Agenda item

The Committee noted that the Council, at its meeting on 24 July 2018, had agreed to change the names and remits of the two Executive Advisory Boards (EABs) to reflect the new fundamental themes in the Council’s revised Corporate Plan.

Councillors were reminded that the LGA Peer Review last year recognised that EABs were a ‘work in progress’, but also noted that there was still some confusion around their role.  It had been suggested that the Council should review ways to make the work of the EABs more effective and perhaps look at focusing their work around topic based task and finish groups.

The report now before the Committee was the product of that review, which had taken account of difficulties and issues with the operation of the EABs in terms of work programming, confusion around their remit, cancellation of meetings due to insufficient business, and reluctance to discuss some matters at an early stage in a public forum with webcasted meetings.

The report had set out three Options as follows:

Option 1: To disband the two EABs and establish a single overarching EAB, commissioning task groups to look at specific topics related to delivery of the Council’s corporate priorities.

Option 2: To disband the two EABs and establish topic based advisory boards commissioned directly by the Executive on ad hoc basis.

Option 3: To make no changes.

The report had recommended Option 1 on the basis that a single EAB would provide greater flexibility with more frequent meetings, greater control by non-Executive councillors in terms of topic selection, with greater use of informal task groups to look at those topics.  A single EAB would enable more streamlined work programming, a key element of which, it was proposed, would be discussion of selected major capital projects between provisional budget approval by full Council and submission of the business case for final approval by Executive to transfer schemes to the approved programme. 

It was envisaged that the single EAB would comprise 15 members; and would meet up to 10 times a year rather than two EABs (each currently comprising 12 members) meeting six times a year.

The suggested terms of reference for the single EAB and a timetable of meetings for the remainder of the 2018-19 municipal year and 2019-20 were set out in the report.

The Committee, having considered the three options set out in the report, felt on balance that Option 1 provided the greater benefits and

RECOMMEND: That the Council agrees, with immediate effect,

(1)     the two existing Executive Advisory Boards be disbanded;

(2)     a single Executive Advisory Board (to be named “Executive Advisory Board”), comprising 15 councillors, be established, with up to seven substitute members per political group;

(3)     the Terms of Reference of the Executive Advisory Board, as set out in Appendix 1 to this report, be approved; and

(4)   the  timetable of meetings of the Executive Advisory Board for the remainder of the 2018-19 municipal year, and the 2019-20 municipal year, as shown in Appendix 2 to this report be  adopted.

Reason:

To introduce a more efficient and effective EAB configuration.