Working in Bromley

The Council Structure

The Chief Executive is the Council's Head of Paid Service, and chief policy adviser. He heads the Chief Officers' Executive, which is the officer managerial board including all the departmental Chief Officers.

Chief Officers have a strategic role, advising councillors on their areas of particular expertise and contributing to the overall leadership of the Council as well as a managerial role, ensuring that the services they are responsible for focus on delivering excellent customer service, and making the most effective use of departmental resources to achieve that goal.

The Council is organised into 6 Departments:

• Chief Executives
• Resources
• Education and Libraries
• Legal and Democratic Services
• Environment and Leisure Services
• Social Services and Housing

The Role of Councillors and Committees

Councillors are elected every 4 years. Bromley has 60 Councillors that meet 8 times a year - they decide the general aims, policies, budgetary arrangements and new major priorities for the coming year.

The 60 Councillors (also known as Elected members) represent the 22 Wards in the Borough. Of the 60 Councillors, 9 are elected each year to join the Executive.

The 9 members of the Executive are made up of 7 portfolio holders and 2 representatives without a specific portfolio.

In addition to the 7 portfolios, other areas of work include:

Policy Development & Review Committee (PDR), which looks long term at policy for the borough. Councillors research different areas and report back to both the Executive and the General Council.

Development Control looks mainly at planning permission matters throughout the borough and again reports back to both the Executive and the General Council.

Standards Committee, which is made up of 7 representatives, 3 councillors and 4 independent. They are responsible for looking at any complaints made by the public regarding the practices of their local councillor and have powers to make a councillor step down if appropriate.

Partners Committee, where councillors meet with partners in the community such as the police, local hospitals and local business to discuss good working practice between all concerned.

Equal Opportunities Policy

The Council is an equal opportunities employer.

The aim of our policy is to ensure that no job applicant or employee is treated unfairly on the grounds of age, colour, national origins, nationality, race, disability, family commitments, gender, marital status, membership or otherwise of a trade union, religion, or sexual orientation.

We treat people with equal respect, concern and consideration, and recognise the contribution every individual makes to the community. We strive to ensure that this belief is embodied in the way we provide services, in employment practices, and how we work with our partners/agencies in the community.

All our employees have responsibility for ensuring equality of opportunity for their fellow employees and job applicants, and they personally must not -

• Discriminate in the course of their employment against fellow employees or job applicants, or harass them;
• Induce or attempt to induce other employees to practice unlawful discrimination;
• Victimise individuals who have made allegations or complaints of discrimination, or provided information about such discrimination.

Pensions

If you are aged 16 to 65, whether you are a permanent or temporary member of staff, full or part time, you are eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme. Currently scheme contributions are 6% of gross salary and full tax allowance is given automatically.

The scheme is contracted out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS), so National Insurance contributions are payable at the reduced (contracted out) rate.

The scheme provides an index linked retirement pension, a tax-free lump sum, dependants' benefits and provision for early retirement on grounds of ill health or redundancy. Pension rights can be transferred to or from other pension schemes providing the scheme meets all the necessary Government requirements.

Annual Leave

The leave year runs from 1 April to 31 March each year.

Annual leave entitlement ranges from 22 days to 26 days per year depending on your salary. Part time staff receive a pro rata allowance, which can be calculated in days or hours depending on your work pattern. One extra day's leave is given at Christmas and this can be taken, with your manager's approval, at any time between Christmas Eve and 2 January. Extra leave entitlement is also given after 5 and 10 years continuous local government service.

Flexible Working

We recognise that we should ensure best use of time, space and technology to match the needs of customers and employees. We are therefore committed to operating a range of flexible working practices. Currently we support the following forms of flexible working, which are seen as most appropriate to our business:

• Part time and term time working
• Job Share
• Caring and learning support
• Flexible retirement
• Home working
• Varied start and finish times

We continue to review all forms of flexible working and their appropriateness to our business. The scheme applies to all posts unless an assessment shows that service delivery would be jeopardised by the introduction of flexible working. Flexible working may be introduced to enable management to deliver better service, or as a result of an individual request, or both. Any employee or new recruit may ask in writing to work flexibly although this may be turned down for business reasons.