Council and Democracy

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 2

Contact: Graham Ibberson  01246 345229

Items
No. Item

1.

Declarations of Members' and Officers' interests relating to items on the Agenda.

5.00pm to 5.05pm

Minutes:

No declarations of interest were received.

 

2.

Apologies for Absence

5.05pm to 5.10pm

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Borrell.

 

3.

Outside Bodies

5.10pm to 5.50pm

Minutes:

 

 

The Service Director for Corporate presented a verbal update to the Committee regarding Members and outside bodies.

 

The purpose of the update was to provide an overview of the impact of the 17% reduction in members, from 48 to 40 in May 2023 following the Boundary Review, increasing the ratio of electors per member from 1633 to 2105.  It was noted that there are currently 136 core committee places so that is a ratio of almost 3 committee places to each member.  From May 2023, due to the reduction in members the ratio would increase to 3.5 committee places per member.  

 

A member asked if the timings of the committees could be reviewed with a view to moving more to a later start time to allow increased attendance.  The Service Director confirmed that options were being developed around committee management due to the reduction in elected members as a result of the local Government Boundary review.  At this point issues around timings and frequency could also be discussed.

 

 

A member also queried if more hybrid meetings could be introduced.  The Service Director stated that this would not be possible due to Government legislation requiring decisions to be made at in person meetings.  Decision making, formal committees can therefore only take place in person but there is more flexibility around consultative committees such as Health & Safety Committee.

 

The current outside bodies nomination includes Consultative Committees, partnerships, external organisations and miscellaneous bodies.  Examples of Consultative Committees include Health & Safety and Markets Consultative Committees. Examples of partnerships include Armed Forces Covenant Partnership and the Community Safety Partnership and Crime Panel. With regards to external organisations, Chesterfield Borough Council has a clear stake in the organisation such as grant funding e.g. Citizens Advice Bureau and Derbyshire Law Centre. In these cases it makes sense to have seats on the boards but we could define what is required/expected from representatives better.  In other cases there appears to be no clear link to the external organisations.  Examples of miscellaneous bodies were also shared where the Service Director questioned if these were actual Outside Bodies or if linked to CBC in any way.

 

It was suggested that the next steps should be to set up a Scrutiny Project Group (task and finish), for members to work with the Service Director and Democratic Services, to develop a definition of what is covered by the term “outside bodies” and the associate nominated representation.

 

The next steps were said to consider identifying the criteria for having a stake in an outside body, then take the definition and test against the current list of outside bodies. On production of a streamlined view it would be confirmed what was required for each body in terms of member responsibility and expectation.

 

A member asked if CBC were aware of how many of the current list of outside bodies still had recent communications with CBC.  The Service Director confirmed that this was the case for many Consultative Committees and Partnerships but for some other  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

Scrutiny Project Groups Progress Updates

5.50pm to 6.00pm

Minutes:

A new scrutiny project group to carry out task and finish reviews by the end of 2022/23 was to be set up to look at the CBC Lighting Strategy, which was presented to the committee on 3 February 2022.

 

Democratic Services confirmed Councillors Caulfield, Fordham and Blakemore had volunteered to work on this project group.

 

The Chair requested Democratic Services progress the next stages.

 

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the action be noted.

 

5.

Scrutiny Monitoring pdf icon PDF 256 KB

6.00pm to 6.10pm

Minutes:

The Committee considered the scrutiny recommendations implementation monitoring schedule.

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the scrutiny monitoring schedule be noted.

 

6.

Forward Plan

Forward Plan of Key Decisions 1 June to 30 September 2022 available by the link below

 

https://chesterfield.moderngov.co.uk/mgListPlanItems.aspx?PlanId=138&RP=134

 

6.10pm to 6.15pm

Minutes:

The Committee considered the Forward Plan for the period 1 June 2022 to 30 September 2022.

 

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Forward Plan be noted.

 

7.

Work Programme for the Community, Customer and Organisational Scrutiny Committee pdf icon PDF 216 KB

6.15pm to 6.30pm

Minutes:

The Committee considered the items on its work programme for 2022/23.

 

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the work programme be noted.

 

8.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 290 KB

6.30pm to 6.35pm

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting of the Community, Customer and Organisational Scrutiny Committee held on 31 March 2022 were presented.

 

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Minutes be approved as a correct record and by signed by the Chair.