Agenda item

To consider a report by the Head of Legal, HR and Democratic Services (copy attached) to seek Members’ views on the advantages and disadvantages of the continued appointment of members to the outside bodies listed in Appendix 1 of the report.

The Head of Legal, HR and Democratic Services introduced the report (previously circulated) to seek Members’ views on the advantages and disadvantages of the continued appointment of Members to the outside bodies listed in Appendix 1 attached to the report.

In 2012, Cabinet received a report on the appointment of elected Members to outside bodies and was asked to determine which of the bodies then listed should continue to have appointments made to them.  As a result of that, the appointment of Members to some outside bodies had been discontinued.

A report was to be presented to the new Cabinet in either June or July 2017 to again determine which of the bodies as listed should continue to have appointments made to them.

Members’ views were sought on whether there were outside bodies that Members felt played an important part in helping the council to deliver its corporate priorities.

During discussion, the following points were raised:

Ø  It was important to note that a Member appointed as a Council representative on an outside body should be entitled to include attendance at a meeting of that body for the purposes of determining whether their attendance met the statutory minimum for continuing to hold office.  Members were in agreement that a note of their attendance should be a matter of public record and the Democratic Services Manager confirmed he would look into how this could be recorded.

Ø  Rather than go through the list during the meeting, it was confirmed that the list of outside bodies would be circulated to all councillors for their feedback.  Committee Members confirmed that the following were no longer in existence:

v Denbighshire Enterprise Agency

v Denbigh Lower Park Association, and

v Heather and Hillforts Partnership Board

Members also confirmed that Denbigh Care & Repair Agency had now amalgamated.

Ø  It was queried as to why representatives sat on both the Deeside and Yale College Shadow Board and the Deeside College Governing Body.

Ø  Councillor Martyn Holland expressed his disagreement with being involved with Limited Companies.

Ø  The issue of the requirement for Members attending outside body meetings to report back to Council was raised to explain the work with that body.  It was proposed that Members who were to be appointed to an outside body be required to attend training on being a member of an outside body and also how to report back to Council.  Appendix 3 attached to the report contained a draft reporting template for Members to adopt for the Committee’s consideration.  The recommendation from the Committee was that the form needed to be simple and include how many meetings had been attended in one year, how many times the Committee met and whether it had been value for money.

Ø  It was confirmed that certain outside bodies e.g. North Wales Fire Authority together with the North Wales Police Authority required a politically balanced committee and the Local Authorities were informed by them specifically which political party members were required.

Ø  Prior to allocation of Members on to the relevant outside bodies, a job description would be circulated confirming the functions of the group.  This would enable the Group Leaders to appoint the appropriate person.

RESOLVED that:-

Ø  The list of outside bodies be distributed to all Councillors for their comments regarding the number of outside bodies which required representation

Ø  Members attendance at outside body meetings be shown in their attendance statistics

Ø  Feedback from meetings to be collated for presentation to council on a 6 or 12 monthly basis

Ø  The committee noted the guidance given to Members on outside bodies in Appendix 2 attached to the report.