Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Lawrence and Lloyd who was substituted by Councillor A Cooper.

Members and Officers are invited to make any declaration of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the items or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and Officers should make their declaration by stating:

a)             the item they have the interest in

b)             whether it is a pecuniary/personal interest and/or prejudicial interest

c)             the nature of the interest

There were no declarations of interest made.

The Committee will be asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the Corporate Support Committee held on 31 January 2024.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 31 January 2024 were approved by the Committee and signed by the Chair.

There were no urgent items presented to the committee at the meeting.

To receive questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes)

There were no public questions received for the meeting.

To present an overview of activity on corporate complaints for the year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 to provide transparency and understanding. 

To advise on cases escalated to both Ombudsmen.

The Information Governance Manager advised members that her report provided them with an overview of the activity for corporate complaints during 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.

As there were no questions raised specifically on the report, members noted the report.

The report is to allow members to consider recommendations in relation to an Electoral Review of the Arun District.

The Group Head of Law and Governance introduced the report where he explained that this report followed on from the report previously presented at the last meeting of the committee held on 31 January 2024 and its purpose was for members to consider the recommendations to enable an electoral review of the Arun District. He drew members attention to the finalisation of dates presented in the review timeline which included potential Working Party meeting dates. He then explained that the Policy & Finance Committee had reviewed the costings for the review, where it had been confirmed that the majority of costs would be met within the existing budgets. However, there would be minimal external costs attributed to external advertising.

The Chair confirmed Councillor Jones proposed the recommendations and Councillor Brooks formally seconded.

A question was raised relating to the wording of the recommendations where is was queried if the wording was too restrictive. It was confirmed that ultimately future recommendations would be directed by the Boundary Commission and the scope of this would be determined by their review of the district. The wording used for this report was a specific request from Full Council as the debate highlighted that council wanted a specific focus on a reduction in council member numbers. As there were no other questions, members put the recommendations to the vote.

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED that it

(i)             Considered and approved the electoral review timetable set out in the Appendix to this report and reports its approval of the timetable to Full Council;

(ii)            Noted the outcome of the report to the Policy & Finance Committee on 7 March 2024 regarding the costs of conducting the electoral review; and

(iii)          Recommends to Full Council that the Local Government Boundary Commission for England be invited by the Council to carry out a review of:

a.    The number of councillors needed within Arun District, but with a specific focus on reducing members; and

b.    (b) The warding arrangements within Arun District.

This report presents the findings of a comprehensive review of the council’s

pensions discretions policy.

The attached Appendix A shows an updated pensions discretion policy for consideration, approval, and recommendation to Council for adoption.

The Group Head of Organisational Excellence was invited to present the report where she provided an overview of the findings of the review of the Council’s pensions discretion policy and the updated policy (appendix A) which was required to be considered and approved by the committee and recommended to Full Council for its adoption.

The Chair confirmed that Councillor Tandy proposed the recommendations and Councillor O’Neill formally seconded.

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED that it

a.    Recommends to Full Council that the updated policy on pension discretions shown as Appendix A, be approved, and formally adopted.

b.    Delegated authority be given to the Group Head of Organisational Excellence to make necessary changes to the pension discretions resulting from changes to employment legislation or Council policy.

There were no updates reported to the meeting.         

Members are required to note the Work Programme attached.

Members noted the completion of its work programme for 2023/24.