Labour repeat call for return to committee decision-making system

Brighton and Hove Labour has repeated its call for the council to return to a committee system of decision making which would replace the current Leader-Cabinet system that is place.

The current system was adopted in 2008 after the previous Labour government forced councils to ditch the committee system, but this will no longer be the case once the coalition government’s Localism Bill is adopted.

Under the committee system councils can take all decisions in full council or delegate decisions to committees or sub committees that can be made up of back and front bench councillors from all parties.

Labour leader in Brighton and Hove, Gill Mitchell, lodged a motion calling for a return to a committee system in 2010, which received cross-party support, and now that the change is soon to be possible Cllr Mitchell is raising the motion once again and urged the Green administration to support it.

Cllr Mitchell said: “The Committee System of running the council was far more popular, fairer and a lot more co-operative than the current Leader-Cabinet System.

“The new system encourages councils to be a lot more political, invests a lot more power in fewer people and sees decision making moved from the bottom-up, to the top-down. That’s why Labour & Co-op Councillors led calls for an agreement to return to the committee system as soon as possible and all parties agreed to pursue this last year.

“Now we find the Localism Bill gives us these powers, Labour & Co-op want to urge the new council again to make the necessary preparations for a return to a fairer, more open and more co-operative system of running the council.”

Green councillor Jason Kitcat, cabinet member for finance, told News From Brighton his party would not distract themselves preparing for a return to a committee system while there is still considerable work to be done on the Localism Bill. However, he believed there is still cross-party support for such a return should the option to do so be presented.

Cllr Kitcat said: “We will wait to see the final version of the Localism Bill before jumping to any conclusions. Once the law has been passed we can begin discussion options with all parties.”

Committees minister Andrew Stunell explained in September 2010 that the government’s commitment to a localist approach meant it would allow councils to decide the approach to local governance that works best for them and would no longer enforce an executive model on councils.

Find out more about the committee system here.

The new motion will be made to the council at the next full council meeting at Brighton Town Hall on Thursday 21st July.

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Posted by Joseph Lewis on July 11, 2011. Filed under Council News,Labour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry