The Chair of the Council, the Chairs of Committees and Sub-Committees and Portfolio Holders to answer any questions on any matters in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affect the District of which due notice has been given in accordance with Council Procedure Rule No. 13.
Minutes:
78.1 The Chair confirmed that the question received from Councillor Riley would be deferred until the next Council meeting as Councillor Riley was not in attendance.
78.2 The Chair invited Councillor Holt to ask his question.
Councillor Holt to Councillor John Ward, Acting Leader of the Council
Re the proposed Full Council debate on the Governance structure review, it was agreed at Full Council in March 2022 to be presented to the New Council after the May 2023 Elections. I raised this at Full Council on the 18th July 2023 and as yet no one has come back to Members, I note in the minutes from the July 18th meeting that the 'The Chief Executive responded that a further review of the governance structure was agreed upon by Full Council in March 2022 and that Officers would seek to bring that debate before the Constitution Working Group as soon as possible. Six Months on and there has been no discussion within the Constitution Working Group. Q - What is happening?
Response from Councillor Ward, Acting Leader of the Council
What is happening? To be honest, not a lot at the moment. The March 2022 council meeting did agree that a further review of governance arrangements would be undertaken after the elections in 2023, but it didn’t specify a timeframe. I would remind all members that we do operate a cabinet model that is more open and inclusive than it could be: both open and confidential items are available to all members, who can attend and ask questions. Whilst chairing Cabinet meetings, I have exercised discretion on more than one occasion to allow non-cabinet members to make statements, the most recent being Cllr Owen’s statement at the last meeting.
The administration has been very preoccupied with finalising its priorities for the next 3-4 years, pursuing several initiatives such as progressing a Local Listed Building Consent Order, signing up to the Considerate Constructor Scheme, tackling the issues raised by the Housing Regulator and latterly setting the budget for 2024/25. Fiddling with governance structures while needing to address the pressing budget problems could be construed as navel gazing.
However, once we have a permanent Monitoring Officer in place then I am sure they will bring this work forward.
Supplementary question from Councillor Holt
This was a commitment made by the previous administration of which 18 members we re-elected and some sit in this chamber today. It is undemocratic for it not have been put before this council for debate which is now 8 months since it was re-elected. The Monitoring Officer back in 2022 confirmed that is was a statutory requirement that any change to governance model would come into effect that the annual council meeting meaning that it is now very unlikely that to come before all members for the decision to be implemented before May 2024. The position we find ourselves in today is a repeat of the 2022 scenario, where we find the Cabinet model not delivering democratic process to members of this chamber and our residents and I quote Councillor Parker who is not here today he said back in 2022 ‘A Cabinet system works well with a political majority but a committee system was a better system over all’. I like Councillor Parker have been in office for 9 years and experienced both systems and I have to agree with him we should not forget it we proposed during the parking charges debate of 2022 this is what drove members to have the debate. So I ask the question to Councillors Busby, Ward and Saw to commit to that debate previously agreed back in 2022 by the end of March this year 2024 and let this council decide its own future and not the select few.
Response from Councillor Ward
The cabinet model works when there is a political majority, obviously when there is a Conservative group in majority, so I think we would all like to ask why the Conservative group so eager to pursue this? they seem to have suddenly changed their minds on what they would like the governance model to be. Members in the chamber and members of the public should remember that the leader cabinet model was agreed by a conservative majority council in 2016 and implemented by that same council in 2017 so this is a U turn.
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