To receive apologies for absence (to include reasons, where appropriate) from Members/Officers.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr E Venables due to childcare commitments.

To receive for approval, the minutes of the meeting of the Democratic Services Committee held on 2 October 2014.

RESOLVED:         That the minutes of a meeting of the Democratic Services Committee held on the 2 October were approved as a true and accurate record subject to the inclusion of the apologies for Cllr DK Edwards who was on holiday and the removal of Cllr CE Smith as being in attendance. 

To receive declarations of personal and prejudicial interest (if any) from Members/Officers in accordance with the provisions of the Members’ Code of Conduct adopted by the Council from 1 September 2008.

none

The Head of Democratic Services presented a report to advise the Committee on the performance and updates relating to the services provided to Elected Members.

He advised that the re-structure of Legal & Democratic Services which had taken place in order to meet the requirements of the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) was ongoing and outlined the changes.  He explained that all committees were being requested to reduce the number of committee meeting where possible to assist in the achievement of the budget savings for the forthcoming year.  He requested the views of the committee in respect of reducing the number of its meeting to 2 per year. 

Members requested that where possible future committee meeting should avoid school holiday.  It was suggested that since the introduction of the Leader and Cabinet system the business of Council had been dramatically reduced and therefore the number of its meetings could be reduced.  The Head of Democratic Services explained that unfortunately meetings for regulatory committees may be required to meet in holiday periods but where possible committees could be scheduled to avoid holiday periods.

Members queried the developments being undertaken in respect of the scrutiny committees.  The Head of Democratic Services advised that plans were progressing and it confirmed that the 5 scrutiny committees would remain with updated remits.  The number of scrutiny committee meeting was expected to be 6 meetings per committee and this would be achieved with the effective management of the work programmes. 

Members agreed that the committee could meet only twice a year with the agenda for each committee having significant substance.

The Head of Democratic Services continued with an update of the performance in respect of elected member referrals.  He advised that the 5 and 10 day completion rates were 48.11 and 71.88% respectively.  Cllr CA Green requested that one of her referrals be followed up as it had been outstanding for over 10 weeks.  The Head of Democratic Services would investigate and provide her with an update.

He advised the committee of the forthcoming member development proposals and the planned activities that had been scheduled.  He added that with the recent reduction in funding to the WLGA and the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) proposals for future funding and service delivery were currently being developed but it was likely that the level of support for Member Development activities from them will be significantly reduced from 31 Mar 15.  He requested that the committee prioritise the delivery of the pre-council briefings and other events and suggested that topics be placed in priority order with priority 1 topics being dealt with in the next few months and the priority 2 topics being considered for subsequent sessions.  After some debate it was agreed that the following activities be prioritised as follows:

Pre-Council Briefings:

The Head of Democratic Services presented a report which informed the Committee of the action plan being developed to take forward the diversification of democracy initiated by the Welsh Government’s Expert Group on Local Government Diversity as set out in the “On Balance: Diversifying Democracy in Local Government in Wales” report.

He explained that the “On-Balance” report identified a number of recommendations to ensure that the people making decisions on behalf of the people they represent are in tune with their communities and reasonably reflect the diversity of the people they represent.  He outlined the key recommendations for this Authority and described the action plan that had been developed. 

He added that no additional funding had been made available by the Welsh Government and that detailed costings would be drawn up and a request for funding would be made to the Welsh Government. 

RESOLVED:         That the Democratic Services Committee noted the report:

To consider any item(s) of business in respect of which notice has been given in accordance with Part 4 (paragraph 4) of the Council Procedure Rules and which the person presiding at the meeting is of the opinion should by reason of special circumstances be transacted at the meeting as a matter of urgency.