Council Decision close on how decisions will be made in future
ADECISION has almost been made on which seven committees will run Bristol City Council when it stops being run by a directly elected mayor in May next year.
A working group of councillors, responsible for designing how the council will be run once Marvin Rees leaves office, has voted to set up seven policy committees. But exactly what policy areas these seven committees will focus on is still unclear.
The group met on Friday and were given three suggested models on how to set up the structure of the committees. These were four committees, seven or nine. The group chose seven, but left the details of what they will do up to council staff to consider in detail.
The three models were based on: the current portfolios of the nine cabinet members including the mayor; the four directorates which council staff are organised into; and the seven themes within the council’s corporate strategy, a key document setting out how the council plans to improve public services in the city.
As well as the seven policy committees, several regulatory committees would continue similarly to how they currently operate. These would cover development control, licensing, human resources, public rights of way, and public safety. These play a legal role in areas such as granting planning permission for developments or premises licences for pubs and clubs.
Labour Cllr Marley Bennett, pictured inset, said: “You want these committees to have a wide enough focus that they can look thematically at issues. My concern is that if we chose the proposal based on the cabinet portfolios, you would end up with too many committees so councillors would have too many meetings, and that would take away from the quality of input into policy development.
“In addition we should have a policy and resources committee, strategically looking wider than any one individual committee, which could also make decisions about resources and budgeting.”
Green Cllr Heather Mack added: “The corporate themes are adapting and changing depending on what we judge the needs of the city are. And they’ll change so I think the committees should be changing. I also think they’ll change as the political makeup of the council changes because different political values will have different ideas about problems.
“People might have more of a push on economic growth, and others might have more of a push on public health and communities. That is something that will shift as the politics of the council shifts. It’s likely the committees will get changed up every four years or every eight years.”
Most of the working group voted to base the committee structure on the council’s seven themes in the corporate strategy, while two councillors voted to base the structure on the current nine cabinet portfolios. But the whole group agreed that the committees needed to be flexible and avoid encouraging a “silo mentality” in the council.
Previously the council suffered with different departments not communicating well with each other, and still now some people complain that they have to talk to several different council officers from various departments to resolve problems. The seven committees would likely cover strategy and resources; children and education; economy and skills; environment and energy; health, care and wellbeing; homes and communities; and transport. Each committee would likely have nine seats, spread evenly across political parties to reflect the wider political balance in the council, and they could meet about eight to 10 times a year.