Local Area Committees

The request was partially successful.

Dear Sheffield City Council,

Heads up, this a time sensitive FOI, this regarding a new policy. Since SCC timelines have been very flexible. There is a referendum approaching, which the information covered in this request is relevant to.

This a new policy announced, months before an election. The public has had no time for oversight.

ANY delay over the statutory timelines will be reported to the ICO the day it occurs.

The likely record custodians will be: Ryan Keyworth, Andrea Simpson, Paul wood, Bob Johnson, Gillian Duckworth and Eugene Walker, John Macilwraith but others may also hold the information requested.

Please provide the following information:

1. Records including communications that relate to the allocation of £600k of reserves to fund the Local Area Committees, or discussion around funding for Local Area Committees.

2. The date the submission was made to Kate Josephs., please also include submission documents or discussions

3. Records related to consultation with cabinet Local Area Committees.

4. Provide the report from the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee looking at the governance of Sheffield City Council.

5. Decisions and discussions around replacing Local Area Partnerships with Local Area Committees

6. Records related to the The date the John Macilwraith was instructed to produce the "Empowering communities: shifting power from the Town Hall to communities in every part of Sheffield ", and records related to discussions objectives of the report and its terms of reference before the report was complete.

Yours faithfully,

Marcus Combie

FOI, Sheffield City Council

Dear Marcus Combie,

 

Thank you for your request for information relating to Local Area
Committees which we received on 15/03/2021.

 

This has been logged as a Freedom of Information Request and will be dealt
with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The reference number for
your request can be found above.

 

Please be aware that Sheffield City Council’s response to the global
COVID-19 pandemic has led to a reduction in resources across the Council,
meaning that we are currently dealing with a backlog of requests.

 

We will aim to respond to your request within 20 working days, by
14/04/2021, but we kindly ask for your patience as we anticipate that
there may be a delay in some cases. Please do not hesitate to contact us
at the email address below if you have any queries.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Sheffield City Council

PO Box 1283

Sheffield, S1 1UJ

Email: [1][Sheffield City Council request email]

P Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to

 

 

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Dear FOI,

Please confirm that you have not received the information and have decided not to publish a response within the statutory time.

This is especially concerning as the leader of the council
Is campaigning on the issue of local area committees.

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has articles shared by the council leader and Cllr Ben Curran.

The public is attempting oversight and been delayed.

Yours sincerely,

Marcus Combie

FOI, Sheffield City Council

1 Attachment

Dear Marcus Combie,

 

Thank you for your request for information relating to Local Area
Committees which we received on 15/03/2021.

 

Please find Sheffield City Council’s response to your request set out
below:

 

1. Records including communications that relate to the allocation of £600k
of reserves to fund the  Local Area Committees, or discussion  around
funding for Local Area Committees.

 

Please see the attached email. Please note that the names of members of
staff below Head of Service level have been redacted under section 40(2)
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the grounds that these are
personal data and disclosure would contravene the data protection
principle under Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation
that processing of personal data must be fair, lawful and transparent.

 

The information that has been redacted on page 2 has been redacted because
it is a personal discussion between the officers involved and falls
outside the scope of the request.

 

2. The date the submission was made to Kate Josephs., please also include
submission documents or discussions.

 

There was no specific ‘submission’ to Kate Josephs. Kate Josephs was the
EMT member who agreed submission of the report to Cabinet (as recorded in
the Cabinet report), following discussions at EMT.

 

3. Records related to consultation with cabinet  Local Area Committees

 

The report to Cabinet presenting proposals for a committee system and for
an enhanced leader and cabinet model of governance, as recommended by Full
Council at its meeting on 5 February 2020 for consideration by Cabinet, is
available here: [1]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

The Cabinet report dated 17/3/21 is available here:
[2]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/ieIss...

 

4. Provide the report from the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee
looking  at the governance of Sheffield City Council.

 

The report is available here:
[3]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/docum...

 

5. Decisions and discussions around replacing Local Area Partnerships 
with  Local Area Committees

 

Full Council in July 2019 debated the People’s Petition and resolved to
refer the matter to the Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources and
Governance to work cross party and with the Overview and Scrutiny
Management Committee, to bring a report back, following that engagement,
to full Council within a period no later than 6 months’ time. Details of
the decision are here:
[4]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

The work of OSMC took place over four special meetings in
November/December 2019, fully documented with all submissions published.
The outcome was the report of OSMC approved at its meeting on 18th
December 2019. Details are available here:

 

14/11/19 - [5]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

26/11/19 -
[6]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

28/11/19 -
[7]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

3/12/19 - [8]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

Simultaneously, the Big City Conversation took place – report appended to
the Cabinet report this month.  This is available here:
[9]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/docum...

 

The Big City Conversation launched at the Full Council meeting in November
2019. The Resolution included amending clause (j), passed unanimously,
that the Council

“believes that a committee system that works for Sheffield, must listen to
local people, react to local issues, devolve power and decision-making to
Councillors in local communities and empower the people of Sheffield ”

 

Minute: [10]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

Full Council considered OSMC’s work and interim feedback from the Big City
Conversation in January 2020, approved OSMC’s recommendations and resolved
that work would commence as soon as possible, among other things, on
“ensuring that a commitment to meaningful community engagement,
involvement and consultation runs through the organisation”.

 

Report:
[11]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/docum...

 

Minute: [12]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

In February 2020, Full Council considered proposals for alternative
governance arrangements and approved the proposals for both an enhanced
Leader and Cabinet model and a Committee system as set out in the report
(subsequently also approved by Cabinet at its February 2020 meeting). The
report included a paragraph on Community Involvement:

 

As part of either a Leader/Cabinet or a Committee system, and based on the
feedback from the Big City Conversation the Council will draw up proposals
to strengthen locality arrangements and increase community voice and
influence and the opportunity for people to have their say at a local
level. The design of this model would also ensure that there is an
effective mechanism for communities, through the locality arrangements, to
feed into the Council’s decision making processes. The governance
principles will also be applied to the design of the locality
arrangements.

 

Details are available here:
[13]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

All of this is published in the meeting agendas and minutes and is the
basis for the LAP review. The officer work that followed is the
operational activity to put this in place.

 

Decisions: Cabinet decision 17/03
([14]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/ieDec...

 

Council decision 18/03. See Council agenda papers here:
[15]https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi....

 

6. Records related to the  The date the John Macilwraith was instructed to
produce the "Empowering communities: shifting power from the Town Hall to
communities in every part of Sheffield ", and records related to
discussions objectives of the report and its terms of reference before the
report was complete.   

 

There was no express instruction: the work is an operational consequence
of the February 2020 Council/Cabinet decisions, although the work was
delayed due to the pandemic.

 

We do not hold information on the objectives or terms of reference of the
report itself. 

 

If you have any queries about this response, please do not hesitate to
contact us.

 

The information provided in this response is available for re-use under
the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0. The terms of the OGL can be
found [16]here. When re-using the information, Sheffield City Council
requires you to include the following attribution statement: “Contains
public sector information obtained from Sheffield City Council and
licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.”

 

If you are unhappy with the response you have received in relation to your
request, you are entitled to have this reviewed. You can ask for an
internal review by replying to this email. Internal review requests should
be submitted within 40 working days from the date of this response.

 

If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your internal review, you
can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office. Please see
[17]https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/offi...
for further details.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Sheffield City Council

PO Box 1283

Sheffield, S1 1UJ

Email: [18][Sheffield City Council request email]

 

 

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