Meeting documents

Venue: Market Hall, Old Amersham - 6pm for refreshments and networking

Items
No. Item

1.

Confirmation of Chairman

To confirm the appointment of the Chairman of the Amersham Local Area Forum

Minutes:

2.

Appointment of Vice Chairman

The Vice Chairman to be a District Councillor

Minutes:

3.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Chenies Parish Council and Rita Lally, BCC Strategic Director with responsibility for Chiltern area

4.

Declarations of interest

Minutes:

5.

Report to Amersham Local Area Forum regarding future locality working, including proposed constitution, terms of reference and membership pdf icon PDF 53 KB

to consider the report of Alison Derrick and Rebecca Carley, Locality Working Team (GC2C)

Minutes:

Members received the report of the Senior Area Co-ordinator, which set out the purpose of Local Area Forums and the proposed Constitution for the LAF as set out in Appendix A of the Report.

 

LAFs will play a key part in delivering services at a local level as well as being involved in how devolved money is spent.  Currently only the County Council has devolved funding and services to the local areas, but it was hoped that in time District Councils, other public sector bodies would also devolve budgets and services and thatprivate and volunteer groups will also become involved.  Information from the various local groups can be fed into the meetings in order to form a view of the needs and wants of the local community.

 

Concern was expressed that whilst the LAFs are unincorporated associations, they do not have full power over spending because, whilst Parish Councils can discuss and recommend how spending should be allocated, any recommendations are only advisory.

 

With regard to voting it was suggested that it should be restricted to one vote per member organisation, i.e. County Council, District Council, Parish/Town Council.  It was noted that the Chairman would not be the person voting on behalf of the County Council, but would have the casting vote in the case of deadlock.  The Senior Area Co-ordinator informed members that she would consult with the Head of Legal & Democratic Services on whether this was acceptable.  Members also agreed that any other organisations that were invited to join the LAF would not be entitled to vote.

 

It was noted that where decisions were being made on spending, officers’ advice would need to be taken into account. 

 

In answer to a member’s question, the LAF was informed that 11 of the 19 LAFs had reached the point of agreeing the Terms of Reference.  However, many styles of voting had been adopted ranging from one vote per member, or more than one vote for particular parish councils, depending on their size.

 

Members agreed that the standing items of Question Time and Petitions would appear after the main agenda items.  Confidential items would be dealt with after all public items had been taken.

 

With regard to Petitions, members noted that even if they are presented to the LAF meeting, they will still need to be presented at County Council meetings. A six monthly report will be presented to the LAF, containing actions and the status of each petition.

 

As well as lead officers, officers from relevant services, including Transportation, will attend as needed

 

Members AGREED the following:

 

In future nominated representatives from Buckinghamshire County Council, Chiltern District Council, Amersham Town Council and Penn, Chesham Bois, Chenies and Coleshill Parish Councils, should meet at a fully constituted Local Area Forums (LAF)

 

Subject to the outcome of the discussion with the Head of Legal and Democratic Services, voting will take place on the basis of one vote per organisation: that the Chairman would not be the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Local Area Forum budgets pdf icon PDF 233 KB

to consider the report of Alison Derrick, Area Co-ordinator, Locality Working (GC2C)

 

Minutes:

Members received the report of the Senior Area Co-ordinator, which set out the arrangements for the allocation of the funding devolved to LAFs in 2009/10.  Further devolvement of budgets for 2010-11 and beyond will be advised later this year.

 

Members noted that that any underspend in devolved funding cannot be carried forward into the next financial year.

 

Devolved budgets, as set out in the Report needed to be allocated by November 2009, otherwise funding will be returned to the relevant services and designated to other projects, not necessarily within the LAF area.

 

The list of proposed schemes for 2009/10 from transportation devolved funding had been agreed by former members of the Chiltern Local Committee.  However, concern was expressed that it appeared that the Head of Transportation had approved the schemes rather than members of the Local Area Committee.  It was noted that although the Local Committee did agree the schemes they wished to see carried out, they needed to be approved by the Head of Transportation in relation to whether or not they were viable and appropriate.

 

Discussion took place on the amount of money devolved from Transportation, which had not changed for some years.  It was hoped that further money may be devolved at some time in the future.  However, larger schemes could be influenced by Parish/Town Councils and if requested any scheme could be brought to the LAF for discussion.  It was hoped that more resources could be spent on schemes and services tailored to the need of the local communities

 

In discussing the money devolved from the other services areas, the following was noted:

 

·         The Early Years grant related to provision of activities such as ICT, disabled access and flexible provision for two to four year olds.  Members were asked to contact the Divisional Director if they required further information because of the strict criteria attached to this money.  IT was noted that this money also applies to private nurseries.

 

·         The Local Priorities budget could be allocated to any issues which are established as priorities are identified.  Priorities identified by parish and Town Health Checks could be used to help establish shared priorities for 2009/10.

 

·         With regard to monitoring, a review of work undertaken will be carried out and proposals put forward for the next budget.  Appendix A of the report showed how LAFs are able to influence local spend. 

 

·         For 2010/11 the LAF devolved budget is expected to be approximately £50,778 of which the Transportation element of the budget will be £32,778.

 

As well as the highways devolved budget, members noted that the locally focused maintenance budget is ongoing. Members could put forward any proposals to their County Councillors or to the Local Area Technician for their area, for work they would like to see undertaken.

 

Members agreed that a representative from Transport for Buckinghamshire should be invited to the next meeting.  They also noted that proposals for highways improvement schemes for 2010/11 could be sent from the beginning of May 2009 onwards. Potential  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Question time

Minutes:

8.

Petitions

Minutes:

9.

Date of next meetings

Minutes:

It was agreed that a further meeting will be held in July and that members from the Police and the Revitalisation Groups should be invited to attend.

 

Further meetings will be arranged and members will be notified of the time and date. Wednesdays were felt to be the best day of the week for meetings and Members were asked to suggest suitable venues which would enable the meeting to be held throughout the Forum area.