Agenda and draft minutes

No declarations of interest.

To consider a report by the Head of Legal, HR & Democratic Services (copy attached) to inform Council of the contents of the Paper and obtain approval of a Council response to it.

The Leader, Councillor Hugh Evans, introduced the report (previously circulated) to inform Council of the contents of the Local Government Green Paper and obtain approval of a Council response to it.

Consultation responses were to be submitted to Welsh Government by the deadline of 12 June 2018.

The Paper was the ninth publication or consultation document issued by the Welsh Government on the topic of Local Government Reform since and including the Williams Commission Report in January 2014. 

An all Member workshop had been held on 24 May 2018 to obtain views of the wider Council membership, CET and SLT, following which a draft response had been prepared.

All Group Leaders expressed their concerns regarding re-organisation and were in total agreement with the Council’s response to the Green Paper.

They all stated that Denbighshire consistently delivered a high standard of services to residents and other service users.  The Council were also actively engaged in existing and developing regional and sub-regional collaborations.  Some collaborations eg: GWE were providing excellent services.

It was noted that no details of costings had been included within the Green Paper and until those details were submitted there should be no consideration of mergers.

It was also noted that no question had been asked, or view sought as to the case for change.  It was, therefore, assumed that Government had decided to pursue a policy of merger and was seeking views solely as to the process by which this was to be achieved.  The response to the consultation had been put together on that basis but included an introductory passage setting out the Council’s views on the case for change.

The Leader, Councillor Hugh Evans proposed the recommendation, seconded by Councillor Barry Mellor.

A vote took place as follows:

(i)              In favour – 26

(ii)             Abstain – 1

(iii)            Against – 1

Therefore, it was:

RESOLVED that the Council considered the content of the Paper attached as Appendix 1 to the report and approved the draft consultation response set out in Appendix 2 to the report for submission to Welsh Government.

The meeting concluded at 2.30 p.m.