Agenda item

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 organisations and miscellaneous bodies this was unknown so the Group could review which bodies were still relevant and where CBC still added value.

Members asked questions regarding representation on outside bodies and if this representation was as an individual, CBC or political.  The Service Director advised that as currently nominations for outside bodies were confirmed at Full Council, nominees are representing the Council. 

Questions were also asked around the regularity of meetings and the potential for producing a questionnaire for members to detail their involvement with outside bodies. The Service Director stated that the Project Group next steps would be to meet initially to identify what we needed to ask members, what was their contribution to these bodies, then develop and issue a proforma to all members.  The Project Group was then to meet and review these findings.

It was agreed that Councillors Blakemore, Kellman and Dyke would make up member participation on the Project Group and would work alongside the Service Director and Democratic Services.