How will the new authority be organised? – Political structure

 

The basic structure, shown above, is three tiers of County, Area and Belonging Communities within an executive and leader model and three area based committees delivering or managing agenda local services. An executive team of councillors will operate with a number of portfolio holders (6 members) which will include clear responsibilities and accountabilities for both cross-cutting themes and service functions.

Full council will comprise 67 members. The council will select a leader (for a 4 year term of office). It will be responsible for providing overall strategic direction for the council. This will involve approval of the medium term and annual budget and for the authority’s policies (budget and policies). We expect the council and the executive will work together on budget and policy matters. 

The executive will comprise 8 members (including the leader and deputy). It will meet monthly and in public. The executive will be responsible for implementing council policy and achieving the council’s key priorities. It will focus on key strategic matters and seek to delegate operational matters to area committees or officers. It will work in an open and transparent way.

The key functions of the executive will be:

• To identify and progress priorities within the policy framework;
• To align resources with priorities and ensure co-ordinated financial and service planning;
• To ensure the council remains focused on its agreed priorities;
• To represent the needs of Northumberland’s communities to government;
• To ensure that the council’s commitment to provide fair and accessible services are being met

Membership of each Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) will include a range of partner and community interests, but with councillors comprising a majority membership of the committees.

The scrutiny function within the council will:

• Be member-led with executive members taking full responsibility for the brief they hold;
• Provide opportunities for local residents, and community organisations to get engaged in the scrutiny process;
• Raise the profile of scrutiny and the community leadership role of non-executive members in representing the views and interests of all sections of the community;
• Clearly identify who is responsible for decisions and require them to publicly justify their decisions.

Scrutiny is to be timely and effective, focused on important issues to avoid duplication, and not to make unreasonable demands on the council’s resources. We also want to ensure that the underlying ethos of scrutiny is one of constructive working with the executive. 

The role of scrutiny will also extend not only to council activities, but to the wider public services and partnerships.

It is proposed that scrutiny will operate at 3 levels reflecting the natural communities framework:

• At county wide or strategic level, overview and scrutiny will focus on the strategic decisions and activities of the council and key partner agencies where their actions impact on the new council’s responsibilities; monitoring the overall performance of the council in meeting national targets; advising the executive on the effectiveness of current policies and identifying potential policy changes or developments.

 

• In each of the three Area communities an Area scrutiny committee will have responsibility for monitoring local service delivery. The remit of the Area scrutiny committee will extend to the activities of partner agencies. 

• At Belonging community level, there will be opportunity for citizens, voluntary and community organisations to engage in scrutiny of council and partner activities through the community forum and their frontline councillor.

 

An area committee comprising councillors from within the area will be given delegated responsibility for a range of services which could include leisure facilities, libraries, street cleaning and environmental health. Members will be supported by a ‘lead’ strategic director for the area, area service managers and locality officers.