Agenda item

Scoping of issues for the development of the working group.

The Chairman invited Councillor Wood to put his case.  Councillor Wood thanked the Chairman for inviting him to the meeting. He briefly informed Members of his background referring to his time as an officer at SKDC at the time when a committee system was used. He did not propose that the Council went back to using a committee system like the old one but felt that a more modern committee system which was politically balanced would make Councillors feel as if they were part of the decision making process.  He referred to the change that Nottingham County Council had made back to a committee system and also Newark and Sherwood District Council had recently decided to go back to a committee system. 

He felt that although 58 Councillors were elected, only 6 of those made the decisions.  He felt that Scrutiny did not work well and the majority of Councillors were not part of running the Council. In his view a Member had two functions

·       to help run the Council and

·       to represent the electorate of the district

He felt that good ideas that back bench Councillors had were not getting through as they were not part of the decision making process. Although he felt that the Cabinet would object to the change even though it would be likely that in a committee system the Cabinet would become the Chairmen of the committees, he appreciated that it would also entail a lot of work to change back to a committee system; however, Nottingham County Council had made the change at no extra cost and he felt that it would be of benefit to Members.

A discussion then followed with each Member of the PDG putting forward their view.  One Member who had been involved with both systems and felt that a committee system was more involved. It was recognised that any change would need to be justified so put the question: what would be the reason for changing to a committee system.  Other Members felt that the current system was:

·       not accountable, not transparent and not open.

·       Members were not able to put their ideas forward

·       Members did not feel engaged within the system

·       No feedback was given from the Executive

·       Members didn’t feel involved in the decision making process

A comment was made that Members were able to get involved, if they wished, they could attend any PDG and speak on any subject or attend Cabinet and speak.  Members felt that as they could not vote on the topic then they could not influence the outcome.  Further discussion followed with reference being made to the Musical Chairs[1] document.  The Chairman appreciated all that had been said but told Members that no case had been given, the points made had all been emotive and no hard factual evidence had been given, good sound reasons were required.  Councillor Wood asked the Group if they would like someone from Newark and Sherwood District Council to attend a meeting, he would also circulate the reports from the Council to Members.   The Chairman asked Councillor Wood if he would be a conduit for all the information to which he replied he would.

In order to help Members Ms Drury gave some background information. The question before Members was whether there was a need to change the governance and if so they needed to provide evidence to support the need for change.  The Chairman did advise the Group that amongst the majority of Members there did not appear to be an appetite for change, therefore hard evidence needed to be provided.  It was proposed that the Council as a whole be asked if they wished to go down this route, however, it was felt that more work was required with the evidence to back up the case for change before it was put before Council.

The Head of Legal and Democratic then gave some factual information. Currently there were 58 Councillors, of these 6 were on the Cabinet, 11 on Licensing Committee, 7 on Governance and Audit Committee and 17 on Development Control Committee that meant 41 Councillors sat on Committees that made direct decisions.  With the PDG’s, Scrutiny and the Constitution Committee that made 78 seats which were filled by 54 of the 58 Councillors on the Council.

In order to help Members focus on the main issues a scoping checklist was then completed by them.  Members concluded that more research and hard evidence was needed to support any change to the governance of the Council and it was agreed that this would take time, anywhere between 12 and 24 months.

>Action Note

Completed checklist to be circulated to Members of the Group

The Chairman thanked Councillor Wood for attending and asked if Members had any more points that they wished to make please could they e-mail him or Ms Drury.