Agenda item

Diverse Council Declaration

To consider the report of the Service Manager Performance & Democratic.

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the report of the Service Manager Performance and Democratic.

 

The Chief Officer Commercial and Customer spoke briefly to the report which presented the Diverse Council Declaration for approval.  Members were advised that Welsh Government was committed to increasing diversity across all aspects of public life and this included tackling the barriers which prevented individuals’ active participation in local democracy. 

 

Paragraph 2.4 of the report set out the number of expectations on the Council to support diversity within the democratic process and also with political parties to support the process of becoming a councillor and providing support for councillors once they became elected.  Paragraph 2.5 outlined the additional expectations as part of the Local Government and Elections Act.

 

The Chief Officer continued by advising that an action plan would be developed which would span up to and beyond the Local Elections 2022 and this would be presented to the Democratic Services Committee for consideration prior to approval at Council on 30th September.  It was noted that in some of the areas, the Council was already making some progress for example, flexibility of business via remote attendance at meetings.

 

A Member welcomed the report and asked who would be developing the action plan and whether the public would be consulted on the plan prior to it being presented to the Democratic Services Committee.  He pointed out that the Council needed to be actively engaging with people to ascertain what they perceived the barriers were to becoming a councillor were.

 

The Chief Officer Commercial and Customer advised that initial discussions had taken place with the Equalities Officers to make those connections with certain under-represented groups to ascertain their views.  In addition, the current Digital Democracy Bid included work with 16-25 year olds to understand their experiences and barriers they faced connecting with the democratic arrangements and some of this learning would help support the development of the plan.  The Citizens Panel was a further opportunity to engage and engagement would take place through other identified networks as there were various aspects of the declaration that different groups could take forward.  It was noted that some initial research had been collated with individuals in the County Borough and all this information would be collated and considered.  The Chief Officer added that the views of Members would be considered via the democratic process.

 

A Member welcomed the declaration and stated to illustrate the Council’s commitment requested an undertaking from the Leader that Members would be given an opportunity to discuss the Welsh Audit of Commemoration which had been approved by Welsh Government in November 2020.

 

The Leader confirmed that he was content for this document to be discussed.

 

Another Member expressed his concern regarding digital democracy and his experience of virtual meetings as he felt that these were not helpful or practical and said that vigorous consultation should take place with members of the public and Councillors.

 

A Member said she agreed with the report but would like some form of recognition within the action plan for meetings to be held outside of the working day, especially scrutiny committees because she felt that this would attract a much younger element of the community especially working women with young children to apply to become a councillor.

 

The Leader of the Council in proposing that the Option 1 be endorsed highlighted that a regular review and staggering of meeting times had been captured in the ‘expectations’ section of the report and this would form part of the action plan that would be considered.

 

It was unanimously,

 

RESOLVED, subject to the foregoing, that the report be accepted and Option 1 be endorsed, namely that Council:

 

·        Sign up to the Diverse Council Declaration as set out in Appendix 1.

·        Agree that an action plan be developed to address the required areas of being a diverse Council.

·        The action plan be presented to Democratic Services Committee for consideration and sign off before being approved at Council on 30th September, 2021.

 

Supporting documents: