meeting, July 29th 2010

Report to the Minister for Social Justice and Local Government

1. The direction to the Isle of Anglesey County Council of August 12th 2009included the establishment of a Recovery Board to advise you on theprogress that the Council makes towards addressing the serious corporateweakness identified by the Auditor General for Wales. As part of that, ourterms of reference require us to provide you with a report after eachmeeting.

2. The Anglesey Recovery Board met for the seventh meeting on Thursday29th July. This is our seventh report to you.

3. During the fourth meeting it was agreed that the Board would move fromevidence-gathering and into monitoring and analysis of progress made (ornot made) by the Council towards recovery. Therefore the seventhmeeting focused on the how the Council is progressing following recentpolitical activity, in particular the formation of the new Alliance.

Interim Managing Directors Report

4. The Board was joined by the Councils interim Managing Director, MrDavid Bowles. Mr Bowles reported on recent developments within theCouncil, including the current political situation.

5. Mr Bowles reported that the current political situation within the Council,following the re-grouping, appears stable. The Alliance has committed toproducing a manifesto and joint statement and work has been donearound producing a forward work plan. Ian Bottrill will be working with theCouncil to create ownership on political protocols, coaching and

mentoring. He will also be working on bridging the gap between theAlliance and opposition groups.

6. The Board and I feel these are all positive steps. Nevertheless, the Board

remains concerned that the Alliance's numerical strength is not great andthat this could be eroded as the Council faces many difficult financialdecisions.

7. Mr. Bowles also reported that a lot of work is currently in development onthe strengthening of corporate teamwork among the cadre of seniorofficers and middle managers.

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8. The Council is currently undertaking a fairly extensive budget consultationprocess. An Affordable Priorities Programme has been launched in orderto secure savings within the Council. Mr Bowles reported that work aroundthe Budget was under control and started from a relatively stable base.

9. The Board, in its discussion on the Managing Directors report, wasconcerned that the focus of the Council in the past two or three monthshas again been on member behaviour. I will reiterate what I said in myletters to you and Mr Bowles that the Board and I believe it is time for theCouncil to redirect attention to focus more closely on the service, strategicand financial plans for Anglesey. This is now a critical issue given thefinancial conditions in the public sector already as well as beginning toprepare for the implications of the UK Comprehensive Spending Review inOctober and the subsequent Assembly Government budget. Whilst Iappreciate that extensive work is being done by Mr Bowles and officers onbridging the Budget gap for the next five years, more attention is stillrequired by Councillors, who will need to be advised, steered andsupported by senior management, on the challenges of managing withless and the inevitable changes this will entail in the delivery of services.

Alliances terms of engagement / handling of potential referral tothe Public Service Ombudsman for Wales

10.It is becoming clear that that the naming of two councillors in the Alliancesterms of engagement remains a significant issue of contention betweenthe Alliance and the opposition. In addition, it seems that one member of

the Alliance has not signed up to the terms of engagement.

11.As you said at the time of the Alliances formation, those terms are amatter for local decision. And naturally, councillors who misbehave andwho breach the code of conduct must be dealt with appropriately.However, we are concerned that the terms could perpetuate personalityissues within the Council. We would urge the Council to dispose of thetwo existing Ombudsman complaints as soon as possible. Then, allcouncillors could move on to addressing the very real problems that theisland faces.

Update from the Leader of Anglesey County Council

12.The Board was also joined by the Leader of the Council, Cllr CliveMcGregor, who was invited to discuss how the Council was progressingfollowing recent political changes.

13.Cllr McGregor believed the Alliance was stable and committed to recovery.Cllr McGregor remains as Leader of the Council but has stepped down asleader of the Llais i Fn group. He has done this so he can concentrate allof his efforts on being leader of the Council. The Councils portfolio holder

for Finance, Cllr Tom Jones, has taken over as leader of the group. Inaddition, Cllr McGregor hopes that this change of Group Leadership, a

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change that will enable the Group Leader to spend time strengtheningpartnerships, will encourage members to join the group.

14. At the time of writing, a total of four executive meetings have taken placesince the Alliance was formed at the beginning of June. All of these appear

to have been handled in a constructive manner.

15.During the middle of June, the newly formed Executive at its meetingresolved to recommend the full Council to establish closer collaborationwith Gwynedd on planning issues. This included a Joint Planning PolicyUnit (JPPU) being created which will commence work on a single LocalDevelopment Plan for Gwynedd and Anglesey. In addition a joint planningpolicy committee will be formed as a formal cross boundary decisionmaking body.

16.We believe this is a highly constructive approach which will strengthencapacity through partnership working. We will of course keep you postedon developments. We also believe strongly that there are a range ofother opportunities for increasing the amount of joint working andcollaboration between the authorities in line with developments elsewherein North Wales and your policy approach more generally. In any case,developing these sort of arrangements will be an inevitable and essentialpart of the Councils response to dealing with the service challengesresulting from fewer resources.

