Agenda item
GOVERNMENT POLICY CHANGES
To receive an update on the following Government Policy Changes
· Impact on the Localism Act on Service Provision
· Impact of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access and Access to information) (England) Regulations 2012
Minutes:
Tim Howes, Assistant Director for Democracy and Governance briefed the panel on the impact of the ‘Localism Act’ and of the ‘Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access and Access to information) England Regulations 2012’ on service provision.
With regard to the Localism Act –
(a) |
under
the general power of competence, a council could do anything that
isn’t unlawful, this had little effect on this Council as
current powers could generally be found to do
anything; |
(b) |
the
main change affecting this Council was the abolition of the
Standards Committee and Standards Board for England. This
change meant that the worst that could happen to a member who had
acted contrary to the code of conduct was a letter from the
monitoring officer and attendant
publicity; |
(c) |
an
independent person would need to
be appointed to review complaints. Officers were looking at
the best way to appoint an independent person; |
(d) |
a new
type of interest – ‘disclosable pecuniary
interests’ had come in to effect and a completed form for all
members had been published on the Councils website; |
(e) |
‘Community Right to Challenge’, where members of the
public could bid to run Council services had created additional
work for the Legal and Procurement teams however this work had been
absorbed into the existing workload. Any successful bids
would create a large amount of unplanned work that had not been
budgeted for; |
(f) |
work
around ‘Assets of community value’, a process which
offers greater protection to community infrastructure which is
considered to be of community value, had been absorbed by the Legal
Services Team; |
(g) |
any
referendum on excessive council tax increase would be managed by
the Council and then recharged to the precept authority; |
(h) |
the act
had also seen changes to the planning process however these had not
impacted on Democracy and Governance. |
In response to questions the Monitoring Officer
advised that -
(i) |
at
present members of this council were only required to declare the
statutory minimum information on their register of interests
however, this would be looked at as part of the code of conduct
review and there was potential to include a requirement to declare
membership of closed societies such as
freemasons; |
(j) |
there
had been no requirement to use the general powers of
competence as of
yet; |
(k) |
officers proposals on the new code of conduct would be reviewed by the constitution working group, the Leader and Shadow Leader before submission to Council for final approval. |
With regard to the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access and Access to information) England Regulations 2012 -
(l) |
the
regulations had come into effect with little warning having been
laid before parliament on 8 June 2012and coming into effect on 1 July 2012. It
was felt across the country that this new legislation was an answer
to a problem that hadn’t existed; |
(m) |
there
had been concerns about the need to publish all officer decisions,
which could run into hundreds of thousands. Guidance was sought
from the Department for Communities and Local Government who
advised that only decisions specifically delegated by the Cabinet
to officers would need to
published; |
(n) |
changes
had been absorbed by existing staff within the Democratic Support
Team; |
(o) |
the law
only affected Cabinet meetings and did not apply to other
committees such as scrutiny; |
(p) |
due to
the requirement to give 30 days’ notice of items which would
be considered by the Cabinet under part II, officers have found
themselves in the position where they need to make a best guess
about whether an item may or may not need consideration under part
II. |
Agreed -
(1) |
to
request an update on the effects of the Localism Act on the
Planning Service; |
(2) |
to request that the monitoring officer email advice to all members on how the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access and Access to information) England Regulations 2012 affected committees. |
Supporting documents: