Agenda item

The Council considered a report of the Head of Legal and Democratic Services which sought to agree the appointments process of Members to Joint and Other Bodies (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Leader of the Council Moved Recommendations 3 (a-d) and (f-h), Seconded by the Deputy Leader.

The Leader of the Council referred to Recommendation (c) and informed Council it was not proposed to appoint any additional Trustees to the Charter Trust as referred to in Paragraph 4 of Appendix 3.

The Leader of the Council Moved Recommendation 3 (e) and nominated Councillor A Watson as Chair of the County Council’s Audit Committee to serve on the Joint Audit Committee. Seconded by the Deputy Leader.

Resolved:

That:

(a)       the allocation of seats on the County Durham Fire and Rescue Authority as detailed in Appendix 2 be agreed;

(b)       the allocation of seats to the Business Durham Advisory Board as set out in paragraph 4(b) to the report be agreed;

(c)       the allocation of seats on the Charter Trust as detailed in Appendix 3 be agreed; 

(d)       the allocation of seats on the Police and Crime Panel as detailed in Appendix 4 be agreed;

(e)       that the Chair of the Audit Committee is nominated to serve on the Joint Audit Committee to assist the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner, and Chief Constable, noting the nomination is subject to approval of the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner be agreed;

(f)        the current arrangements for the North East Combined Authority, and the North East Combined Authority and authorise the Director of Legal and Democratic Services be authorised, in consultation with the appropriate Group Leader(s) to make appointments once the specifics of the determination of allocation to political groupings were advised to the council by the NECA secretariat.

(g)   authorise the Director of Legal and Democratic Services, in consultation with the appropriate Group Leader(s), be authorised to make appointments to the other outside bodies to which the Council are invited to nominate, in accordance with the following criteria:-

(i)   identify those organisations whose purpose is aligned to a specific Cabinet Portfolio, and nominate Members accordingly.

(ii)  identify local outside bodies from each electoral division and allocate those to local members. If there are more seats on an outside body than local members then the political balance would be applied. For those local bodies which are strategic in nature representation by a specific Cabinet Portfolio would be appropriate. 

(iii)If a consensus on the allocation of seats to Members within the electoral division cannot be reached, should the division be represented by Members from different parties and agreement cannot be reached, the party with the largest proportion of seats on the Council would be allocated the seat.

(iv) the bodies which are not local to a particular electoral division, for example, those with a County or Regional remit, appointments be made in accordance with the overall political proportionality of the Council, except in the case of bodies providing services in one particular locality, in such circumstances the membership would be from that locality.

(h)   authorise the Director of Legal and Democratic Services, in consultation with the appropriate Group Leader(s), be authorised to make any changes to memberships of the main outside bodies/ joint bodies approved by Council, which may become necessary during the course of 2024/25.