17.In addition, Recovery Board member Mr Graham Williams attended an

Executive Board meeting on 22nd

June. Mr Williams found the approach ofindividual members and of the Board as a whole to be well mannered andconstructive. The Leader was confident in his chairing of business and inhis handling of individual members. Differences of perspective wereevident in relation to a number of items but were worked throughconstructively with members taking care to recognise and give weight toviews expressed but also assisting colleagues to gain a rounded view ofrelevant considerations. As a result, agreement emerged on how mattersshould be dealt with in a most encouraging way. Mr Williams wasimpressed by the way the recently constituted Board functioned and withthe way individual members contributed in a spirit of supporting each other

and of seeking to make progress.

18.I am therefore pleased to report that we are seeing a positive start for theAlliance in managing its own partnerships. It is still early days and thereare likely to be very difficult challenges ahead, in particular dealing with theCouncils budget, service prioritisation and dealing with a very narrowpolitical majority.

Update from Cllr Bryan Owen, Leader of the Original Independent Group

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19.Due to the recent political changes and to ensure the Board adopts aninclusive approach in terms of monitoring the Councils recovery, weinvited Cllr Bryan Owen, the leader of the largest opposition group (theOriginal Independents), to join part of the meeting.

20.Cllr Owen became leader of the group following Cllr McGregors decisionto form his new group, Llais i Fn, as breakaway from the OriginalIndependent Group.

21.Cllr Owen informed the Board that he believed his group was strong andthat no members wished to join the Alliance. We were encouraged to learnthat his group were instead committed to providing effective scrutiny andchallenge to the Alliance. However, my Board and I were concerned tolearn from Cllr Owen that opposition members were afraid to offerchallenge in the Council chamber in fear of being regarded as underminingthe work of the Council. He also felt that the current practice of namingand shaming individuals was preventing the Council from moving on.

22.As your Recovery Board we have deliberately refrained from taking sidesin the new groupings in Anglesey. However we trust that the opposition willapproach their role positively and that the Alliance will respect their rightsto do so. Being able to provide and accept robust but constructiveopposition is a key test of political maturity and it will also indicate how wellthe Council is progressing towards recovery. It should be made absolutelyclear that offering constructive criticism is welcome and we would urge allmembers, inside and outside the Alliance, to act accordingly in the

interests of maintaining an effective and well ordered democratic forum.

23.On a more positive note, the group has discussed producing an OriginalIndependents Group web page in order to attract / engage with potentialmembers and the general public. We believe this to be a positive andinnovative approach and would encourage the Original Independents toadopt it.

Succession planning appointing a Chief Executive

24.The Board is mindful that David Bowles is an interim appointment andthere is a need to establish long term sustainable senior managementarrangements for the Council

Anglesey County Councils Archives

25. In my last report I informed you that the National Archives (TNA) weremoving to prohibit Anglesey County Council from maintaining an archive ofpublic records, to close the archive that exists and move the recordselsewhere due to the management of the service and the condition of thebuilding currently used. However since then the Councils ExecutiveCommittee agreed the purchase of an alternative office for their archives.

In addition, both TNA and Cymal have offered professional help to the

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archive service to develop the design for the new office providing that theproject will go forward in October.

26. This is a very promising development and the initial threat to removepublic records from Anglesey has now been addressed. If the development

of the new building continues as planned, Anglesey County Council willhave a very good archive building much superior to the current position.We are grateful to the Director of Education and Leisure and his staff fortheir hard work in addressing an ongoing and deteriorating situationsuccessfully, despite the strains of the current context.

Communication

27.Anglesey County Council has demonstrated that it is serious aboutachieving a sustainable recovery; this is particularly evident in how theyresponded to the set actions you put to them during your address to FullCouncil at the end of February. However we are unsure whether or notthese achievements have been effectively communicated to the entireCouncil and the citizens of Anglesey. As a result the Board and I havediscussed the possibility of creating a designated page on the Councilswebsite to highlight the Councils achievements since the intervention, aswell as providing information on the Boards activities since beingestablished.

28.The Board has already began work on identifying key activities, enablers,suggestions and influences the Recovery Board has had since its

inception over the past 9 months from October 2009 . Those suggestionshave been delivered through your Ministerial letters and responded to bythe full Council. Any improvements should acknowledge the role of thewhole council, which should help to build bridges with the silent majoritywithin the Council.

29.Finally as I write, despite some good work, it is still a time of considerabletension within the Council, exacerbated by the particular form of the termsof engagement. We are monitoring and advising on a daily basis and, asyou would expect from us, we will continue to do so until the situationbecomes clearer.

Yr Athro / Prof Elan Closs Stephens CBECadeirydd / Chair

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Documents

Anglesey Recover Board 7th Meeting