Issue - meetings

Flintshire Electoral Review

Meeting: 19/11/2019 - Flintshire County Council (Item 67)

67 Flintshire Electoral Review pdf icon PDF 277 KB

Additional documents:

Decision:

That the Council agrees to submit the proposals set out in Appendix 1 with variation.  

Minutes:

The Chief Executive introduced the report to respond to the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission of Wales (LDBC) Review of the Electoral Arrangements of the County of Flintshire – Draft Proposals.  The consultation period during which the Council and other interested parties could respond to the proposals would end on 27 November 2019. 

 

The Chief Executive thanked Members for their work and collaboration to achieve local consensus in most cases and meet the deadline for Stage 2 of the review process.  He referred to the initial consultation between November 2018 and January 2019 when Members had made proposals to the LDBC for changes to improve local representation.  Appended to the report was the Council’s draft response to Stage 2 of the LDBC’s draft proposals for Flintshire.  The Chief Executive explained that the approach to the initial response had been to allocate proposals a red/amber/green (RAG) status which has been carried through to the second response (Green being supported LDBC proposals or alternative proposals which had consensus amongst local Members; Amber showed local proposals which do not have full consensus support; and Red indicated that no local agreement had been possible).  

 

The Democratic Services Manager presented the report.  He advised that the LDBC draft proposals for Flintshire, published in August 2019, changed the arrangement of electoral wards to achieve a “significant improvement” in the level of electoral parity across Flintshire.  This would mean a Council of 65 Members with a proposed County average ratio of 1,836 electors per Member, and a reduction to 39 electoral wards instead of the current 57.  He reiterated that the draft proposals to be submitted to the LDBC, based on extensive consultation undertaken with Members, were detailed in the appendix to the report. 

 

The Democratic Services Manager said that Members had a unique understanding of the areas which they represented and knowledge of local needs and community ties which provided community cohesion and effective representation.  He said that some of the Council’s proposals might not meet LDBC electoral parity requirements but they did present viable options which would have local support.  He reported on the main considerations around the proposals which had formed the Council’s response to the consultation.  He explained that there was still an opportunity prior to the deadline on 27 November 2019 for Members to make further personal representations or encourage group representations.  Following conclusion of the Stage 2 process the Commission would prepare a Final Proposals Report (Stage 3) which would be submitted to the Welsh Government.  He cautioned that changes at Stage 3 would be difficult. 

 

The Chief Executive explained that the Council’s response brought out the areas, as detailed in the report, where it felt that the Commission had deviated too much from its own rules.  He reiterated the need to provide the best response possible to the proposals at Stage 2 as change may not be accepted later.

 

In moving the report Councillor Ian Roberts thanked the Democratic Services Manager and the Election Team for their work and assistance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67