Public Affairs Part I

Local Government Decision-

Making and the Committee and
Sub-Committee System
 Officers versus Councillors
As in central government, local councils make a clear distinction between the
roles of elected politicians (councillors) and appointed officials (officers). It is
the job of councillors, like MPs and government Ministers, to debate and take
policy decisions. Officers (like civil servants at Whitehall) are then required to
put those policies into practice on the ground – and are both politically
neutral and (according to rank) politically restricted.

The principal council officers are as follows:

• The chief executive (also known as the Head of the Paid Service) – the
most senior officer in the local authority
• The monitoring officer (usually also the chief legal officer) – in charge of
ensuring the authority acts at all times within the law (i.e. doesn’t exceed its
powers), and there is no evidence of corruption
• Senior policy officers in individual departments (e.g. chief planning officer).
These meet with the Chief Executive and the monitoring officer once a week or
fortnight to discuss policy implementation across the council. Together, they
are known as the Chief Officer’s Management Team
Sequence of Decision-Making Prior
to the Local Government Act 2000
The traditional sequence for local authority decision-making (i.e. the sequence
through which political decisions by councillors had to go before resulting in the
actual introduction of new policies on the ground) was a “bottom-up” approach.
It worked as follows:

• Major policies proposed by groups of councillors (usually largest party on

council), but smaller-scale ones initiated at committee level

• All proposals initially debated and voted on by sub-committee covering

relevant area (e.g. planning)

• Once approved, policy decision passed to overarching committee covering

that area (e.g. full planning comm)

• Major decisions (i.e. not ones on minor issues, such as whether to give a
private homeowner planning permission for an extension) passed to the full
council for final approval
 Sequence of Decision-Making
Since Local Government Act 2000
New Labour’s LGA 2000 (as it has come to be known) was designed to “speed up”
the work of local authorities, by reducing the number of ‘stages’ more minor policy and
other decisions had to go through before being approved. Major decisions are still
subject to full council approval – at least technically – but there is controversy about
the amount of power in hands of relatively few councillors under this system.

The new sequence is as follows:

• Policies proposed by small group of senior councillors, known as the Cabinet in same
way to main policy-devising body at Westminster. These councillors normally drawn
from biggest party/coalition

• Many ‘final’ decisions taken by the Cabinet collectively – or individual Cabinet

members with delegated powers (sometimes even officers). Decisions on major
issues – known as key decisions - still have to be approved by full council on paper,
but this is usually a formality

• More minor decisions passed from Cabinet level to committees and sub-committees
for scrutiny and input. They are then passed back to the full council for final vote
New Council Chain of Command
Under the pre-LGA 2000 model – which still remains in
many parts of the country - councils chose a Leader,
usually from the biggest party, whose role was to chair
debates of the full council, but otherwise act in a de facto
Prime Minister-style role. Apart from him or her, though, all
councillors were treated as equal – having an equal
vote/say on important matters at full council meetings.

Since the LGA 2000 was passed, this has changed in

areas (mainly major towns and cities) which have adopted
the new internal ‘chain of command’. In these areas,
members of the Cabinet have “Executive powers” over
and above those of ordinary councillors. Effectively, this
means that there is now such a thing as a backbench and
a frontbench councillor.
 New Council Chain of Command
There are three different types of ‘command structure’ under the new-
style arrangements:

• A Leader (appointed by the authority from among the elected

councillors) and Cabinet (appointed by the authority and the Leader,
predominantly from among the largest elected party grouping)

• A directly elected Mayor and Cabinet (appointed by the Mayor from

among the elected councillors – normally, as in the past, chosen from
his or her own party/the largest party)

• A directly elected Mayor and Council Manager (a senior officer

with relevant expertise, appointed in a purely advisory, rather than
political, capacity – this usually only happens in smaller authorities)
 Introducing Elected Mayors
To introduce an elected Mayor (as in London, but rejected
by Brighton and Hove) is as follows:

• A referendum for an elected Mayor can be demanded by five per

cent of local voters – and the council has to abide by the decision
reached in any such referendum
• However, if an unsuccessful referendum is held, there has to be a
gap of five years before the next one is called
• The Question to appear on such referenda should carry the following
wording: “Are you in favour of the proposal for (name of city or
borough) to be run in a new way, which includes a mayor, who will
be elected by the voters of that (borough, city, county or district), to
be in charge of the council’s services and to lead (name of authority)
and the community it serves?”
 The Old-style Committee System
In local authorities which have not adopted the post-LGA 2000 decision-
making framework, the old-style committee system still remains. This is as
follows:

• Standing/Statutory – i.e. permanent committees set up to discharge a

specific function (e.g. planning committees, education committees,
environmental services committees). The most powerful was the policy and
resources committee – which held the purse strings and tended to be
chaired by the council leader

• Ad Hoc – these can be given briefs that are directly related to the above,
but are set up to consider specific issues in greater detail than is possible on
standing committees

• Area-based – formed to look at policy governing specific geographical areas

under a local authority’s control. They sometimes contain members of the
local community alongside councillors, and can even have budgets
delegated to them
Some Quirks of Old-style System
– Old-style committees are allowed to co-opt non-councillors to
serve on them, either temporarily or on a more ongoing basis
(e.g parents/teachers on education committees). New-style
Cabinets are prohibited from doing this (as, in some cases,
are the smaller non-executive/scrutiny committees of
councillors set up by non-Executive members to scrutinise the
Executive/Cabinet and Mayor/Leader)

