Issue - meetings

The Committee received a report from the Chief Executive regarding changes to scrutiny committee and review of the decision making process.

The report outlined the conclusions and recommendations of a Member Working Group tasked with reviewing the council’s scrutiny committees and the workload undertaken by these committees.

In response to members’ questions the Chief Executive and Democratic Services Manager said the following:

     i.        The newly created Planning and Transport Scrutiny Committee would oversee planning policy so there was no disadvantage to implementing the scrutiny changes before the new Local Plan had been adopted.

    ii.        Referred to the Local Plan and confirmed that discussions would also need to be undertaken with South Cambridgeshire District Council about appropriate governance for the development of the new joint Local Plan.

   iii.        Confirmed that the group leaders would receive a note clarifying the changes to committee structure so they could plan for the Annual Meeting. 

  iv.        They noted Cllr Bick’s observation that as the new Environment and Community Scrutiny Committee would have three Executive Councillor portfolios reporting to it this could have implications for committee size to accommodate the requisite number of spokespeople.  This would be an issue for Group Leaders to consider when considering committee places and proportionality post-election.

Resolved (unanimously) to:

     i.        Recommend to Council the changes to Part 3 section 6 of the Constitution as set out in Appendix A (Appendix B shown with tracked changes for reference).

    ii.        Agree that the new scrutiny committees keep to the already agreed 2018/19 programme of meetings as referred to in paragraphs 3.7 and 3.8