Issue - meetings

* RESOLVED –

That the currently grant funded post of Senior Economic Development Officer (Infrastructure) be made permanent.

The Head of Regeneration submitted a report on staffing arrangements within the Economic Development Unit.

The report outlined the key work areas for the Economic Development Unit and the context within which it was working, including its work with the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (SCR LEP), the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (D2N2 LEP) and the North East Derbyshire Strategic Employment Partnership (NEDSEP).

The Council’s Corporate Plan (2014-15) included the following priorities:

•        To create jobs and safeguard existing ones;

•        To deliver regeneration projects that make the borough a better place;

•        To assist businesses to expand and attract new ones to the borough,

and a key project for 2014/15 was to deliver the first phase of the Chesterfield Waterside development. The work of the Economic Development Unit would be instrumental in achieving these priorities and delivering on this key project.

Since 2012 the Economic Development Unit had reduced to a small core team of 3.5 FTE staff, with 1 additional full time post (Senior Economic Development Officer (Infrastructure)) funded by ERDF until December 2014. It had been agreed with DCLG that this funding could be extended until June 2015 within the existing grant allocation. A copy of the Unit’s staffing structure was attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

The Senior Economic Development Officer (Infrastructure) post would be instrumental in achieving delivery of the Chesterfield Waterside and Northern Gateway schemes.  And also the Action Plan to address barriers to housing delivery.

A review of the Unit’s staffing arrangements had concluded that it would be preferable to retain the existing staffing capacity, including the Senior Economic Development (Infrastructure) post, rather than recruit to the new post which had been approved as a growth request for 2013/14 but which was not as yet filled. This would result in a £34,000 saving in 2014/15 and a £10,000 saving in 2015/16.  After 2016/17 it was anticipated that the on-going cost of the post would be self-financing from growth in Business Rates and New Homes Bonus income.

* RESOLVED –

That the currently grant funded post of Senior Economic Development Officer (Infrastructure) be made permanent.

REASON FOR DECISION

To ensure that the Council has the capacity and expertise to enable it to contribute fully to the emerging LEP agendas, build effective relationships with our indigenous business base, and promote and service inward investment activity to encourage economic growth.