Agenda item

The Elected Mayor addressed the Chamber, expressing her sorrow at the passing of her close colleague Ray Glindon who had served on her Cabinet as Cabinet Member of Finance.

She also paid tribute to three outgoing Cabinet Members who had asked to stand down from their positions and thanked Councillors M Hall, G Bell and

B Pickard for their service.

The Cabinet would consist of 9 Councillors and the Elected Mayor, as shown below.

Details of the Mayor's proposed approach to managing executive decision making, which included her delegation scheme of executive decision making to Cabinet Members, had also been circulated to Members.

The following decisions would be delegated to Cabinet Members in 2021/22:

a)         approving the Authority’s response to government consultation papers;

b)         approval of service specific plans;

c)         debt write off up to £50,000 in relation to Council Tax, Business Rates, Sundry Debts and Housing Benefit Overpayments (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Finance and Resources);

d)         to approve responses to regional strategies that impact on the Borough;

e)         to determine Traffic Regulation Orders where any objections are not withdrawn (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Environment);

f)          to consider any representations received in relation to the proposed construction of road humps and thereafter determine if road humps should be installed (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Environment);

g)         to consider any representations received in relation to proposals to establish a pedestrian crossing and thereafter determine if a pedestrian crossing should be established (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Environment);

h)        to approve any proposals directly related to the delivery of objectives in the approved Our North Tyneside Plan;

i)          to approve the Member Development Programme (Cabinet Member with responsibility for for Finance and Resources);

j)          to consider any applications received for discretionary relief for Council Tax or Business Rates, considered only when exceptional circumstances apply, as set out in the Policy for the awarding of local taxation discretionary relief (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Finance and Resources);

k)         debt write off between £3,000 and £50,000 in respect of current and former Council house tenant arrears and write off of credit balances between £3,000 and £10,000 associated with untraceable former tenants (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Housing); and

l)          to approve the appointment of representatives to serve on those outside bodies that exercise executive functions (Elected Mayor).

Executive decision making on other matters not listed above would, except in exceptional (urgent) circumstances, be taken by Cabinet collectively.

Any decisions taken by Cabinet Members would have to comply with many of the same good governance requirements that will applied to collective decision-making by Cabinet, namely:

•           Publication on the Forward Plan

•           Presentation of a written report to the Cabinet Member - the report to be in the same format as current Cabinet reports including reference to legal and financial implications background papers, etc.

•           Publication of a record of the decision and availability for call in within specific deadlines.