The Senior Democratic Services Officer reported on an update on the delivery of the Council’s Member training and development programme and related activity.

He outlined the Member Training and Development sessions, Development Control Committee Training Sessions and Pre Council briefing sessions that have been provided since 1^st April 2018. 

He informed the Committee that the Monitoring Officer would be delivering Code of Conduct Training primarily for Town and Community Councillors on 29^th October, however all Members were welcome to attend as a refresher if they wished.

He outlined  the scheduled Pre Council Briefings:

• 24^th October: Budget Consultation Exercise with Councillors
• 21^st November: Young Carers
• 19^th December: Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking
• 23^rd January: Rural Development Plan
• 20^th February: Rota Visiting

He outlined the future schedule of Development Control Committee training sessions:

• 22^nd November: Section 215 notices and procedures
• 3^rd January: End of Year Performance report.
• 14^th February: Sustainable Drainage Systems and SuDS Approving Bodies – the New System
• 28^th March: Education contributions and surplus spaces in 21^st Century  Schools

He also  outlined the future proposed Member Training and Development Sessions /Pre Council Briefings due to be scheduled:

• Elective Home Education
• Using Bridgemaps
• Additional Learning Needs and Autism Awareness
• Scrutiny Training – Various
• Dementia Friends Repeat Session
• Cwm Taf Regional/Partnership Working

He then detailed the courses provided since the start of the electoral term and the number of Members who have completed each of these courses. He explained that only 20 Members have accessed e-learning modules since the start of the electoral term and asked the committee how Members could be encouraged to make greater use of the available e-learning facilities.

Members of the Committee emphasised the importance of the e-learning modules as they are provided as mandatory for Councillors but there is no legal obligation to do them.  The Committee considered that some  Councillors had difficulty in logging on to the system in order to carry out training The Senior Democratic Services Officer explained that the logon ID is the Members’ payroll number.

He also informed the Committee that Members are all welcome to the Development Control training sessions if they wish and that they did not need to be a member of the Committee to attend the sessions.

The Committee requested that an explanation be given about the types of training and what they entail so that Councillors could have a clearer idea on whether they want to attend.

The Senior Democratic Services Officer asked the committee if there were any other comments they wanted to make about training sessions.

The Committee requested that  Bridgemaps training  be progressed as soon as possible as there have been many occasions where it would have been useful and saved a lot of time on referrals. The Senior Democratic Services Officer explained that he was to meet with the ICT Department to discuss the ideas and process of training Councillors and will keep them updated on further developments. He asked whether the Committee wanted the training session to be in the form of a Pre Council Briefing or Member Development Training session, the Committee requested that a Member Development Training session would be more beneficial.

The Senior Democratic Services Officer asked if there were any changes or additions they would like to make to the proposed schedule. Members agreed that they would like more comprehensive training on GDPR as they felt their knowledge on this could be improved.

The Senior Democratic Services Officer gave an update on Dementia Awareness Training as this was bought up in the previous Democratic Services Committee meeting. He explained that the trainer was currently unavailable and that another session would be organised for Members at a later date.

RESOLVED: That the Democratic Services Committee:

(1)   Noted the future Pre Council Briefings listed in paragraph 4.5.1 in the report and should Members have any ideas for Pre Council Briefings they should contact the Democratic Services Team;

(2)   Noted the future Member Development listed in paragraph 4.7.1 in the report and should Members have any ideas for Member Development training sessions they should contact the Democratic Services Team;

That Members be requested to complete the mandatory                                                 E Learning modules listed in paragraph 4.8.2 of the report.