Issue - meetings

(a)       That the report be received; and

(b)       That the recommendation to the Constitution Committee be that the draft response should be amended to include all statutory public bodies, whether they be devolved functions or not. 

The Member Engagement Manager introduced the report to enable the Committee to consider the draft response to the Welsh Government Consultation Document number WG17306, Designated Persons Order (Number 1) which had been made to provide specific external scrutiny powers under Section 59 of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011.

He explained that this Committee had been created to concentrate predominantly on external scrutiny and detailed the work which had already been undertaken by the Committee.  However Members had often expressed frustration at the lack of progress with statutory guidance as to which public organisations would become ‘designated persons’ under section 59 of the Measure. 

Paragraph 3.02 detailed the statutory basis for designated persons and the bodies being considered for the first designation phase were listed in paragraph 3.03.  The Member Engagement Manager welcomed that Local Health Boards were included in the list but explained that higher and further education had not been included as they had not been listed in section 38 of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009 for inclusion in the draft first designation order.  The Chief Executive had suggested that all statutory bodies should be included in the first tranche regardless of whether they were devolved or not.   The Member Engagement Manager said that for the future it could be reasonable to include public service broadcasters such as the BBC and S4C and transport providers who received public subsidies could also be considered. 

The Member Engagement Manager explained that a draft response was attached to the report which advised that it was not considered necessary or appropriate to designate Town & Community Councils as there were already close working arrangements which included meetings to discuss matters of mutual interest.  He advised that any comments from Members at this meeting would be reported to the Constitution Committee on 16 October 2013 for inclusion in the response to the consultation document. 

Councillor David Mackie said that he had previously raised concern about the ability to scrutinise joint ventures with other local authorities.  He thanked the Member Engagement Manager for the report and proposed that the Committee support the recommendation.  Following a question from Councillor Nigel Steele-Mortimer, the Member Engagement Manager detailed which Overview & Scrutiny Committee the designated bodies would be scrutinised by.  He also discussed with the Committee whether they supported the recommendation by the Chief Executive to include all of the statutory bodies; this was agreed by the Committee.       

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be received; and

(b)       That the recommendation to the Constitution Committee be that the draft response should be amended to include all statutory public bodies, whether they be devolved functions or not.