Agenda item

Report attached.

Members considered a report of Councillor Vanessa Alexander, Portfolio Holder for Resources and Council Operations, updating Cabinet on elected member learning and development this financial year to date.

Councillor Alexander provided a short introduction to the report, which outlined the training provided to councillors, attendance levels and a way forward to develop and improve access to the learning experience. The latter might involve more closely aligning training dates and times of day to members’ availability and matching preferences for virtual or in-person training. The work would be led by the Learning and Development Panel.

Councillor Alexander stated that, as a newly elected member, she had found the training she had attended very useful. Councillor Dad added that induction training was important for all new councillors to help them acclimatise to their role and that decision-making training was essential for all members serving on quasi-judicial committees.

Approval of the report was not considered to be a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

A report presented to Cabinet on 13^th March 2024 had included a new Member Development Strategy.

A meeting of the Member Learning and Development Panel would be arranged in the coming weeks to progress the Council’s aspiration to achieve level 1 of the Member Development Charter.

New member induction sessions had been arranged following the local elections, as follows:

In addition, all new councillors had been signposted to a programme of free induction sessions entitled ‘Life as a Councillor’ offered by North West Employers, due to take place in June and July. Take up of this programme was not currently known.

The following table showed how many people had attended the sessions arranged in this financial year to date. The early weeks of the year had been in the pre-election period, and some sessions had been rearranged following the announcement of the general election. Therefore the sessions listed had all fallen in June.

Members of the Licensing Committee had been offered the opportunity to attend an Institute of Licensing Training online training event on 10^th July, but none had attended.

New members had also been set up as users on the Hyve, which was the Council’s web-based e-learning system. Further Code of Conduct training had been arranged for 25^th July and Chairs training was due to be arranged shortly.

A programme of 1 to 1 interviews with all councillors to assess learning and development needs was due to commence shortly and interviewing officers had been identified across the Member Services and Policy and Organisational Development Teams. It was envisaged that these interviews would be completed before the end of the summer.

An analysis of the 1 to 1 information would then help to inform the drafting of a member training plan, which should address the identified need. The training plan would ensure that the Council made the best use of its member training budget of £10,000 and might include a mix of mentoring, in-house training, on-line Hyve courses, external training and networking.

Officers would ask the Member Learning and Development Panel to consider ways to improve the accessibility of training events, being mindful of members’ working commitments, as take-up to date had not been as high as officers would have hoped.

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons

Resolved                                    -    That Cabinet notes the report and encourages active participation in member learning and development activities.