Meeting documents

Deputy Cabinet Members in attendance were Mrs A Cranmer, Mr A Hussain and Mr C Harriss.

There were none.

Mr M Tett, Leader introduced the item and highlighted the following background:

• Initial plans for a single unitary authority was initiated in 2014 by Aylesbury Vale District Council.
• Buckinghamshire County Council put forward their business case to Government in 2016 for the creation of a single unitary council, followed by a separate District submission in February 2017 for two separate authorities.
• In March 2018 the Secretary of State announced a ‘minded to’ decision to agree the County Council’s business case.  There was then an extended period for representations and then in November 2018 the new Secretary of State announced the continued support of the County Council’s business case.
• Representations had been made for the governance of the implementation and the Secretary of State had released a letter setting out those areas that the five councils could not reach a consensus on.
• Mr Tett stated that the County Council wanted to work in partnership with the district colleagues in the creation of an entirely new council.  The creation of the new council was for the benefit of residents and required the input of colleagues across all five councils.

Ms R Shimmin, Chief Executive, reiterated messages that had been made to staff highlighting the importance of the change and the impact for residents, businesses, partners and staff across the county.  It would see a creation of a brand new council for Buckinghamshire and would have a significant impact on all our staff.  County and district colleagues were working collaboratively in order to create a council all could be proud of.  Ms Shimmin gave assurances to all staff at county and district councils that it was a new authority that would build on the best of all the councils.

Ms S Ashmead, Executive Director and Monitoring Officer attended the meeting to outline the process going forward.  Ms Ashmead drew Cabinet’s attention to the following:

• The report asked Cabinet to give consent to the making of Regulations by the Secretary of State.
• Ms Ashmead wanted to ensure that Members were clear about the distinction between the Regulations and the Structural Changes Order, both of which were required legislations to go through Parliament in order to implement the unitary proposal.
• Firstly the Regulations were required in order to streamline the process and to enable to the Secretary of State to lay a Structural Change Order in relation to Buckinghamshire; and Cabinet were being asked to consent to those Regulations
• The Secretary of State required at least one council to consent to the Regulations and the name of the councils in agreement would be included in the Regulations which would be laid on Monday 14 January.
• The second piece of required legislation was the Structural Changes Order which would include details of implementation, transition arrangements and details of the new council, the content of which was also set out in the report.
• The Structural Change Order would be laid later than the Regulations and therefore assurances had been sought on the expected content of the Structural  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4 February 2019

4 February 2019