Council considered a report by the Senior Solicitor and Monitoring Officer (circulated previously) regarding an amendment to Annexe 2 to Part 3 of the Constitution.

In response to a question, the Senior Solicitor and Monitoring Officer advised the following:

·       The proposed amendment to the delegated power given to the Chief Executive to allow for an ability to approve early retirement for staff where there was a small pension strain cost (not material) by a member of staff.  The small pension strain cost referred to no net cost to the Council calculated over a six month period.  Within a six month period there would be nil cost to the Council.

In response to a question, the Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised the following:

·       Currently when there was an early retirement, it often resulted in other structural changes within the service.  Sometimes there was a small pension strain cost to the Council that would be offset by these structural changes, however in those circumstances a report would previously have needed to be presented to the Governance Committee seeking approval.  This resulted in a delay in the decision making process and net savings not being achieved earlier.  Any requests for early retirement where savings could not be achieved within the six month period, would still require a decision to be taken by the Governance Committee.

It was moved by Councillor Norman and seconded by Councillor Topps that the recommendation in the report be adopted.

RESOLVED that the Council varies paragraph 3.25 to Part 3 Annexe 2 of the Constitution with the addition of the underlined text as follows:

To determine applications for flexible and early retirement and also for early release of pension where the decision will not result in a net cost to the Council calculated over the following six months from the applicable date.