APPENDIX 2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     WIGHT LEISURE EXTERNALISATION

TERMS OF REFERENCE TO TONY HALL

 

You are asked to assist the Chief Financial Officer and the Monitoring Officer in undertaking, as endorsed by the executive on 4 June 2003, a short investigation designed to establish:-

 

▪          The amount and legitimacy of spending on this project to date.

▪          Whether any recommendations can be made to the Council in relation to either the corporate or service specific management of the externalisation process.

 

This work should not duplicate that undertaken in preparing your report of May 2003 and should be completed by 22 August 2003.

 

The outcome of this investigation will be published, except in so far as to do so would breach any duty of confidentiality owed by the Council or would otherwise risk prejudicing proceedings of any kind.

 

In particular you are asked to:-

 

1.      Produce a chronology of key decisions by officers and by members to include:-

 

1.1 Decisions to commit funds.

 

1.2  Significant procurement decisions (including appointment of consultants and/or advisers).

 

1.3  Decisions to follow a particular structure or approach to the externalisation process.

 

1.4  The treatment of the following issues (including decisions on the adoption of protocols or less formal ground rules); conflicts of interest; sharing of information; sharing of advice.

 

  1. Produce an account of spending and spending commitments by the Community Development department, both as putative client and, through

Wight Leisure, in developing the externalisation model.

 

  1. Make recommendations about the future procurement and use of external advisers, in the restarted externalisation process.

 

3.1  Make recommendations about future of relationships with other Commercial and public partners, in the restarted externalisation

Process.

 

  1. Make any further recommendations about the future corporate management of the externalisation project in the light of the way the matter has been dealt with to date.

 

  1. To make move general recommendations to the Council about its practice in procuring external advisors and managing its relationships with commercial and public partners.

 

These terms of reference are entirely distinct from Council conduct and capability procedures and you are not instructed to investigate the conduct and capability of individuals.  If, in following these terms of reference, you conclude that a decision needs to be taken as to whether capability and/or conduct procedures need to be invoked, please bring this to the attention of the Chief Executive Officer and Head of Paid Service.

 

The first priority is to enable lessons to be applied to the restarted externalisation project.  To this end please consider whether any additional work necessary to identify general lessons should be treated as a discrete exercise and undertaken after the completion of terms of reference 1-4.

 

Finally, and by way of emphasis, these terms of reference are designed to assist the two statutory officers in discharging their functions with regard to the Executive report on 4 June.  The investigation and any subsequent report is entirely the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer and Monitoring Office and variations to, or deviations from, these terms of reference should be agreed by those two statutory officers.