Well this week seems to have flown by again! It has been a busy week for SLT with the Annual Council meeting on Tuesday night and the Cabinet member briefing session (Call over) on Wednesday night.
On Tuesday at Annual Council, the Council appointed a new chairperson of the Council – Cllr Patricia (Pat) Wiltshire. I was fascinated to hear all about Pat’s background, who was a researcher and lecturer in Microbial Ecology and went on to set up a Forensic Archaeological Science degree. She has worked with every police force across the Country and been an instrumental expert witness at some of the highest profile criminal cases I can think of (eg, the Sarah Payne case where her evidence helped to convict Ian Huntley). If you want to know more about her, her profile is on our website here Chairman of MVDC | Mole Valley District Council or you can watch the webcast of the meeting to hear her story here Webcast library – Mole Valley Webcasting (public-i.tv).
The Annual Council also re-elected Cllr Stephen Cooksey as our Leader and Cllr Bridget Kendrick as our Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance. The other members of the Cabinet are:
- Cabinet Member for Planning – Councillor Margaret Cooksey
- Cabinet Member for Community Services – Councillor Rosemary Hobbs
- Cabinet Member for Internal Services – Councillor Paul Kennedy
- Cabinet Member for Climate Change – Councillor Claire Malcomson
- Cabinet Member for Projects – Councillor Keira Vyvyan-Robinson
- Cabinet Member for Sustainable Economy and Security – Councillor Clayton Wellman
- Cabinet Member for Leisure and Tourism - Councillor Nick Wright
Appointments to Committees were determined at the meeting and if you want to know which Councillors are sitting on which committee this year then the list of members of each committee is now on our website Committee Agendas & Minutes | Mole Valley District Council. It’s a very long list so I won’t repeat it all here!
I took a report to the Annual Council meeting to update our Constitution. The Constitution is the most important document we have as a Council as it sets out the governance framework on how the Council works and how decisions are made. It sets out the role and responsibilities of Councillors, Officers, and Council Committees as well as various procedure rules that we need to follow as officers in relation to finance and the procurement of goods and services. It also sets out the level of delegation to Officers in terms of which decisions can be made ourselves as Senior Leaders and Business Managers and which decisions need to be referred to Council and its Committees. In particular the Financial Procedure rules within the Constitution set out how we need to plan our budgets and the procedures we should use for managing them. The Contract Standing Orders set out how we should procure goods and services and manage contracts. The procedure rules are substituted with further operational guidance on Molly. I have now updated the Financial Procedure rules to introduce new rules to help us manage budget pressures in year and to clarify the arrangements around writing off Debt and amending Fees and Charges in year should there be a need to do so. The key amendments are:-
- Executive Heads now have delegated authority to move revenue budget around between services that they are responsible for up to a value of £10,000
- As the Chief Finance Officer, I now have delegated authority to move budgets around between service areas and between Executive Heads up to a value of £100,000 in consultation with the relevant Executive Head(s).
- Introduction of new fees and charges or amendments to fees and charges during the course of the year can be made by the Executive Head of Service as long as there is consultation with the Cabinet Member and the Chief Finance Officer and the decision is formerly documented. The cost of any amendments need to be kept within the agreed budget (known as ‘Cashlimit’).
The process of moving budgets between services and/or Executive Heads is called ‘Virement’ and will need to be formerly documented as a decision. Although budgets may be able to be moved in year, the overall amount the Council can spend cannot change.
In addition, I have also amended the Contract Standing Orders to require all procuring officers who may be procuring technology goods or services (eg, ICT hardware/Software, Telephony, CCTV and other video systems, alarm monitoring systems etc) to require the approval of the Council’s ICT team. This is to ensure that appropriate data security standards are met, that the relevant technology can be integrated appropriately with existing technology and that technology complies with our new Digital Strategy.
The Constitution, which includes the Financial Procedure rules and contract standing orders can be found on the Council’s website Constitution | Mole Valley District Council, although the amendments that were approved on Tuesday evening will be updated on the website in the next few weeks.
I hope you all enjoy the bank holiday weekend and have a well earned rest. The weather certainly looks lovely in Surrey. The Morris family plans for the bank holiday weekend are to go camping in Suffolk but unfortunately the temperature there is likely to be a 5 degrees lower than Surrey so I am now wondering if we should have stayed closer to home LoL! If you are off next week for half term too – enjoy your week.