The Shadow Council considered Report No:
COU/SA/18/013, which presented the outcome of the review of civic
leadership across St Edmundsbury
Borough Council (SEBC) and Forest Heath District Council (FHDC) in
preparation for the introduction of West Suffolk Council in April
2019.
The Chair firstly thanked the Civic Leadership
Working Group and officers for their work on the civic leadership
review, which had culminated in the production of the comprehensive
Civic Leadership Review Report that was attached to Report No:
COU/SA/18/013, together with its 15 appendices.
Currently the civic leadership function for
FHDC was carried out by a chairman and for SEBC, it was undertaken
by a mayor. With the creation of the
new West Suffolk Council on 1 April 2019, there was an opportunity
to redefine the arrangements for civic leadership in order to
support West Suffolk Council’s ambitions to drive growth and
prosperity in local communities. The new arrangements needed to
look to the future while recognising and building on the traditions
of the past.
There were three main areas that needed to be
considered when defining the new role for civic leadership for West
Suffolk Council:
·
Requirements of the role;
·
The priorities for the civic leader; and
·
Format for how the role would be delivered.
The main Civic Leadership Review Report had
addressed these elements, utilising a range of information
gathering; and interpretation of findings and ascertaining common
themes, all of which had been worked through by the Civic
Leadership Working Group and summarised in the covering report
(COU/SA/18/013).
Councillor Carol Bull, one of the Shadow
Executive Members with the responsibility for Future Governance,
drew relevant issues to the attention of the Shadow Council,
including providing further detail on the proposed ambassadorial
role of the new civic leader for West Suffolk Council and the key
considerations required for the new role. This included working more closely with town and
parish councils across West Suffolk to develop and support civic
leadership at a local level, which may involve the possibility of
town councils such as Bury St Edmunds, should they so wish, to
create new town mayors. Councillor Bull
also explained the significant amount of work that had been
undertaken to form the review and how it was carried out; and
that:
·
legally from 1 April 2019, the status of the new council would be a
district with a chairman;
·
councillors had the option to change this and could decide to apply
for borough status which allowed for a mayor or chairman; and
·
should Members resolve to proceed with applying for borough status,
the decision to apply to the Privy Council for this purpose would
require a two-thirds majority vote in favour at a specially
convened Council meeting.
Councillor Bull proceeded to move the
recommendations contained within report, but with the following
amendment to Recommendation (3) to remove reference to suspend
Council Procedure Rules for enabling a two-thirds majority vote to
be required on whether to proceed with convening a special meeting
for the purpose of deciding whether to ...
view the full minutes text for item 46.