Agenda and minutes

Nigel Hallett Michaelston-y-Fedw Community Council 

Patricia Appleton Graig Community Council

Agreed:

The Minutes of the last meeting 24 March 2022 were moved as a true record.

The Chair confirmed that Neil Gunther Senior Planning Enforcement Officer would be delivering a presentation on Planning Enforcement to Community Councils at the next meeting in September

The Chair confirmed that the slides from the presentation had been circulated to all the community clerks. 

The Chair stated that it was previously mentioned that the Community Councillors could receive Code of Conduct training but as there were 21 new city Councillors who were having their training now,  Code of Conduct training could be completed this evening and more in-depth training could be requested.

The Wentlooge Representative confirmed that One Voice Wales provided Code of Conduct training as part of supported training courses made available to those Community Councils who subscribed to One Voice Wales.

Main Points:

·       The Term of office for new councils starts from 9^th May 2022 for a term of 5 years.

·       All Community councillors were required to sign a Declaration of Acceptance of office and undertaking to comply with the Code of Conduct, and they must do this within two months of being elected or risk being disqualified.

·       It was up to individual Community Councils with casual vacancies to fill those posts and it had to be a fair and transparent appointment process- a Quorum was required.

·       An AGM should also be held to appoint a Chair and Vice Chair.

·       There were a number of changes introduced by the Local Government and Elections Wales Act that specifically relates to Community Councils and they come into force at various dates as shown on slide 3.

-Duty to publish annual reports – 1st April 2022

-General power of competence - 5th May 2022

-Multi-location meetings – 5th May 2022

-Electronic publication of notices of meetings and decisions – 5th May 2022

-Duty to make reasonable opportunities for public participation in council meetings – 5th May 2022

-Duty to make and publish a training plan for all members and staff – 1st April 2022

·       If a Community Council wanted to exercise its General Power of Competence, then it had to be eligible where:

- at least 2/3rds of members must be elected (including unopposed)

- Clerk must hold relevant qualification (e.g., CiLCA)-  2 years unqualified accounts from Auditor General.

-In some cases, it could expose councils to quite a commercial risk if community councils decided to use the power commercially.

-The Council passes resolution that conditions were satisfied, and it can exercise GPOC.

-Publish resolution within 7 days and renew decision annually or it lapses.

·       It was now mandatory for all Community Councils in Wales to publish an Annual report and the first report for the proceeding financial year must be published as soon as possible after April 2022. There was no particular format for the Annual Report, but Welsh Government expect it to have basic governance and financial information.

·       It was an obligation for Community councils to publish training plans and the first such training plan has to be published by the 5th of November of 2022. It would need to set out the training and development needs of clerks and community councillors and would need to be reviewed once every election.

·       Community Councils  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Wentlooge Representative stated that at a meeting before lockdown communication and routes into Newport Council for Community councillors was discussed and it was mentioned at that meeting that we would look to do some work on the Charter in regard to formalising a communication process.

The Chair stated that if the Charter was in need of a revision, then we could update it but this Charter was about the relationship between the City Council and the Community Councils, not individual councillors.

The Chair stated that if individual Community Councillors wanted to raise complaints, rather than local issues, there was a process for this. This Charter was more about engagement at a Council level, in terms of how we consult with Community Councils on planning applications etc.

The Wentlooge Representative explained that at their recent community meetings information was not coming back to the Community Council for issues reported to City Services and accounts were not being updated with information. Members of the public were then looking for answers from the Community Council who could not provide these answers.

The Chair stated that this needed to be related to the Charter commitment and this was a high-level Charter and demonstrates how we will work together as a City Council and Community Councillors in terms of this shared responsibility.

However, the Chair confirmed that the Charter could be looked at if it was felt it a review was needed.

The Wentlooge Representative stated that for City Councillors it was different, and they were able to have a route into the Council as they were well known but this was not so easy for Community Councillors. 

The Chair confirmed that there was no route in for City Councillors and they still had to email the Members email address and that City Councillors did not get preferential treatment and that if a Councillor was using their position as a Councillor to get some sort of preferential treatment for something, that was a breach of the Code of Conduct.

The Wentlooge representative stated that Community Councillors were not looking for preferential treatment, but they have not been getting any answers and have been left hanging.

The Chair advised that no one should be left looking for an answer and if there was a problem with the website then the Customer Services Manager needed to be made aware. 

The Marshfield Representative stated that issues were being reported but there was no feedback and the Customer Services Manager had attended a Liaison Meeting previously but that nothing had changed.

The Chair confirmed that the Customer Services Manager had gone back to City Services as most of the non-responses had related to that area and it was taken up with the Head of Service. However, if there was no improvement then we may need to bring the Customer Services Manager back to have a discussion with the Community Councils. Customer Services now sat in the Finance and Council Tax area and the problem was still the back  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

None

22 September 2022 at 6pm