Meeting documents

To elect a Chairman of the Committee for the remainder of the Municipal Year 2016/17.

Councillor E A Walsh was elected Chairman of the Governance and Electoral Arrangements Committee for the remainder of the municipal year.

To agree the Minutes of the meeting held on 24 February 2016.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Governance and Electoral Arrangements Committee held on 24 February 2016 were agreed by the Committee and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

There were no declarations of interest.

Members considered the report prepared by the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in order to agree the scope of the project to review the Council’s Constitution, and also to agree a draft work programme.

Councillor M Stannard entered the meeting at 6.41pm.

Members were advised that a harmonisation of the frameworks of Chiltern District Council and South Bucks District Council Constitutions should be undertaken to facilitate more effective running of shared service arrangements in the updated constitution, and to ensure the Council meets its statutory duty of publishing an up to date constitution. Members reiterated the importance of the need to simplify the constitution. It was noted that many of the rules of procedure are legislation driven, but in response to questions it was advised that members receive a list of these rules to know which rules can be revised.

Following consideration of the scope of the review, members agreed that a review of the political management arrangements would be advantageous as a project to run alongside a review of the Council’s Constitution. This review is to include, but is not limited to: committee structure and meeting cycles; key decision threshold; and the quorum and membership of each committee. Members agreed that it would be helpful to revisit a report on political management arrangements previously submitted to the committee.

Members made minor amendments to the report with regards to formatting for clarity.

RESOLVED:

(i)            That the scope of the review be agreed, as follows

• ensuring the Constitution reflects the Council’s current political management arrangements and meets all necessary legislative requirements

• harmonising rules of procedure, key definitions, local codes, protocols and officer delegations with South Bucks for the effective running of shared services, where appropriate

• to decide how and when the Constitution should be reviewed and amended in future to ensure it continues to be kept up to date

• recommending making changes to the Council’s existing political management arrangements (i.e.to the number and terms of reference of committees and to the cycles of meetings)

(ii)          That the principles of the review be agreed, as follows:

• to avoid jargon and make the Constitution easy to read and understand;

• to create a document that is easy to navigate via the intranet and internet;

• to reduce the length of the Constitution where possible to a more manageable size; and

• to make the Constitution more accessible, by making better use of the Council’s website and hyperlinks to live documents.

(iii)         That the draft work programme be agreed with a final report submitted to Council on 16 May 2017.