APPOINTMENTS (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

APPOINTMENTS

May 2, 2006 2:00 PM
By Cllr Zoe Patrick in Cabinet 2 May

I have come here to speak this afternoon to propose that one of the places on the Strategic Outside Bodies which currently have 3 or more county councillor representatives could be allowed to have just one member of our group. This is a very modest request and as such does reflect the true political balance of this council with ourselves as the next largest group.

For the Association of Councils of the Thames Valley Region (ACTVAR) Cllr Jean Fooks already goes as an observer, so we would like to ask that one of the three places be given to her.

On the County Councils Network, Dermot serves on the Executive and the Finance Working Party, so again it would seem a modest suggestion to allow him to take one of the 4 places allocated to the council. Also on the Local Government Association, I should like to propose Dermot to take one of the 4 places here.

Finally on South East Employers where we have 3 places, Dermot is Vice Chairman of the Board of Local Government Employers and his expertise and wealth of knowledge would be of great value to the County Council.

In total, this means that we are only asking for 5 places out of a total of 31, so it is not as if we are going to swamp the administration with opposition councillors. If anything, we will just add some balance to the delegation.

It is worth pointing out that many Conservative councils do send balanced delegations to outside bodies, for example, 14 Conservative County Councils send balanced delegations to the CCN: Cambs, Cheshire, Dorset, East Sussex, Glos, Herts, Lincs, Norfolk, Shrops, Suffolk, Surrey, Wilts and Worcs - so indeed many of these are neighbouring authorities.

10 Conservative Councils take all the places and these are: Beds. Bucks, Hants IoW, Kent, Leics, N Yorks, Northants and West Sussex

All 3 Lib Dem County Councils (Cornwall, Devon and Somerset) send balanced delegations.

So to summarise, please would you allow some of these places to be filled by members of my group who will make excellent representatives on these Outside Bodies and give this Council an opportunity to balance its delegations.

Many thanks.

Cllr Zoé Patrick