Agenda and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Lowe and Sayers.

Please indicate if there are any interests which should be declared.  A declaration of an interest should indicate the nature of the interest (if not already declared on the Register of Interests) and the agenda item to which it relates.  If a disclosable pecuniary interest is declared, the Member should withdraw from the room whilst the matter is discussed.

These declarations apply to all Members present, whether the Member is part of the meeting, attending to speak as a local Member on an item or simply observing the meeting from the public seating area.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider any business which, by reason of special circumstances, the Chairman proposes to accept as urgent under Section 100(b)(4)(b) of the Local Government Act, 1972.

There was no urgent business.

Members wishing to speak pursuant to Standing Order 34 should inform the Chairman of their intention to do so and on what items they wish to be heard before the meeting commences.  Any Member attending the meeting under Standing Order 34 will only be permitted to speak on those items which have been previously notified to the Chairman.

There were no Members present pursuant to Standing Order 34.

There was no Chair’s correspondence.

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The Monitoring Officer presented the report to the Committee and advised that the Council had included within its Corporate Strategy for 2023 – 2027, the following:

Bring forward proposals to enable the King’s Lynn Area Consultative Committee (KLACC) to become a decision-making body.

The purpose of the report was to explain the potential options and limitations on what a decision-making body could look like, as part of a two-stage consultation process.

Following this consultation, terms of reference would be produced and presented to a future meeting of KLACC, with a view to proposals for a new decision-making body being submitted to Cabinet in March 2024.

The Monitoring Officer explained that there were two primary options available for creating a decision-making body:

1.     A free-standing non-executive (ie. A Full Council function) committee.  The Committee would have terms of reference setting out the remit in which it could act, set by Full Council.  The Committee would need to be politically proportional and therefore it would not be possible to have a decision-making body solely made up of ward members from unparished areas of King’s Lynn, unless Groups were willing to give up seats to enable this.

2.     An executive area committee.  This would also be a free-standing Committee, but legislation requires that membership be made up of only members from the area it covers.  This can be set up as an executive function, which would have increased alignment with current decision-making powers which sat with Cabinet.

The Monitoring Officer also made reference to the remit and decision-making powers of the newly created body, as set out in the report.  If the Committee became an executive Area Committee, then it could apply for funding such as CIL and Shared Prosperity.  There would be officer support to support these applications although it would have to be a limited resource.

The Assistant Director for Resources explained that there were currently two reserves available at the moment, which could be allocated to a new decision-making body.  The first sat at £10,800 and had already been approved to be allocated to KLACC and related to income generated through COVID from the use of the South Lynn Community Centre. The second sat at £35,500 and had a current allocation towards Fairstead and South Lynn community centres, however it was advised that there might be a boiler replacement at one of the community centres committed against that sum but further investigation was required. 

The Committee was also asked to consider what a new decision-making body would be called.

The Chair then asked for comments / questions from the Committee, a summary of which is listed below:

Councillor Heneghan stated that going for an Area Committee would make sense. 

Councillor Kemp also supported the Committee turning into an Area Committee, as it would represent those areas without a Parish Council.  She also supported the idea of the Committee having its own budget. 

Councillor Mrs Wilkinson,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday 29 January 2024 at 6pm in the Council Chamber, Town Hall.

Councillor Mrs Collop asked if the start time of the meetings could be brought forward as she used public transport and struggled to get to the meeting for 6pm.

Following a discussion, it was agreed that future meetings would commence at 5.15 pm.

The next meeting was scheduled to take place on Monday 29 January 2024 at 5.15 pm in the Council Chamber, Town Hall, King’s Lynn.