Issue - meetings

To review the draft Constitution for the Dorset Council and provide comments as relevant so that the committee’s views can be taken into account by the Governance Working Group when it forms its final recommendations.

The committee considered a report with regard to work undertaken to draft a Constitution for the new Dorset Council.  A copy of the draft Constitution was provided for members’ consideration.  The draft Constitution had been developed with the Governance Working Group, which had agreed a number of principles to underpin the drafting of the various key parts of the Constitution.  The draft Constitution was still work in progress, being subject to continued consultation with members and officers.  The Governance Working Group would be meeting on 19 December 2018 to consider the comments from this committee and a member briefing and workshop to be held on 13 December.  In addition a proposed draft committee structure was provided to members

The Legal Services Manager (Dorset Councils Partnership) provided an overview of the key principles which had been used to develop the draft Constitution, which included the preference of the Governance Working Group for a lean and light approach, consistency in use of terminology in the document, size of committees, decision making reserved to Full Council, Executive and overview and scrutiny arrangements.

Members considered the issues arising from the presentation and the draft document and during discussion the following points were raised:

·                The Executive would be formed of the Leader and between 2 to 9 other members

·                The detail around area forums was still work in progress and would be developed by the new Council including how they linked with town and parish councils and other local area organisations

·                Relevant issues around emergencies and contingencies would be dealt with by the Executive or Full Council as appropriate and there was a need to consider officer delegations in this area with an appropriate reporting mechanism

·                The draft committee structure included a body for the scrutiny of health matters however it was recognised that there may be a joint committee for the whole of Dorset

·                A full discussion was held with regard to the proposed arrangements for area planning and a map of the proposed area boundaries was shown to members.  The Governance Working Group had considered a range of options and had concluded that the option presented provided the best way forward and fitted in with the overarching principle of having a lean and light structure.  A comment was made that it would be useful for members to see the background information and range of options considered and it was agreed that this information could be provided to members of the committee.  Various comments were made with regard to the size of the areas, with some feeling that the areas were too large and would take away from local decision making and a comment was made with regard to the large workload for these committees.  An alternative view was expressed that the areas should be kept as proposed so that the committees had a more strategic overview of issues in the Council and recognising the role that town and parish councils played in the planning process.  It was felt that these issues could be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63