Agenda and draft minutes

RESOLVED: Councillor Bearshaw was appointed Chair for the meeting.

RESOLVED: Councillor Long was appointed Vice Chair for the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Beal, Barclay, Colwell, Lintern, Jones, Kunes, Sayers and Spikings.

Councillors Bone and Ware (remotely).

None.

RESOLVED: The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed as a correct record.

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The Interim Assistant Director, Transformation and Change presented the report as included in the Agenda and provided background on the Priority Programme, processes carried out to date and timelines for Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation. 

The Interim Assistant Director referred Members to the recommendations as set out within the report which were that the Council’s preferred option was the three Unitary model and provided background on the alternative options which had also been considered.

The Interim Assistant Director highlighted the high level appraisal of the options, the criteria from Government and the scoring system used.  It was noted that this was a high level appraisal due to the short timescales involved.

The Chair thanked the Interim Assistant Director for the report and invited questions and comments from Joint Panel Members, as summarised below.

The Leader of the Council addressed the Panel and thanked the Interim Assistant Director for her support on the cross Council Officer Group.  The Leader of the Council provided an overview of meetings held with Government Ministers and the MHCLG.  He explained that there was no option to maintain the status quo, so Members should focus on scrutinising the recommendations as set out in the report.

Councillor Heneghan commented that it was important to support local communities and the focus should not just be about financial savings, a whole Norfolk unitary, would be too big and also did not consider future growth.  Councillor Heneghan indicated that she supported the three model unitary.

The Vice Chair, Councillor Long asked what assumptions Deloittes had made on big ticket items and cost pressures for services such as Education and Social Care.  He acknowledged that the three unitary model would require more statutory officers.  The Interim Assistant Director commented that it was a high level assessment at this stage and the data and detail would follow.  She acknowledged that a single unitary would create economies of scale, but there were other options that could be explored including joint commissioning and aggregating services.

In response to a question from the Vice Chair, the Interim Assistant Director explained that in putting together the submission to Government, work had been carried out to look at what other Council’s had done when converting to a Unitary in terms of the number of Councillors representing areas and it was acknowledged that efficiencies could be achieved in this area, although local representation was still important.

The Leader of the Council commented that the proposal was data and fact led and the Council had a good working relationship with Norfolk County Council and the other District Councils in Norfolk.  Indicative figures had been based on one Councillor per 5,000 of the population, and the Leader of the Council reminded Members that detail would follow later in the process.

In terms of the Government’s ambition to have Unitary Councils with a population of half a million or more, the Leader explained that there was some flexibility on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

To consider passing the following resolution:

“That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act”.

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RESOLVED: That under section 100(A) (4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act.

The Joint Panel had a five minute comfort break at 6.08pm

The Assistant Director, Central Services presented the updated Redundancy Policy, Redundancy Payments Scheme and Salary protection arrangements as set out in the report.

The Chair thanked the Assistant Director for report and invited questions and comments from the Panel.

The Assistant Director responded to questions relating to consultation with the Unions, implications of the Local Government Review and processes that would need to be followed.

RESOLVED: That the Joint Panel support the recommendations to Cabinet as set out in the Report.