Cornwall Councillor response form
July 2012
Truro City Council
In your view, what aspects of Cornwall Council’s decision making processes work well and what not so well? What are your reasons for saying this?Local influence in decision-making processes and community support for Council decisions are both too frequently lacking.
There is a need to strengthen:
- the democracy of decision making and accountability;
- the quality of strategic decisions;
- the Council’s contracts and contracting process.
There are particular issues where the Council has more than one role in specific decisions, eg as landowner and/or applicant as well as planning authority.
Planning decision making is explicitly steered by planning officers (in a way that has led to complaints from Members), the planning decisions are frequently subject to external challenge including a current judicial review brought by a Parish Council.
The Council decision-making arrangements are uneven at best. For example, possible £10M for stadium (rightly) debated and decided against by full Council, but the A390 development brief the stadium forms part of was decided by Cabinet with very limited public consultation and is not supported by the local community - in the absence of local knowledge Cabinet members’ decision making also explicitly led by officer guidance.
In your experience, would you say that Cornwall Council has open and transparent decision making processes? What are your reasons for saying this?
Webcasting is positive, should be extended to scrutiny meetings, and more use of social media would strengthen openness.
Reasons for decisions are not transparent – where public funding, assets and services are being discussed the Council’s priority should be to enable people to understand the decision, anonymising company and personal information where necessary. Too much decision making is behind closed doors.
How can Cornwall Council improve the way it works with relevant partners and stakeholders, both now and in the future?
Cornwall Strategic Partnership and the Local Area Agreement were both positive initiatives which supported communication and joint-working between public sector organisations. The public sector in Cornwall could reduce costs by sharing administrative support (eg payroll) and undertaking joint procurement, but in my opinion the Council’s customer-facing services including benefits payments should not be subject to contractual arrangements which make them less accountable.
There have been too many occasions when, late in its budgeting round, Cornwall Council has cut funding for its non-statutory services in the expectationTown and Parish Councils (which had already set their precept) will take on the services and close the gap. Examples: grit and salt bins, CCTV, public toilets.
Too many community decisions are taken directly by Cornwall Council with little or no involvement of local members. Examples: car parking charges, licensing. If Cornwall Council devolves management of car parks it will only do so on the basis that Cornwall Council will continue to receive the same level of revenue. Therefore the capacity of Town and Parish Councils to boost town centres and tourism through cheaper parking would be more difficult if not impossible to manage.
These are practical examples where subsidiarity in decision-making and revenue are needed.
Truro City Council has agreed to adopt the ‘power of competence’ introduced by the Localism Act.
Do you consider that Community Network Panels are an effective forum for driving improvements in local areas? What can be done to improve them?
No. Need to review the geography and allow public and third sector organisations to be community forum members.
Separately to this Cornwall Council budget holding area committees (eg based on Westminster constituencies) should be considered with some co-opted members and a commitment to receive and consider proposals from the community forums.
Each elected member can allocate an annual budget of £24,000 for roads and c. £2000 community grant – if aggregated this £3,198,000 could provide initial budgets of £150,000 to be allocated by each network area.
From your perspective, how can Cornwall Council improve its decision making processes?
1. Make impact on democracy and accountability an explicit factor in decision making, with a commitment to be responsive to communities and not weaken accountability.
2. Require a review of the Council’s contracting arrangements.
3. Co-opted members from other agencies on scrutiny committees (if retain Cabinet structure).
If you have a preferred option for Cornwall Council’s future governance arrangements, please indicate below and note the reasons for this:
(Please refer to the attached Governance models briefing note)
I would support any new structure and working arrangements that strengthen:
- the democracy of decision making and accountability;
- the quality of strategic decisions;
- the Council’s contracts and contracting process.
What are the key factors or issues the Council should be looking to address when reviewing its governance arrangements.
Strengthen the democracy of decision making, and the quality of strategic decisions.
Securing democratic accountability into the future.
Being responsive to the community, working co-operatively in partnership with other public sector organisations.
Subsidiarity, devolution of decision making, revenue and budgets to local councils.
Additional comments
Your views on the governance review are appreciated and if you have any additional comments you would like to make, please do so.
Please return the completed form to or post it to: The Policy Team, Chief Executive’s Department, New County Hall, Truro, TR1 3AY.
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