SH.35/21
The Monitoring Officer
presented the Board with his report outlining the need for
clarification as to the Duty Holder for Salcombe Harbour, in line with the Port Marine
Safety Code 2016.
It was highlighted
that the Allington and Strete Ward would also be affected and therefore
would need to be added to the report’s front
sheet. The report outlined the three
options available to the Board: the duty holder could be a) all
Members of South Hams District Council (SHDC); b) all Board Members
of Salcombe Harbour Board (SHB); or c)
a senior Council officer. The
Monitoring Officer confirmed that the Scheme of Delegation would be
subject to annual review imminently, but that there was a need to
identify the duty holder before this review was
completed.
In discussion, the
following points were raised:-
(a)
An issue,
which had been highlighted before, was that some areas under the
responsibility of the duty holder were outside of the jurisdiction
of SHB and therefore SHB could not currently be appointed as duty
holder.
(b)
Several
Members agreed that the report did not give sufficient analysis of
the three options available,.
(c)
A Member
highlighted that, as SHB did not have control of all assets, then
the role of duty officer could not currently sit with the
Board. It was pointed out that, as with
Cornwall Council, all SHDC Members could receive free training to
be signed up to be joint duty holders.
In such an instance, SHB would be advisors to the Duty
Holder.
(d)
Paragraph
3.4 of the attendant report stated that it would be beneficial to
maintain a clear split between the democratic function of SHB
(strategy and policy) and the Duty Holder’s function
regarding safety. Several Members felt
that safety could not be separated out from strategy and policy as
all three areas were integral to each other.
(e)
It was
commented that the senior officer role that was recommended to be
the designated duty holder was already
a busy role within the Council, with limited capacity and that a
short course on the duty holder role could not replace
experience.
(f)
It was
recommended that there was a need to have a breakdown of who did
what, outlining the responsibility of SHB, responsibility of the
duty holder, and how these responsibilities interacted and
overlapped. It was felt that this
information should be available to be considered alongside this
agenda item.
(g)
One Member
offered to do the duty holder training for free if required –
this was due to the experience he already had in training other
individuals.
(h)
It was
also noted that the new Board Member, who would be starting in May
2022, was an ex Harbour Master of a very busy port, who had been
working with the Port Marine Safety Code. Therefore his input to the Board could be very
useful.
(i)
One Member stated that he thought the responsibility
for safety should sit with the people who worked on the frontline
and ...
view the full minutes text for item SHB.35/21