Meetings

Meetings

The councils are working to decide how best to bring together services and have established a Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) Advisory Board and the new Implementation Board.

Agendas and minutes for future meetings will be available via this page. The meetings are open to the public.

Implementation Board

The new Implementation Board, which includes the five existing council leaders and four cabinet members of the county council, will maintain oversight of the new council’s development until the new administration is appointed following the 5 May Elections. This replaces the LGR Joint Committee arrangements.

The first meeting was held on Friday 25 March at 2pm in the John Meikle Room, The Deane House, Taunton, TA1 1HE. It was a hybrid meeting. The webcast can be found here: LGR Implementation Executive – Friday, 25th March 2022 at 2:00pm – Somerset West and Taunton Council Webcasting (public-i.tv)

 

The Local Government Reorganisation Advisory Board

Next meeting – Details to be confirmed

The Advisory Board is a less formal public meeting and is designed to provide a way for councillors, public sector partners, the public and other interested groups to feed into the process and share ideas as the new council takes shape. The Board will develop links to Somerset Youth Parliament.

The Board’s role is advisory, but its proposals, ideas and recommendations will feed into the unitary programme and the decision-making Joint Committee. Meetings will be held monthly in locations around the county.

Previous meetings: 

  • Thursday 17 March: Williams Hall, Stoke St Gregory, Taunton. Slides from the meeting are available here
  • Thursday 3 February: Virtual meeting. Slides from the meeting are available here:
  • Thursday 16 December: Virtual meeting.
  • A short survey has been issued to gain further insight into views regarding the role description for new unitary councillors. This builds on discussion at the 16 December LGR Advisory Board meeting. Responses are welcome from all. The survey will remain open for two weeks, and close on 26 January.

The slides from the meeting are here Discussion on the role of Somerset Councillors. Here are example job descriptions from other counties that helped to inform the discussion.

We discussed recommendations made by city, town and parish representatives (SALC and SLCC) and presented detail of the Local Community Network pilots in Exmoor and Frome

Discussion focused on how the various organisations could best work together to deliver real change and improve lives in Somerset

  • 30 September – Holy Trinity Church, Frome

We introduced the Board and our initial focus on developing Local Community Network (LCN) pilots. Discussion highlighted the importance of working with city, town and parish councils.