– Co-opted members cannot vote - unless they are church

representatives sitting on a committee exercising an
education-related function (in the case of old-style
committees) or serving on a post-LGA 2000 advisory – as
opposed to scrutiny - committee with no powers
Some Quirks of Old-style System
– Old-style committees are allowed to co-opt non-
councillors to serve on them, either temporarily or on
a more ongoing basis (e.g parents/teachers on
education committees). New-style Cabinets are
prohibited from doing this (as, in some cases, are the
smaller non-executive/scrutiny committees of
councillors set up by non-Executive members to
scrutinise the Executive/Cabinet and Mayor/Leader)

– Co-opted members cannot vote - unless they are

church representatives sitting on a committee
exercising an education-related function (in the case
of old-style committees) or serving on a post-LGA
2000 advisory – as opposed to scrutiny - committee
with no powers
 The New-style Committee System
Local authorities which have adopted the post-LGA 2000
decision-making framework now have two broad types of
committee: non-executive and scrutiny:

• Non-executive – despite their title, these have the power

to take final decisions on certain matters, but only very
minor ones (for example, relating to small-scale planning
permission issues, building regulations, etc)

• Scrutiny – like their predecessors in old-style councils,

these are charged with ‘line-by-line’ examinations of
executive proposals, and can suggest policy
amendments and criticise the day-to-day workings of
council departments. They have little power, though
 Other Changes Under New Model
• Each council required to pass and consult on its
own constitution, setting out the powers and
duties of its leader/elected
Mayor/executive/Cabinet/council manager, and
those of various committees
• Individual members of Cabinets now given
specialist portfolios to cover (like government
Ministers) – e.g. education, housing, etc. This
makes them the lead member for that area
• Monthly forward plans must be published,
setting out policy/strategic goals for future
 Order of Business in Meetings
The Customary Order of Business in Full Council Meetings is as follows:

• Agenda for business prepared by the council’s Chief Executive, Secretary or Director of
Administration
• Meeting opens with approval of minutes of previous meeting
• Questions (usually written down in advance by specific councillors) put to relevant
committee chairmen. In councils that adopt an LGA 2000 constitution, questions are put to
the elected Mayor, the Leader or relevant Cabinet member
• Public observers given chance to question committee chairmen (optional)
• Petitions from electors presented to full council by the local councillors representing the
electors in question – actual debates on these issues will be held at relevant later
committee meetings
• Committee reports considered by the full council. Debates often arise at this stage if a
matter raised is politically controversial
• At the above stage, individual councillors with strong objections to a given committee
proposal will ask for the matter to be amended or even “referred back” to the committee
• Notices of Motion from individual councillors (normally tabled in advance) may be put to
the meeting. These usually cover issues that are not otherwise formally touched on by the
agenda. In the case of post-LGA 2000-style councils, any such notices that impinge on
“executive” issues must be referred to the Executive/Cabinet
 Press and Public Access
The Rules governing access specify the following:

• Public registers must be kept listing names and addresses of

all elected councillors and details of the committees on which
they serve, plus delegated powers
• Press and public have right to attend all meetings – unless the
information being discussed is confidential or exempt. The
former refers to information supplied by govt departments or
matters whose disclosure is prohibited by statute or the courts,
while the latter can cover the following: (a) personal and/or
commercially sensitive details; (b) matters in the process of
being negotiated; and/or (c) issues protected by legal privilege
• A decision to exclude the public and media for the duration of a
specific “exempt” or “confidential” item must be formally
proposed, seconded and voted upon
 Press and Public Access
• Copies of agenda papers and all officer/subcommittee
reports submitted during the course of the “open” part of
the meeting must be made available at meetings – and
no matters must be heard unless they listed at least three
days beforehand
• All reports presented for public inspection should list any
background papers used to help draft them (these can
be examined by the public, but they may be charged)
• While embargoes can sometimes be used by authorities
to prevent the media publishing details of something
before a certain date, this should be rare
• “Reasonable accommodation” (including video
links/overflow rooms) provided
Process for Implementing post-LGA
2000 System
Councils seeking to introduce a post-LGA 2000
decision-making system have to go through the
following process:

• Issuing an explanation of the three different

models of executive structure – without steering
consultees to vote in a specific way

• Hold a more detailed consultation on a proposed

new formal consultation based on whichever
model is favoured
How Council Services Are Run
Until the 1980s, most council services - including schools, day centres and care
homes, for example – were run in-house by local authorities’ own employees. In the
1980s, the then Tory government introduced the concept of competition – and the
notion that the most “efficient” way to run local services might not necessarily
always be to do so directly.

Private companies and voluntary organisations were invited to tender for the right
to run, say, local bus services via a process known as compulsory competitive
tendering (CTT). Local authorities were permitted to continue running services in-
house – but only if they “proved” at the tendering stage that they were offering the
best value for money. Where councils continued running their own services in this
way, they had to set up semi-independent companies to do so on their behalf,
called direct service organisations (DSOs) – for things like administration or
rubbish collecting – or direct labour organisations (DLOs) for things like building
maintenance.

Under Labour, the term CTT has been superseded by that of “Best Value”. With
this system, councils are no longer forced to run a tendering process when
contracts come to the end of their lives - but they are subject to periodic inspections,
at which they must be able to “prove” the provider of a given service they are
currently using is offering the “best value” available.
 Pressure to Outsource/Sub-
Contract Under Old System
• Unlike private contractors, the ability of DLOs/DSOs to contract
for work outside their authority’s area was severely restricted –
thereby curbing their ability to make profits and efficiency
savings

• DLOs and DSOs obliged to: (a) publish separate accounts to

those of their parent local authority; (b) produce an annual
report; and (c) make a six per cent return on their capital

• If a DLO/DSO failed to make the six per cent return, the

Secretary of State could intervene and require the CCT process
to be run again, thereby effectively depriving the DSO/DLO of its
contract at a premature stage. (Officially, this was an attempt to
crack down on “anti-competitive behaviour” – i.e. the imposition
of conditions by councils designed to put off prospective private
contractors)