Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the responses received to the first phase of the review being carried out by the Sub-Committee into the appropriateness of Councillor representation on those outside organisations to which it appointed.

The responses from individual Councillors had been collated and circulated for information.  In addition information request forms sent out to all organisations at the time the appointments had been made were also circulated; a schedule of the responses received formed an Appendix to the report.

It was recognised that the Constitution for some organisations specified that there should be Councillor representatives attending its meetings and there was little that could be done to change that.  In some cases there was room for interpretation as to whether the appointments could be made by a Town or Parish Council instead a number of organisations had been referred in this way at an earlier stage of the review.

In considering the range of organisations and the responses received the Sub-Committee formed a principle that if the organisation was actually a Cheshire East establishment, run by Cheshire East staff, then it was not truly an outside organisation.  In such cases a better arrangement would be to have, for example, a User Panel; this would enable a wider cross section of representatives and users to be involved and Councillors/Portfolio Holders could be invited as and when necessary. 

In applying this principle it was agreed that the Alsager Leisure Centre Advisory User Panel be removed from the list of organisations.

The Sub-Committee expressed concern that in a minority of cases either a Councillor or an organisation had not responded to the request for information; also in some cases no meetings had been held since the appointments had been made in June 2011.  In both instances it was requested that, on behalf of the Sub-Committee, the Democratic Services Officer write to the Councillors and the organisations concerned to find out if there was a particular reason why they had not been able to respond and also asking if they still wished to be the representative or still required Councillor representatives; also in the case of the organisations where there had not been any meetings to try and ascertain the reason.

RESOLVED

1.    That Alsager Leisure Centre be removed from the list of Outside Organisations.

2.      That further enquiries be made to non responding Councillors and Organisations to ascertain the reasons for the lack of a reply, whether the Councillor concerned still wished to be appointed to that organisation and whether Councillor representation was still required.