northlincs.gov.uk

47        (47) PARENTAL LEAVE POLICY –The Assistant Director Human Resources submitted a report which sought approval for the council’s revised Parental Leave policy.

The council’s Parental Leave policy allowed eligible employees to take unpaid parental leave per child within a designated period of time, and in accordance with the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999.

It was explained that from March 2013 unpaid parental leave would increase from 13 to 18 weeks to comply with the revised Parental Leave Directive (201/18/EC).

The change was effective from 8 March 2013 and the council’s policy had been revised in line with the amendments.

Resolved – That the revised policy be approved and adopted.

48        (48)  OPEN DATA – UNLEASHING THE POTENTIAL –  The Director of Policy and Resources submitted a report to introduce the main provisions of the Open Data white paper ‘Unleashing the Potential’, to outline a proposed action plan for managing the provisions, soughtapproval of the initial action plan and to determine a timeline for the next steps.

The aim of the report was to:

·         Increase access to public sector data at no cost

·         Enable more transparent decision making by scrutiny and the public

·         Stimulate economic growth through information and data

·         Allow re-use of the data through use of open data licences

In order to meet the provisions of the Open Data white paper the council had already taken a number of steps (stage 1), which were to be completed by the end of March 2013.

The cabinet member was advised that Stage 1 would allow the council to comply with the current provisions of the white paper by the end of October, to get a positive rating on the SOCITM Better Connected survey, and would bring it into line with the current position of other local authorities. Stage 2 would enable the council to comply more fully with the provisions and the rationale behind the White Paper, and would ensure that the quality of the data across the council was robust.

Resolved – (a)  That the implications of the Open Data White Paper be considered and the initial stage 1 actions to meet the current provisions (Option 2 within the report) be approved, and (b) that an update on the programme of actions required to deliver stage 2 be submitted to the Policy and Resources Cabinet Member in April 2013.

49        (49)  VIREMENTS 2012-13 – The Director of Policy and Resources submitted a report seeking approval for changes to the revenue and capital budgets for 2012/13.

On 21 February 2012 Council approved the revenue and capital budgets for the 2012/2013 financial year.  The report gave details of virements approved by the Director of Policy and Resources under delegated powers and those that required Cabinet Member approval.

Resolved – (a) That the virements at paragraph 3.1 of the report, approved by the Director of Policy and Resources under delegated powers be noted, and (b) that the permanent virements outlined in paragraph 3.2 of the report be approved.

Note: Reports are in Portable Document Format (PDF) and therefore require a suitable reader to view them. A reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided on the site).

Where there is no report this is because it is exempt, as it contains information which is considered to be of a confidential nature, as detailed in the Local Government (Access to Information) Act.