The South Cambs 2022 Annual Council meeting today is a milestone. It marks the start of the second 4-year term of South Cambridgeshire Lib Dems running the District Council. The May 5th elections results where we increased our seats from 30 in 2018 to 37 in 2022 reflects the confidence communities have in what we have been doing. It also shows they want to see more of it over the next four years.
I was pleased to see many returning councillors, and very pleased to see new our newly elected councillors too, the youngest being 24. He and his dad, a returning councillor now make up the second “father-son” councillor team in the Council. I hope that this is the start of seeing the younger generation taking more interest in local government and hopefully more becoming councillors and Leaders.
Council Chairmanship
The Council appoints Chairman and Vice Chairman, or to be more correct Chairperson. The role of the Chairperson is to make sure that each Full Council meeting is planned properly, and conducted according to the Council constitution.
The Council elected Cllr Anna Bradnam as Chairperson and Cllr Peter Fane as Vice Chair.
Executive Cabinet Leadership
The Council is run using a Leader and Cabinet system, introduced by the Local Government Act 2000. This is the most common form of governing local councils, one of three decision-making systems councils can adopt. The cabinet is led by a leader, elected by full council for the term of the administration, in our case for the next four years. Cllr Bridget Smith is from today’s meeting continuing as the Leader of the Council.
The Leader has the role of appointing councillors to the Executive to discharge the functions necessary to run the council. Cllr Smith appointed 7 councillors to the cabinet bringing the total strength to 8, which is less than the maximum of 10 the Local Government Act specifies.
The cabinet members are as follows:
- Cllr Judith Rippeth – Deputy Leader
- Cllr John Williams – Lead Cabinet Member for Resources
- Cllr Peter McDonald – Lead Cabinet Member for Economic Development
- Cllr Brian Milnes – Lead Cabinet Member for the Environment
- Cllr Tumi Hawkins – Lead Cabinet Member for Planning
- Cllr John Batchelor – Lead Cabinet Member for Housing
- Cllr Bill Handley – Lead Cabinet Member for Communities
You can read about the full description of our roles here.
My Cabinet Role
So, yes, I am continuing with the responsibility for planning policy and development control, provided by the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service (GCSPS). It was the role I held during the last four years since the Liberal Democrats came into administration in May 2018 following our record victory over the Conservatives. It is a challenging role in an area that affects us all in one way or another. I was reminded of the challenge by a tweet by Antony Carpen after the result of my election was published by the local democracy reporter Hannah Brown at the count.
Thinking about the resources, I must say the Planning Officers in the GCSPS are dedicated professionals who work incredibly hard to deal with the thousands of applications that we received each year. Unfortunately, the UK planning system is set up in a way that makes it difficult for the public to understand that there are a number of organisations that input into the developments that are given permission. Governments over the years tinker with it, but not really straighten it out. There is a nationwide shortage of planners too. Anyway, that is another post for another day.
Committee Appointments
Another function that exists in Local Governments is committees. Most local governments have committees that oversee and advise in a number of functional and policy areas such as planning. The seats on committees are assigned by political proportionality, so that all the parties represented on the council can participate where possible.
The committees in our District Council are:
- Audit and Corporate Governance
- Civic Affairs
- Employment and Staffing
- Licensing
- Planning
- Scrutiny and Overview
- Joint Development Control
- Joint Local Plan Advisory Group
- Climate Change and Environment Advisory Group
- Grants Advisory
Each committee has a specified number of seats and the total number of available seats comes to 62. Each of the committees has is led by a Chair and Vice chair. The political makeup of the Council is 37 Liberal Democrats and 8 Conservatives. The political balance is therefore Libdems 82.22% and Conservatives 17.77%. This transpires to 51 : 11 committee seats in that order as stated in the Council Meeting Report. The full allocation of seats and other appointments is also available to read in the Report Supplement document.
The Meeting
As the first for the new municipal year, today’s meeting went very well and took just over an hour. That in itself must be a record. I still remember the very first annual meeting I attended in May 2010 which was like being in a battlefield. That year had seen a large number of LibDems elected which meant that together with the Independents, the majority that the then Conservatives administration had was reduced to just a handful (Conservatives – 31, LibDems 19, Independents – 7 , Labour – 1). And from memory, every committee seat, Chair and Vice Chair position had to be fought for! And the meeting lasted several hours, giving me a headache and leaving me wondering what I had let myself in for.
Thankfully these days there’s a lot more co-operative working on these issues. But then we are in charge now!! Onwards and upwards.