Agenda, decisions and minutes

It was noted that apologies for absence had been received from Councillors Harper, Harwood and McLoughlin.

It was noted that Councillor Atkinson was substituting for Councillor Harper, Councillor English was substituting for Councillor Harwood and Councillor Mrs Ring was substituting for Councillor McLoughlin.

There were no urgent items.

There were no Visiting Members.

There were no disclosures by Members and Officers.

There were no disclosures of lobbying.

RESOLVED:  That all items on the agenda be taken in public as proposed.

There were no petitions.

There were no questions from members of the public.

1)  That the revised Mid Kent Services (MKS) objectives and strategic priorities as set out in paragraph 2.5 to the report of the Head of Legal Partnership be agreed;

2)  That the revised MKS Governance Arrangements be agreed and delegated authority be given to the Chief Executive to sign the document;

3)  That the model MKS Shared Service Collaboration Agreement template be agreed subject to minor amendments to the font and numbering; and

4)  That the Head of Legal Partnership, in consultation with the Leader and Chief Executive, be authorised to make any further minor amendments as necessary to the documents described in recommendations 2 and 3 above.

Members considered the report of the Head of Legal Partnership which set out revised Governance arrangements for Mid Kent Services and the model Shared Service Collaboration Agreement for use with future shared services.

The Deputy Head of Legal Partnership presented the report and advised that the two appendices contained revised versions of both the Governance Arrangements for Mid Kent Services and the model Shared Services Collaboration Agreement which had been agreed and discussed with the MKS Chief Executives and the MKS Board, including advice and input from the Director of Shared Services, Section 151 Officers and Monitoring Officers.

Members noted that the Agreement covering the Governance Arrangements of the Mid Kent Improvement Partnership (MKIP), now called Mid Kent Services (MKS), was originally prepared in 2008.  It had been updated in 2012 and had expired at the end of April 2016.

The Deputy Head of Legal Partnership drew Members’ attention to the main changes to the Agreement which included the fact that the arrangements would be permanent where previously they had been for a fixed period of four years.

In accordance with the fact that the arrangements were permanent, it was noted that they were subject to termination provisions which were linked to the termination provision in the model Shared Service Collaboration Agreement.

In response to questions from Members, the Deputy Head of Legal Partnership advised:

·  That the font and numbering issues would be corrected within the Collaboration Agreement

·  That the Collaboration Agreement was a rolling document

·  Issues such as failure of the service and accountability were dealt with within the Collaboration Agreement although it was noted that it would be difficult to specify who would be accountable

·  If a partner voted to exit a shared service, this would not necessarily mean that the shared service could not continue with the other authorities

·  The questions as detailed in Appendix D had come out of an audit undertaken by the Audit Partnership and were not a definitive list, there may be others added at a later stage

RESOLVED:

1)  That the revised Mid Kent Services (MKS) objectives and strategic priorities as set out in paragraph 2.5 to the report of the Head of Legal Partnership be agreed;

Voting:  For:  14  Against:  0  Abstentions:  0

2)  That the revised MKS Governance Arrangements be agreed and delegated authority be given to the Chief Executive to sign the document;

Voting:  For:  14  Against:  0  Abstentions:  0

3)  That the model MKS Shared Service Collaboration Agreement template be agreed subject to minor amendments to the font and numbering; and

Voting:  For:  14  Against:  0  Abstentions:  0

4)  That the Head of Legal Partnership, in consultation with the Leader and Chief Executive, be authorised to make any further minor amendments as necessary to the documents described in recommendations 2 and 3 above.

Voting:  For:  14  Against:  0  Abstentions:  0

10.00 a.m. to 10.35 a.m.