Meeting documents

To consider report.

The Committee considered a report from the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Strategic Manager – Governance and Democratic Services, Scott Wooldridge which detailed the membership and terms of reference of the new Committee, agreed at the Council AGM on 25 May 2022.

The Monitoring Officer explained that the main function and responsibilities of the Committee related to reviewing and updating the Council’s Constitution and governance framework and that it had a fundamental role in overseeing development of the new Constitution for the new Somerset Council, prior to that being recommended to the Somerset County Council (SCC) meeting in February 2023.

The Monitoring Officer explained how constitution and governance fitted in with the other bodies of the Council. The Executive of the Council was legally responsible for the implementation of the Structural Changes Order and played a key role in terms of the Implementation Plan and also to agreeing some of the key policies, strategies and some of the key arrangements and making those recommendations onward to SCC.

As an example, the development of the ‘Local Community Networks’ had strong oversight by the Executive alongside the Implementation Board and the joint scrutiny arrangements, which meant that there may be matters which this Committee were very interested in, which could be subject to prior consideration by the Executive or by the Joint Scrutiny Committee.  The Committee provided the oversight and would help inform what would go into the Constitution for the new Somerset Council.

The Committee NOTED the Terms of Reference, as set out in Appendix 1 to the submitted report.