Councillor Everitt proposed, Councillor Wright
seconded and Members agreed the minutes to be a correct record of
the working party meeting held on 26 October 2023.
28.
General Progress Update Presentation
Minutes:
Nick Hughes, Committee Services Manager &
Deputy Monitoring Officer introduced the report and made the
following comments:
The Strategic Planning Team assisted
Democratic Services in reviewing the forecasting tool for more
accuracy;
This led to new figures of estimated
population for 2030;
CiPFA 15 comparators were used to
come up with new recommended total number of councillors for the
Thanet District Council;
Elector ratios of the 15 other
councils showed that TDC’s current situation was on the
extreme outlier side of the comparator scale;
Having 36 councillors would take TDC
to the other extreme end of the comparator scale (the extreme right
side);
The Council could therefore not
justify a reduction of councillor numbers to 36;
There was now need to come up with a
revised number that was slightly higher than 36 and possibly
between 42 and 44.
Members asked questions and made comments as
follows:
Were other Councils currently
reviewing their own councillor numbers?
If they were also conducting their
own reviews would these comparator numbers not change?
Basing the number of electors in the
district on the proposed housing development in the district might
be based on a faulty formula;
Where did the Council get the other
Councils’ numbers?
Was the information available to the
Council on whether those comparator councils had parish
councils?
Nick Hughes responded to Member questions and
comments as follows:
Most Councils had done their reviews
and were not currently conducting any;
Folkestone and Dover District
Councils had carried out their reviews about five years ago;
The formula for working out elector
numbers might not be perfect. However, that was the one that was
forwarded to the Council by the LGBCE;
Current elector ratio was 1.6
electors per household. This figure is then used to multiply by the
anticipated number of properties to be built by 2030 and then added
to the current elector numbers;
Housing development might affect
these numbers depending on whether such development was completed
or not in the period under review;
Data for other Council was collected
from a national database;
Officers did not research on the
determining whether the 15 Councils that acted as Thanet
comparators had parishes or not.
Nick Hughes asked Members whether they had any
comments to make regarding the contents of the submission
document.
Members asked questions and made comments as
follows:
How would combining the Governance
and Audit Committee and Standards Committee into a single committee
be done?
The submission documents seemed that
combining these two committees would be done;
Would committee membership numbers
change as a result of changing the total number of councillors from
36 to 44?
It was important to go with a number
that was likely to be acceptable to the LGBCE;
This review should have been carried
out ten years ago;
Going with a total number of
councillor 40 might be too low it was too close to the original
number that the working party had proposed;
Did the LGBCE guidance require the
Council to focus on the trend as established by the 15 Councils
comparators?
Was there no risk that in six
years’ time after 2027 the councillor number would be out of
kilt again in comparison to other Councils?
Could an assumption be added to the
report to reflect that other Councils’ populations would grow
and therefore there would be changes which were likely to require
Thanet District Council having to conduct another review earlier
than would be the case (i.e. every 10 years)?
Was it possible for the Council to
change this number after this meeting?
Could a Members Briefing be held
before Full Council in order to advise Members on how the
recommended total number of councillors of 42 was arrived at?
Could an updated graph be made
available to Members or a narrative explaining the pros and cons be
used instead?
Nick Hughes and Ingrid Brown, Head of Legal
and Democracy & Monitoring Officer responded to Members
questions and comments as follows:
Discussions held between Nick Hughes
and the Section 151 Officer had indicated that the two committees
could be combined;
This approach had been done by other
Councils. This could be done at Annual Council when committees
would be reconstituted;
It was however important to consider
the merits of combining committees;
The Council could also decide to
change the membership sizes of committees in line with the new
total number of councillors adopted;
If the Council submitted a number
that was not suitable the LGBCE would come back to a negative
response and that would be the end of the Council’s
contributions to this stage of the review process;
The Council had to have regard to
what the other Councils (CiPFA 15) were doing. That was what the
guidance advised;
Yes, the risk was there that the new
figure could be out of kilter in the next few years. However, the
Council could apply to the LGBCE to conduct another review outside
of the LGBCE review cycle. That was what Canterbury City Council
did and they were currently carrying out their own review;
Nick Hughes suggested that the working party
held one more meeting after the recommendations had been to Full
Council. This would then be followed by the submission to the LGBCE
before Christmas. The Commission would review the submission in
January 2024 and would get back to the Council with a response in
March 2024 at which point the council would move to the next stage
which is determining whether to adopt single or multi member wards
in line with the new total number of Councillors. Political Groups
would be free to forward their own proposals to the LGBCE.
Members made comments and asked questions as
follows:
Was it illegal to have a ward with
more than three councillors?
There were parish wards that had
four councillors representing a single ward;
In order to get the public
involvement in this review it was important to share widely the
information about the review;
The ward boundaries for Broadstairs
Town Council were causing confusion for electors. This issue needed
addressing;
Would the review of polling stations
be done by this working party?
Would the polling station review
come up for discussion or just for decision?
Nick Hughes and Ingrid Brown responded to
Member questions and comments as follows:
The maximum number of councillors
permitted in a ward could be three;
The LGBCE would communicate
information about the review to the public and the Council would
only be signposting residents to this information;
The Council would provide the
stakeholder database to the LGBCE;
Any current ward boundary issues
would be picked up when the Council conducts a governance review as
part of this review process;
The polling stations review would
usually be finalised by Full Council;
If Members wanted a discussion on
the polling stations, the review officer could arrange a meeting
for that discussion.