Agenda, decisions and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Mike Best, John Clark, Peter Gubbins and Henry Hobhouse.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the Agenda for this meeting.

Members are reminded that they need to declare the fact that they are also a member of a County, Town or Parish Council as a Personal Interest. Where you are also a member of Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council within South Somerset you must declare a prejudicial interest in any business on the agenda where there is a financial benefit or gain or advantage to Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council which would be at the cost or to the financial disadvantage of South Somerset District Council. 

There were no declarations of interest made by members of the Committee.

There were no questions from members of the public.

The Chairman welcomed Jane Portman, Chief Executive, to her first District Executive meeting and said she looked forward to working with her.

The Chief Executive thanked the Chairman for her welcome and said she looked forward to working with all Members.

The Chairman introduced the report and noted that although recommendation C of the report was not required by MHCLG, she felt that it was right to establish a member working group to work with the Leader, Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer in considering the Structural Change Order, and to include  the Leader of Council, the Deputy Leader, the Leader of the SSDC Conservative Group and the Leader of the SSDC Independent Group.  She said this would ensure the process was open and transparent.  It would not be a decision making body so would not require governance arrangements. 

In response to a question, the Chairman said that she would consult and inform the one member of the Green Party on the Council.

The Director for Place and Recovery advised that the pace of the process and timetable would be led by the MHCLG and it may not fit to bring any decision to District Executive each time, therefore the delegated authority for the Chief Executive was required to negotiate theStructural Change Order on behalf of SSDC.  She outlined the need for the Structural Change Order as it would detail governance and transitional arrangements for the implementation of the new Unitary Authority.  This would also include the number of Councillors to be elected to the new Unitary Authority.  The MHCLG were currently drafting the Structural Change Order and SSDC may only have 3 or 4 weeks to negotiate it with the 5 councils of Somerset.

In response to questions, the Director for Place and Recovery and Chairman advised that:

·         the MHCLG had indicated that they expected the number of Councillors elected in May 2022 to be less than 100.  The election teams across Somerset were now looking at possible ward boundaries and Members would have the opportunity to contribute to this.  Other Unitary Authorities who had been through a boundary review were now being asked to reduce the number of Councillors quite markedly and the MHCLG were asking the Somerset Councils to look at this early to avoid re-visiting the number of Councillors after the elections in May 2022.  There would be an informal briefing prior to the Full Council meeting on 19^th August where further detail would be shared with Members. 

·         A legal challenge to the MHCLG decision for one Unitary Authority for Somerset had not been fully ruled out but the Leaders of each Council had all agreed to co-operate.

·         The leaders of all the Somerset authorities would be meeting very regularly in the future and a regular briefing to Members on progress would be made.

·         The member working group proposed at recommendation C was an informative group only.

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         A late notification of the boundaries to be contested would not assist the political parties to connect with their electorate.

In response to the points raised in the Scrutiny Committee meeting the previous day, the Director for Place and Recovery advised:

·         The term ‘twin hatters’ referred to Members who were elected to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.

Members noted that the next scheduled meeting of District Executive would be held on Thursday 02 September 2021, commencing at 9.30am. as a virtual consultative meeting via Zoom meeting software.