Decision details

Decision:

1.       Noted the changes the Chief Executive was making to ensure the Corporate Leadership Team had greater oversight of the Council’s companies, their objectives, business cases, and performance as summarised in paragraph 6.3 of this report;

2.       Noted the proposed revised governance arrangements relating to the Council’s company interests, set out at Part 3(1) of the Constitution, (Responsibility for Functions), as set out in para 6.1 to this report and appendix 1 and 2, and provide feedback on the proposals to the Monitoring Officer, by way of consultation;

3.       Noted the proposed revised governance arrangements relating to the Council’s company interests, set out at Part 3(2) of the Constitution, (Terms of Reference of Council, Leader/Executive and Committees), as set out in para 6.2 of this report and appendix 3 and 4, and provide feedback on the proposals to the Monitoring Officer, by way of consultation;

4.       Noted the Monitoring Officer’s intention to recommend to the GBC Corporate Governance & Standards Committee that they recommend to full Council the adoption into the Constitution of revised Parts 3(1) and 3(2) to reflect appendix 2 and 4, subject to the feedback of the Executive Shareholder and Trustee Committee.

Reason(s):

1.       It was considered that improvements could be made to the governance framework to ensure the shareholder had greater oversight of the Council’s interests in companies.

2.       Good practice would be for the Council’s senior officers to monitor the performance of the Council’s interests in companies, and to bring forwards reports to the shareholder in a regular, timely and transparent way with appropriate recommendations.

3.       Whilst the shareholder function was exercised by the Leader as an Executive function, there was currently no mechanism in place for scrutiny of such executive decisions and good practice would be for the Council’s overview and scrutiny committees to provide effective scrutiny of the shareholder role.

Other options considered and rejected by the Committee:

None.

Details of any conflict of interest declared by the Leader or lead councillors and any dispensation granted:

None.