A new mayor and new-look panels
Cllr Bateson to be elected as first citizen
Councillors are set to elect a new mayor on Tuesday at the final annual council meeting of the current electoral cycle.
Every May, councillors are required to elect a mayor and deputy mayor at the annual council meeting which marks the start of the municipal year.
In a formal process, councillors look set to nominate Cllr Christine Bateson (Con, Sunningdale & Cheapside) as mayor for the remainder of the electoral cycle, replacing Cllr John Story who has been in the role since December 2020.
As Mayor of Windsor and Maidenhead, Cllr Bateson will be chairing the full council meetings throughout the year, and will attend public engagements through the Platinum Jubilee and beyond.
Cllr Gary Muir (Con, Datchet, Horton & Wraysbury) is set to retain his role of deputy mayor.
Furthermore, there is also a recommendation to amend the overview and scrutiny process within the council following recommendations from the Local Government Authority’s Corporate Peer Challenge in February this year.
If approved by councillors, the communities, infrastructure and adults, children & health overview and scrutiny panels would be replaced by ‘people’ and ‘place’ panels.
Along with the corporate overview and scrutiny panel, which is set to be retained, the three panels will ‘align with the objectives set out in the corporate plan’.
Each panel would now contain 11 councillors, more than doubling in size compared to the previous arrangements in which the separate panels had five members each.
Furthermore, under proportionality rules, there will be six Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and two independent councillors on each panel.
Finally, the chair of each panel will also be voted upon. Cllrs Maureen Hunt (Con, Hurley & the Walthams) and David Cannon (Con, Datchet, Horton & Wraysbury) are set to chair the Maidenhead and Windsor planning panels respectively,
while Cllr Lynne Jones (OWRA, Old Windsor) would chair the audit and governance committee.
Overview and scrutiny panels will elect their chairs and vice-chairs at their first meetings later this year.