Agenda and minutes

Members and officers must declare any disclosable pecuniary interests in relation to any business on the agenda.  Declarations should also be made at any stage such an interest becomes apparent during the meeting. 

If in doubt contact the Legal or Democratic Services representative for this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive any questions from members of the public.

(Note: Public Question Time will operate for a maximum of 30 minutes)

There were no questions from the public.

To consider any items the Chairman of the meeting considers to be urgent.

There were no urgent items raised.

In the opinion of the Proper Officer the press and public should be excluded from the meeting for consideration of the following items. Therefore the meeting is asked to consider passing the following resolution:

‘that under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting from the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12 A to the Act indicated against the item.’

Resolved that under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting from the following item of business on the grounds that the item involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12 A to the Act.

To consider an exempt report by the Monitoring Officer, copy attached as item 5.

Before the Committee was an exempt information report by the Director for Digital, Sustainability and Resources, copies of which had been circulated to all Members. 

The report requested that the sub-committee consider applications for the role of  Independent Persons for the purposes of Standards and make recommendations to Council in regards to the appointments.

It was noted that the Councils were statutorily obliged to appoint at least one Independent Person, and that such persons would be co-opted non-voting Members of the Joint Governance Committee.  

Resolved,

That the Joint Governance Sub-Committee:-

1)     recommended to both Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council the appointment of two Independent Persons to act on behalf of both authorities, namely, John Bateman and Lindsay Viljoen;

2)     recommended to Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council  that the Independent Persons be appointed for a term of four years from the 1st January 2021, subject to the Full Councils being able to deselect an Independent Person on reasonable grounds;

3)     recommended to the Member Officer Working Group that the Joint Governance Committee hold a formal meeting with the Independent Persons on at least an annual basis to discuss their experience, observations, recommendations and feedback to the Committee from their roles.