Agenda item

Community Governance Order

Minutes:

Following the Community Governance Review (CGR) of Bexhill-on-Sea and the subsequent recommendations approved by full Council in September to establish a parish council for Bexhill-on-Sea, the Council was required to approve a Community Governance Order (CGO) in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 86, 98(3), 98(4), 98(6) and 240(10) of the 2007 Act.  The Community Governance Review Steering Group (CGRSG) were invited to review the draft CGO attached at Appendix A to the report which would be submitted to Cabinet and Council in December. 

 

The Council had appointed Surrey Hills Solicitors who were providing the legal support and expertise to draft the CGO and the lead Solicitor, Ian Davison was present.  The draft CGO was generally a model Order and comprised 15 Articles with six accompanying Schedules and Ian Davison led Members through CGO and the following points were noted:

 

·     although legally required to be established as a ‘parish council’, the adoption of ‘Town’ status would be a matter to be decided by the new parish council at its first meeting;

·     the new parish would come into effect on 1 April 2021, with the 18 current District Councillors for Bexhill acting as an interim body (but not expected to do anything) until the first parish councillors came into office on 10 May 2021;

·     there was no scope to establish an interim body prior to the new parish coming into effect on 1 April 2021; the District Council should not make decisions for the new parish council in advance – the role of RDC was to get the new parish council up-and-running;

·     administrative expenditure prior to 1 April 2021 would fall on RDC, and to the new parish council from 1 April 2021;

·     it was usual practise for a newly created parish council to carry out a visioning exercise in full consultation with the community, leading to the establishment of a three-year plan, which would inform the following years’ budget;

·     prospective parish councillors would need promote that their first year in office would be about finding out from the electorate what it is they wanted the parish council to deliver – i.e the planning stage; the second year and beyond would be the delivery; it was not for RDC to find out in advance of the establishment of the parish council;

·     there were a number of items that needed to be factored into the first years’ budget and these would include: employee costs (interim clerk from 1 April and permanent clerk from appointment), employers liability insurance, premises and equipment costs, election costs, regalia insurance, allotment running costs and other costs including consultancy, subscriptions, printing and stationery and external audit fees;

·     CIL money automatically became payable to the new parish council where all or part of a chargeable development was within the area of the parish council – RDC would pass 15% of the CIL receipts from the development to the parish council, rising to 25% when it had an adopted neighbourhood development plan in place;

·     Section 106 monies were district council monies and were not passed to town or parishes;

·     Article 12 set out what would happen as a matter of law to the Charter Trustees’ officers, powers, functions and property;

·     the inventory of assets held by the Charter Trustees was discussed, further clarification was sought regarding the relative dates of acquisition, and the value of the individual items. The estimated value of the items for insurance purposes was in the region of £115,000;

·     in the unlikely event that there were not enough candidates standing for election, the parish council would be able to co-opt parish councillors to any vacant seats;  the quorum for the parish council would be 6 and therefore extremely unlikely that the district council would have to use powers under the Local Government Act 1972 Section 91 to maintain quoracy; and

·     RDC would be willing to facilitate and assist with pre-election events and awareness raising of the elections in partnership with relevant partners and the interim clerk.

 

It was noted that it would not be possible to finalise all matters prior to seeking full Council approval of the CGO and therefore delegated authority would be required for the Chief Executive and the Lead Cabinet Member for Transition Bexhill Town Council to confirm the Order and make minor and consequential amendments and to enter into any consequential, ancillary or supplemental agreements to effect the creation of the parish council and the transfer of assets rights and liabilities.

 

During the review it had been agreed that as initially no services were being transferred the budget costs would be the minimum required for the parish council to operate in its first year and the work required to identify these costs had not yet been completed.  Members were concerned at the lack of information provided on the calculation of the first years’ budget and were not comfortable at this stage with delegating this to the Chief Executive (CE) and the Lead Cabinet Member.  It was therefore agreed to draw on the expertise within the CGRSG and convene a meeting of the CGRSG in January to consider and make recommendations on the budget requirement to the CE and Lead Member who would then include this figure and confirm the Order.  It was noted that this would need to be concluded in good time to enable inclusion with the Council’s own budget setting processes.

 

RESOLVED: That a meeting of the CGRSG be convened in January 2021 to consider and make recommendations to the CE and Lead Cabinet Member on the first year budget requirement for the new parish council.

 

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