Agenda and minutes

(Chief Executive) To declare interests in any item on the agenda.

(a)        Pursuant to the Council’s Code of Member Conduct, Councillor R Morgan declared a personal interest by virtue of being Chairman of Matching Parish Council. The Councillor had determined that his interest was not prejudicial and he would stay in the meeting.

Purpose of Committee:

(a) To consider and make recommendations to the Council on:

(i) requests for community governance reviews and how and when they

should be carried out;

(ii) any future Parliamentary and District reviews;

(iii) the outcome of such reviews;

(b) To be responsible for progressing such reviews, including conducting

public consultation in accordance with the Local Government and Public

Involvement in Health Act 2007;

(c) To keep under review the need for a larger membership of the

Committee bearing in mind its future workload;

Conduct of Reviews

The Committee shall be authorised to agree the detailed arrangements for

consulting local communities on such reviews subject to the policy and

budget approved by the Council.

Policy Issues

The Committee shall if necessary consider and make recommendations to

the Council on future policy to be adopted in regard to such reviews;

The Committee’s Terms of Reference were noted.

To consider the attached report of the Assistant to the Chief Executive on the results of the first stage of consultation under this review, and the issues to which the Council must now respond.

At the Council meeting on 30 June 2010 (minute 32), it was decided to launch a Community Governance Review in respect of Moreton, Bobbingworth and The Lavers (MBL) Parish Council. The reasons for this were three-fold:

(a)               to combine the three existing wards of High Laver, Little Laver and Magdalen Laver into one new ward known as “The Lavers”;

(b)               to achieve a closer alignment of the ratio of electors to Councillors between the three new MBL parish wards; and

(c)               to achieve savings in the cost of elections to the Parish Council by virtue of having only three wards.

The 2007 guidance placed a duty on the Council to “ensure that community governance within the area under review will be reflective of the identities and interests of the community and is effective and convenient”. The Council had to determine whether the number of electors or their distribution would make a single election impractical or inconvenient, and whether it was desirable for any areas of a parish to be represented separately.

The Council also had to consider the following:

            (a)        the number of local government electors in the parish;

(b)               any change in the number or distribution of electors over the following five years;

(c)               identifiable boundaries; and

(d)               any local ties which are broken by the fixing of any boundary.

Under the relevant legislation, the review had to be completed by June 2011, and the Council had now completed the first stage of the consultation process. This consultation covered households in the three Laver wards, and demonstrated a majority support for the warding change. The existing Laver names would still be used locally, with the combined name of “The Lavers” being used primarily for the Electoral Register. No action was required by the Local Government Boundary Commission as the external boundaries were not affected.

Stage 2 of the consultation would have to involve the examination of any other issues that were raised during the initial consultation. Some of these responses showed support for a boundary change to Matching Parish around Matching Green. This boundary was seen to divide a single community, and was thus viewed by some as detrimental to community governance. Pursuing this matter further would require wider consultation with local residents. If not pursued, reasons would have to be given to the supporters from stage 1.

As this boundary was also a District Ward and a County Division demarcation, any proposal to alter these boundaries to match the Parish boundary agreed by the Council would have to be referred to the Local Government Boundary Commission. This Commission was not currently considering any changes in this area, and any proposals made by the Council would have to make a strong case to change the boundary on all levels. Though some concerns were raised over the upcoming Parliamentary Constituency Review, it was decided by members that this review could not be taken into account at this stage.

This change could not come into place before Matching Parish Council (MPC)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

To consider an oral update report on the proposal for a Community Governance Review, involving the transfer of the Greensted Parish Ward of Ongar Town Council to the Parish of Stanford Rivers.

It was noted that there had been no further developments on the proposal to transfer part of the Greensted Parish Ward of Ongar Town Council to the Parish of Stanford Rivers, but the issue would continue to be monitored.

To consider a report of the Assistant to the Chief Executive on the forthcoming review of Parliamentary Constituencies, and a possible extension of the terms of reference of this Committee to deal with that review.

The Committee noted that though there was little information at this stage on how the review would be conducted, the Boundary Commission had stated that they were required to report to Government by October 2013, in time for implementation of new constituencies at the General Election in May 2015. Recent Government announcements indicated the objective of the review was to reduce the number of Parliamentary Constituencies in England by approximately 50, beginning in Cornwall before running North-East across the country. The target electorate was 75,000 and, anecdotally, it was understood that the review would give priority to electoral equality over Local Government boundaries or community links.

Though it remained unclear as to the extent to which the Commission would consult Councils about changes, previous electoral reviews suggested that the Commission’s response deadlines might not fit with the programme of Council meetings. The proposed changes to the Committee and its terms of reference would address this need to meet those deadlines where there may not be time to make recommendations to the Council. However, if the timescale did permit, the Committee would still report to Council with recommendations.

RESOLVED:

That a report be made to the Council recommending as follows:

(a)        that the name of the Committee be changed to “Electoral and Community Governance Review Committee”; and

(b)        that the terms of reference of the Committee be extended to allow the Committee to respond to any proposed Parliamentary Constituency Review Consultation if there is insufficient time to submit recommendations to the Council, all such responses to be subject to ratification at the next available Council meeting.

To decide dates of future meetings.

RESOLVED:

That the next meeting would be held in the week commencing 28 February 2011.