FURTHER ELECTORAL REVIEW OF NEWARK & SHERWOOD DISTRICT COUNCIL Submission by Newark & Sherwood District Council to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England on Council Size 1.0 Introduction This submission sets out the Council’s response to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) invitation to put forward a case for Council size. The issue of Council size is a key factor in determining the scale of the Further Electoral Review (FER). The Council’s submission has been developed by a Working Party comprising of representatives from all the political groups on the Council. The Working Party considered the council size submission over a series of meetings held in November and December 2012. The submission was agreed unanimously by the full Council at their meeting held on 18th December 2012. 2.0 Council Size Criteria The LGBCE has published guidance for Council’s in respect of formulating proposals for council size. In their guidance the LGBCE state that they will look at the Council’s governance arrangements, scrutiny functions and the representational role of councillors within the local community. 3.0 Council Size Submission In this submission we address a number of criteria to justify our proposal for a reduction in the number of elected councillors for Newark & Sherwood District Council from the current 46 to 38. These proposals are based on our analysis of the decision-making and governance requirements of the Council under its proposed new governance arrangements for 2013; the geographical and community requirements for effective representation; and the need to ensure that governance arrangements are cost-effective and in line with the Council’s reducing budget. 4.0 The Council’s Current Governance Arrangements There are currently 46 members of Newark & Sherwood District Council. In the current governance arrangements six councillors are appointed to the Cabinet and the remaining forty members form part of the three Overview and Scrutiny Committees, the Regulatory Committees for Planning, Licensing, General Purposes, Audit & Accounts, Standards and Human Resources. The current business cycle of the Council involves a total of 73 formal meetings of the Council and Committees each year. This results in a total of 1094 member attendances at formal meetings – an average of 23.8 attendances per member (although responsibilities and therefore attendances vary widely according to responsibilities of individual Members and committee membership). Appendix 1 illustrates these figures in a table format. There are no significant changes to the Council’s regulatory Committees with a move to a new committee style of governance. The Council has a Planning Committee of 15 Members which meets once a month to determine planning applications that are not dealt with under delegated powers to officers. On average the Planning Committee will consider 8 planning applications at each meeting. The meeting itself is preceded by site visits from Members to a significant number of the application sites. Site visits are determined by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Planning Committee and can be requested by any Ward Members. This current level of activity is not expected to diminish over the next few years. The Licensing and General Purposes Committees in effect act as one Committee with one meeting following the other. There are 15 Members on this Committee and it currently meets 8 times in the Municipal Year. The General Purposes Committee undertakes all the Council’s licensing functions other than those falling under the Licensing Committee which are defined as those functions defined by the Licensing Act 2003. The General Purposes Committee also acts as the Trustee of the W E Knight and Gilstrap Charities and will consider an average of 6 applications each year in respect of Hackney Carriage/Private Hire licences. In addition the Council has a Standards Committee (8 Members), Human Resources Committee (7 Members) and an Audit & Accounts Committee (6 Members) which meet approximately once every quarter. In addition to the formal meetings there are a large number of additional task and finish groups, working parties and informal meetings which make-up the business workload of councillors and enable the standing Committees and Council meetings to function effectively. Although the numbers of meetings vary, it would be reasonable to estimate that currently around 177 such meetings take place annually involving around 947 member attendances. This is an average of a further 20.6 attendances per member. Appendix 2 illustrates these figures in a table format. In addition to formal and informal meetings, the Council makes appointments of representatives to outside bodies. There are 66 such appointments at present and these involve a range of different commitments in terms of time and frequency of meetings. In some cases the Council appoints non-councillors into these positions. The current schedule of representatives on outside bodies is attached as Appendix 3. Current Member workloads are not distributed evenly across all Members. For example, members in leading positions (eg. Cabinet Portfolio Holders and Committee Chairmen etc) have a significantly higher involvement in meetings than those members who are not in positions of responsibility. In addition, members of the Planning Committee have a greater workload because of the number of meetings, length of meetings and associated site visits. 5.0 Proposed Future Governance Arrangements The Council is currently finalising plans to move to a Committee system of governance from May 2013. This new system will replace the current split of responsibilities between an executive cabinet and overview and scrutiny with a committee system which strengthens representative democracy in decision-making whilst retaining a streamlined approach in respect of the governance arrangements. The Council will continue to take decisions on those matters that it is required to do by law. The new committee structure is likely to be based on the following: • Four main Committees in the new structure – Policy, Customers & People, Communities & Place, and Growth & Prosperity - the latter three addressing the main outward facing responsibilities of the Council. • Two Sub-Committees of Policy – Audit & Accounts, and Human Resources. • Four Regulatory Committees – General Purposes & Licensing, Planning and Standards (with General Purposes and Licensing acting in tandem as at present and fulfilling the function of a Trustee Board relating to the Gilstrap and WE Knight Trust). This proposed new structure is set out in diagram form at Appendix 4. The implications of the draft structure of the proposed new committee style of governance in terms of member meetings is set out in Appendix 5. This shows a total of 824 member attendances at formal meetings – an average of 21.68 attendances per member. This is slightly less than the current workload. It is considered that 38 Members would give the Council sufficient capacity to effectively operate the proposed new committee style of governance alongside continuing levels of officer delegation. This is considered to be an appropriate size for the Council because: • It would give sufficient Member numbers to ensure the proper and timely consideration and making of decisions within the proposed new committee structure. • There would be sufficient representation on Committees and Sub-Committees to ensure that any debate is informed by a range of views and opinions. • There would be sufficient capacity to ensure that absences or unavailability could reasonably be accommodated without significant detrimental impact. • The level of commitment in terms of meeting attendance would be slightly less than the current governance arrangements require. 6.0 Scrutiny Functions The proposed introduction of the new committee system will have a direct impact on the Council’s scrutiny functions. The current scrutiny functions are being carried out by three dedicated overview and scrutiny committees. It is the intention for the proposed three operational committees within the proposed new structure to have three specific functions: policy development, implementation and review. The current Overview and Scrutiny Committees largely take the form of considering reports and making appropriate comments to the Cabinet and monitoring performance reports. With the exception of the External Relations Overview and Scrutiny Committee there is little in the way of gathering external evidence. More of the detailed scrutiny functions are carried out by the smaller Working Parties/Task and Finish Groups. Issues for the Council around scrutiny will be the role in health scrutiny going forward with the established health and well being agenda and Clinical Commissioning Groups. In addition arrangements will need to be in place for joint scrutiny in respect of holding the new Police and Crime Commissioner to account and joint scrutiny of the Community Safety Partnership. 7.0 Representational Role of Councillors Newark and Sherwood District Council is a large rural district (651.8km²) covering one third of Nottinghamshire. The whole of the District Council area is covered by individual parishes. There are 54 parish councils and 22 parish meetings within the District. The District is also very diverse with large towns (Newark, Ollerton and Boughton and Southwell) and many smaller rural communities. Those Members representing rural District Wards can have between 5 and 10 parishes which they need to work with. For those Wards where there are a large number of parish councils, the current Members find it increasingly difficult to carry out all of their duties and work closely with parishes. The current average ratio for Councillors to electorate across the District is 1:1877. The current average ratio nationally is 1:2542. The ratio across Nottinghamshire is 1:1967.The proposals for a council size of 38 would result in a ratio of 1:2273. An estimate of the position in 2018 working on the assumption that growth will be at about half the rate assumed in pre-recession data would result in a ratio of 1:2470. We recognise, nevertheless that growth will happen differentially across the district.