The Appointment Panel of Bradford Council is scheduled to meet to discuss the shortlist for the position of Director of Human Resources, and to decide which candidates to invite for an interview. The meeting will also consider proposed amendments to the council's Pay Policy Statement. Due to the confidential nature of the appointment process, the public is likely to be excluded from the meeting during the discussion of this item.

Director of Human Resources Appointment

The main item on the agenda is the appointment process for the Director of Human Resources at Bradford Council. According to the report pack, the Staffing Committee agreed on 9 January 2025 to appoint to the position and delegated the responsibility to the Appointment Panel. The Appointment Panel were unable make a successful appointment previously, and so officers were asked to re-advertise the role, and review any factors that will help make a successful appointment, including broadening the search, using marketing strategies and reviewing the salary/grade.

The report pack states that a comprehensive recruitment campaign was undertaken, including a webinar with prospective candidates hosted by Tile Hill, a recruitment company. 6 candidates have been recommended for shortlisting, and have undergone a technical assessment.

The responsibilities of the role are outlined in Appendix A of the report pack, and include:

• Leading the development, implementation and management of people, organisational and workforce strategies.
• Ensuring the effective resourcing and development of a skilled, engaged, and empowered workforce and a supportive and inclusive culture.
• Building and sustaining effective multi-agency partnerships.

The report pack also indicates that stakeholder engagement will be a key part of the interview process, with partner/peer, staff and trade union panels providing feedback to the Appointment Panel.

The report pack recommends that the Appointment Panel decide which candidates it wishes to invite for interview.

Pay Policy Statement

The report pack states that Full Council is to be asked to agree to make an amendment to the Pay Policy in respect of the salary of the Director of Human Resources for Bradford Council.

According to the Pay Policy Statement for the financial year 2025/2026, the council is required to produce a policy statement that covers a number of matters concerning the pay of the authority's staff, principally its Chief Officers and the authority's lowest paid employees, in accordance with the Localism Act 2011¹.

The report pack states that following a review of the last recruitment for the Director of Human Resources, a salary review was undertaken, and the job duties and responsibilities updated. A benchmarking and comparison assessment was undertaken by Kornferry Hay, a management consultancy, and the role was subject to job evaluation². The outcome of this evaluation is that the post is proposed to be regraded to Dir 1.

The Director of Human Resources post has been graded as Dir1, with a salary range of £123,289 - £131,406 per annum. Other aspects of the remuneration for these posts are set out in Appendix B of the Pay Policy Statement.

Exclusion of the Public

The report pack recommends that the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the item relating to the appointment process. This is because it is likely that exempt information within Paragraphs 1 (Information relating to an individual) and 2 (information identifying an individual) of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended) will be discussed. The report pack argues that the public interest in applying this exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.