Agenda item

The Council, at its meeting held on 9 October 2018, considered a report concerning a review of the structure of the Executive Advisory Boards (EABs), which contained the following three options:

1.               To disband the existing EABs and establish one overarching EAB making greater use of existing powers to establish  task groups to look at specific issues and projects relating to the delivery of the nine strategic Corporate Plan priorities.

2.               To disband the existing EABs and establish topic based advisory boards to be commissioned directly by the Executive as and when required.

3.               To make no change to the current arrangements.

The Council resolved that, before any decision was taken in respect of the future of the EABs, a cross party task and finish group of nine councillors, comprising five Conservative councillors and one councillor from each of the other four groups, be established to consider the matter and report its findings to the Council. 

Accordingly, the EAB Review Task and Finish Group was established and met on 20 November 2018 when it considered the future structure of the EABs.  The Board was invited to consider a report outlining the findings of the Group’s meeting and setting out its conclusions and recommendations to the Council on 26 February 2019, which were first being shared with the EABs with a view to gaining their support.

The Group’s recommendations to Council were as follows:

(1)     That Option 2: “To disband the existing EABs and establish topic based advisory boards to be commissioned directly by the Executive as and when required” be not supported and discounted as a possible future EAB governance structure.

(2)     That the existing arrangement of the two EABs be retained for the time being whilst the Forward Plan process is strengthened pending review following the Borough Council Elections in May 2019 to ascertain whether changes to the Forward Plan process and/or EAB structure are required.

(3)     That the review referred to in paragraph (2) above be carried out within 12 months of the Borough Council Elections.

(4)     That the Forward Plan be included on future EAB agendas as part of the standing item on the Work Programme to facilitate better agenda planning.

(5)     That lead councillors do not play a part in determining the Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme at work programme meetings.

The reason for the recommendations was to introduce a more efficient and effective EAB configuration.

Having considered the report, the EAB acknowledged that the improvement in the Forward Plan would assist with future work programming for EABs and for Overview and Scrutiny.  There was some support for the retention of two EABs going forward in order to engage more backbench Councillors in the process and it was confirmed that there would be no change until the EAB configuration was reviewed following the Borough Election.

The Board indicated its agreement with the conclusions and recommendations in the report and commended them to Council, noting that the inclusion of the Forward Plan on EAB agendas had already been implemented.