Issue - meetings

The Executive Leadership team had reviewed the current staffing structure to ensure that the authority was fit for purpose and had the capacity and resilience required both in terms of the ongoing plans for transformation and ensuring the authority was a fit for purpose organisation that was able to appropriately respond to the Government‘s proposals in relation to devolution and Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).

The structural requirements outlined in the report should come as no surprise to members as both the Chief Executive and the 2025/26 budget report have already highlighted the fact that we have a gap in staff resources in terms of capacity and skills in some key areas. A new structure had been developed to address this including the introduction of additional posts, this was under the premise that any associated costs would be met within the overall approved establishment budget of the Council. To be achieved mainly by not replacing vacant posts which were of a less priority at the current time than the new posts identified. As this was immediate and only temporary funding required, a request was being made for an additional budget of £338k to be met from the Transformation Fund.

Finally, as part of the structural review, the out of hours arrangements for the authority had been enhanced, the report addressed funding proposals arising from the changes required to the out of hours arrangements.

During discussion it was requested that Climate needed to be written into a title to make it clear where it sat within the overall structure.

RESOLVED that Cabinet;

1.     Note and endorse the proposed structure shown in Appendix B.

RECOMMEMDED to Council:

2.     Approval of a £338k budget to be met from the Transformation Fund to support temporary funding requirements as detailed in the report.

3.     Approval of a budget of £75K due to proposed changes to out of hours arrangements.

REASON:

It was essential that the Council had the necessary resources to continue the authority’s transformation journey, to meet the demands of devolution and the local government reorganisation agendas, whilst ensuring that EDDC had the capacity and resilience to provide quality services to its residents.