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Council and Democracy

Issue - meetings

Councillor Learning and Development Policy

Meeting: 01/07/2021 - Council (Item 17)

17 Councillors' Learning and Development Policy 2021-2025 pdf icon PDF 396 KB

The report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services is attached.

Minutes:

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Customer Access, Councillor Moore presented the report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services, explaining that the Councillors’ Learning and Development Policy had been reviewed following the 2019 Borough Council election, to reflect current practice and the needs of Councillors in terms of training and development. The Policy, developed in conjunction with Member Development Group, ensured that Councillors were adequately trained, having the necessary knowledge, skills and attributes, to deliver effective decision making within the Borough. It provided both face-to-face and online training opportunities from both internal officers and external partners covering a wide range of topics. Councillor Moore concluded by reminding Councillors that training was vitally important and that, in his opinion, there was always something new to be learnt.

 

Adoption of the Policy was seconded by Councillor Brennan who thanked officers and the Member Development Group for updating this important Policy. She recognised that it was difficult to get the balance right between training that was essential to maintaining the good governance of the authority and keeping Councillors safe, and that which was desirable and designed to help Councillors undertake their roles more effectively. This was made more difficult because each person had a different skill set when elected as a councillor and a varied set of experiences to bring to the role.

 

Councillor J Walker commented that the training she had received both from officers and external providers had been of excellent quality and that she was happy to support the adoption of this Policy.

 

Councillor Major thanked the Member Development Group for its hard work in ensuring that Councillors were fully trained and supported to undertake their role and was happy to support the adoption of this Policy.

 

Councillor R Mallender welcomed this Policy coming forward for adoption and informed Council of the debate held at Member Development Group on the two occasions the Policy had come to the Group. He stressed the importance of Councillors being appropriately trained to carry out their roles, urged Councillors to go online and undertake the essential e-learning courses and to speak to officers if they identified any specific training, they would like to undertake which could be funding from the Members’ Training budget. 

 

Councillor Shaw reported that as a member of the Member Development Group he was also very happy to recommend the adoption of this Policy.

 

RESOLVED that the Councillors’ Learning and Development Policy 2021-2025 be adopted.