Meeting documents

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Council held on 22 February 2018, copy attached as an appendix.

RESOLVED –

That the Minutes of the meeting of Council held on 22 February, 2018, be approved as a correct record.

The Chairman of the Council informed Members that to enable those who were also County Councillors to participate fully in the debate on the future delivery of local government services in Buckinghamshire, the Lead Legal and Monitoring Officer had, in accordance with the authority given to him, granted dispensations to the Members concerned under the provisions of Section 33 of the Localism Act, 2011.

The following Members declared interests in relation to the item entitled "Modernising Local Government":-

Personal: Councillors Mrs J Blake, W Chapple OBE, S Lambert, R Khan, W Whyte, Mrs J Ward, Mrs A Macpherson and Mrs N Glover.

Proposed by Councillor Mrs S Renshell, seconded by Councillor A Cole and

RESOLVED –

That Council Procedure Rules be waived to permit the following:-

·         Members to speak twice on the item relating to the modernisation of local government in Buckinghamshire, subject to a time limit for each speech of two and a half minutes and no repetition of issues raised by a previous speaker.  (The Chairman exercised flexibility to enable those Members who wished to peak once to address the Council for five minutes).

·         That the meeting should conclude no later than 8.30pm.

Councillor N. Blake

Leader of the Council

To consider the report attached as Appendix B.

Members were aware that the Council had a long term ambition to become a unitary authority given the opportunities this would afford to serve the District’s residents in the best possible way into the future.

On 16 January, 2017, the Council had agreed to submit a bid to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for a two unitary model for the County based on AVDC’s geography to serve the northern area and the geography of the District Councils of Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe to serve the southern area of Buckinghamshire.  Buckinghamshire County Council had submitted a case to the Secretary of State for a single unitary authority to serve the whole of the County.  Details of the two unitary bid could be viewed on this Council’s website.

Whilst keeping the District Councils’ aspirations live, AVDC had continued to progress its innovative approach to the delivery of services within the Vale which placed the customer at the heart of everything the Council did.

On 12 March, 2018, the Secretary of State had issued a "minded to" decision in favour of a single County-wide unitary authority and a copy of the text of the statement was appended to the Council report.  It had been made clear that the Secretary of State was willing to listen to representations in relation to the "minded to" decision, the closing date for the submission of which was 25 May, 2018.

The Leader of the Council, Councillor N Blake proposed the following, which was seconded by Councillor Mills :-

"1         That Council notes the Secretary of State’s "minded to" decision published on 12 March, 2018 (Attached as Annexe A to the Council report)

2          That in order to understand fully the rationale behind the Secretary of State’s "minded to" decision, to make representations to him on the issues considered to be relevant to the future delivery of local government services in Buckinghamshire.

3          That in order to support the above, Council agrees to spend the balance of the funds already approved for use by the Council in developing and submitting the case for two unitary authorities to serve the residents of Bucks.

4          That the final wording of the representations be delegated to the Chief Executive, after consultation with the Leader of the Council, and to take any urgent actions that might be required after consultation with the cross party Leaders’ Group referred to in 5 below.

5          That the AVDC Group Leaders Group be reconstituted as a way of communicating with all Members of across the Council on unitary issues as they develop".

It was thereupon proposed by Councillor Lambert and seconded by Councillor Christensen:-

"That paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 be deleted".

This was deemed to be a direct negative and Council agreed at this point to take a vote on each paragraph of the motion individually at the end of the debate.

It was thereupon proposed by Councillor Mrs Harrison and duly seconded:-

That the words "in consultation with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.