Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutesof the Cabinet meeting held on 8 March 2016.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet held on Tuesday, 8 March 2016, be signed as a correct record.

Chairman to announce any urgent items which due to special circumstances are to be dealt with under agenda item 7(b).

There were no urgent items for consideration at this meeting.

Members and officers are reminded to make any declarations of disclosable pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests they may have in respect of matters on the agenda for this meeting.

No interests were declared at this meeting.

Questions submitted by members of the public in writing by noon on the previous working day (for a period up to 15 minutes).

No public questions had been submitted.

To recommend the Council to adopt the recommendations of the Boundary Review Panel and approve the submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England of a pattern of wards for a 36 member Council.

The Cabinet considered the report circulated with the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).

Mr Dignum introduced the report, explaining that the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) had agreed, at the Council’s request in the last Council term, to carry out an electoral review of Chichester District. The LGBCE had stated that it was ‘minded to’ recommend a Council size of 36 – also as requested by this Council - a 25% reduction from the present 48.

Having made that provisional decision on council size, the next stage was to divide the district into wards. The LGBCE had launched a consultation on 26 January 2016, inviting proposals on a pattern of wards to accommodate 36 councillors. The closing date for responses was 4 April. People and organisations might have made recommendations direct to the LGBCE of which the Council was not aware.

However, the Council’s Boundary Review Panel had prepared a set of proposals, drawing on the product of three area workshops involving local ward members. Those proposals were set out in Appendix One to the report and had been the subject of a consultation exercise.

The Boundary Review Panel on Monday 21st March had reviewed all the representations received from the consultation. These were set out in Appendix 2. The Panel had made recommendations which were set out in Appendix 3 in the form of a draft submission to the LGBCE.

In preparing proposals, the Panel and the Council had to consider three statutory criteria, which the LGBCE was bound by. These were set out in section 4 of the report:

·         Electoral equality

·         The interests and identities of local communities

·         Effective and convenient local government

In practice these aims were sometimes incompatible, and so there was scope for judgement. The Council’s judgement and that of the Boundary Commission might differ but the Boundary Commission had the final say.

The District’s projected electorate divided between 36 members gave a target size of ward of 2,744 electors per councillor. If possible proposals should keep within a tolerance of ± 10%, i.e. within a range 2,470 to 3,018.

Three of the Panel’s proposed wards were outside that tolerance:-

Oving Ward: -14.7%. But this included the Shopwhyke Lakes Strategic Development location so that headroom would be taken up over time.

Bosham Ward: +15.2%. This was dealt with in paragraph 6.7 of the report.

Harting Ward: +11.3%. But the Panel had looked carefully at options for transferring whole parishes elsewhere, and the parishes had made good cases on community interests grounds to stay in Harting.

There were only two areas of real controversy:

Selsey and Sidlesham. The local members and the parish council had made a strong argument that their communities had little in common and should not be combined. The solution suggested by Selsey members had been rejected by the Panel for reasons set out in para 6.4 on page 17. Looked at alone, the Selsey members’ proposal might have merit but its knock-on effect would be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 178.

There are no restricted items for consideration.

The press and public were not excluded for any part of the meeting.